The calling

Maybe I read too many preachers' blogs, but I've been thinking a lot lately about the idea of a calling. Now, I don't think I've been called to the ministry, but I've always believed in personal missions. I don't necessarily mean missionary work, but I know that is a field to which some have been called. What I'm talking about isn't necessarily tied to just Christianity, but my religious beliefs do shade this view.

I believe that everything in the universe is here for a purpose, from the empty space between sub-atomic particles to planets to people and those aspects of creation that seem intangible or supernatural to us. For me, this is just the natural outcome of a belief in a Great Creator who formed a structured world that S/he loves. It's not science. It's instinct. It's a belief, which is far more profound and less likely to be dislodged than a fact. I don't ask others to believe this, but I don't think I can be dissuaded. It seems set in my bones.

It logically follows that if you believe that everything has a purpose that you also believe that you have a purpose. A raison d'etre. A mission. A calling. So there is something that I am supposed to do as my part of God/dess' divine plan. Now it's just distinctly possible that because I exist, I'm fulfilling my function. Because I'm human, I have the double edged blessing of self awareness, and that means I have this aching feeling, a void in my spirit, telling me that there is something specific I am supposed to do. This could just be human arrogance that I am supposed to know in a clearly defined form of cognizance what it is I'm supposed to do. Most people, it seems, tend to think that only we as a species, among all creation, have the ability to connect with and respond to God/dess with knowledge and choice.

Is our calling in our instincts? in our natural abilities and skills? That seems comfortable to me, and it also seems to make some sort of sense. Having faith take a logical form is an essential part of religious belief for me. There is so much mystery in believing and following God/dess that when aspects of belief make sense, it feels like insight. It also makes it easy for me to think that writing is what I am called to do.

Yet, when I turn to God/dess in prayer and when I turn to scriptures for understanding, I am reminded that what people are called to do often runs counter to their natural abilities and preferences. A small, easily dismissed shepard boy was called to be a warrior and a king. An example of abundance and material blessing was called to be an example of grace, faith and gratitude through loss and misunderstanding. Need I mention the carpenter who was called to bear the burden for all humanity, indeed, even all creation?

That I ponder these thoughts at the same time I'm going through a midlife transition is only logical. In my years as a recruiter, I helped enough people making big career changes to know that angst, confusion and indecision are just part of the process, and while my emotional maelstrom may seem severe to me, I know by observation that it's really par for the course. A calling and a career aren't and don't have to be the same thing. What I am meant to do doesn't have to be the way I support myself, and that both are weighing on me now is more coincidental than anything else.

However I want to justify my thoughts and feelings, I just know that I can't seem to quit pondering the concept of a calling. Is it just ego that says I should have one? and more ego that I should consciously know what it is and have choices in how it is fulfilled? These thoughts are all sophomoric and naive. They're the kind of ideas mulled over a joint on a late night in college. They're the big, ineffable thoughts we're either supposed to have settled to our satisfaction or put away because they're no longer practical and appropriate by my age. I know how easy it would be to mock all of this, yet it's real, important, and for me, inescapable.

I'm listening...I hope I'm willing. At least, I want to want to be willing. I hope I know how to hear.

spirituality