A group of friends and I are doing a small group study using From Success to Significance: When the Pursuit of Success Isn't Enough. The following story is great food for thought:
… The first time she [Rosalind Cook] sank here hands into a mound of clay at the age of twenty-six, her soul said, "Ah-ha!"
"Shaping that clay into a meaningful form was like finding a piece of myself that had been missing for a long, long time," Cook declares. But life was busy, and for years Cook considered sculpting terra cotta clay merely a hobby. She had plenty to do as a teacher of the blind before becoming a stay-at-home mother of three, especially since she also served on a plethora of school boards and fund-raising committees.
I realized I was trying to be who other people thought I should be, and I wasn't looking at how God created me," she says. "I pulled away from community work and reflected on what really gave me joy in life – and that was sculpting. But I still felt a bit guilty about loving it so much, until a missionary friend watched as I pulled out my clay one evening. I cried as I said to him, 'I don't understand how I can have so much joy in doing this! Where's the significance? This isn't saving souls. This isn't doing anything for anyone. It just feeds me and brings me joy.'
"That wise man of God replied, 'Rosalind, you are made in God's image. He's your Creator, and when you use the gifts of his image, that gives him pleasure.'
"From that day on, I gave myself permission to sculpt," says Cook. "And I finally connected with its true significance in my life. I was forty-one. I cast my first bronze at forty-two and was able to sell it almost immediately."
Today, Cooks's prized bronze sculptures, which range from happy, playful children to full-sized images of Jesus, grace galleries throughout the world. She has donated many pieces to charities, raising far more money than any committee work she did.
"My art is a celebration of life and its Creator," says Cook. "It gives me the opportunity to motivate people to give themselves permission to dream. When I gave myself permission to take joy in clay, God sculpted a new world for me in the second half of life. If you delight in your God-given passion, he will give you the desires of your heart – because he put them there! Don't ignore what God is tugging at your heart to do; that's like saying what he has created for you isn't important. Pursue what gives you joy, and you will be amazed by the significance of what God will do through you." (72-73)
At least two things struck me about this story. First, some of the saddest people I know are people who have been diverted from occupational options for which they had passion and talent into doing more "spiritual" and "justice" oriented work because these are "higher callings."
The church is to bring Christ into every sphere of life. We were called and ordained at creation to exercise dominion over the earth … to bring creation and human community to its fullness. It is our human vocation. Our baptismal call to carry on the works of Christ is not a replacement for that ordination. Rather we take Christian vocation into our particular participation in human vocation. Clearly, some are called into particular types of specialized service (like pastors, evangelists, or justice advocates), but for the great majority of us, our service is in the context of our particular human vocations.
Second, maybe you've heard the often-repeated Freddie Buechner quote, "Vocation is where your deep gladness meets the world's deep need." This seems to me to take vocation in another unhelpful direction. This comes too close to suggesting that our daily work should be some deeply satisfying labor that touches us at our deepest level of satisfaction each day. That is just plain false. Work is not going to bring ultimate fulfillment and meaning to our lives. Some of us may have the privilege of supporting ourselves through work that expresses our deepest passions (as with Cook), but most will not. For some, the thing we might feel most desirous of doing is not going to support us. (And from an economic standpoint, we might say the thing the world most economically needs from us is not what we are most passionate about.) For others, our context and life circumstances may prevent us from pursuing certain options. In many cases, we can organize our lives to carve out space to indulge those passions, but it will not be the source of our support.
Work is ministry … or maybe I should say that any ethical work can be ministry. But what defines it as ministry is not the nature of the tasks being done. What defines it as ministry is who the worker is serving. Even slave labor can be ministry:
Eph 6:5-8
5 Slaves, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, in singleness of heart, as you obey Christ; 6 not only while being watched, and in order to please them, but as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart. 7 Render service with enthusiasm, as to the Lord and not to men and women, 8 knowing that whatever good we do, we will receive the same again from the Lord, whether we are slaves or free.
In short, I'm suggesting the notion of "higher callings" can lead us to needless dissatisfaction. Calls to work within ecclesial structures or "helping" institutions are not higher callings if they aren't you're calling. But using the measure that only work that meets our deepest passion can be your "highest calling" can lead to unrealistic expectations about the meaning and significance work can provide. True significance comes primarily through who we serve, not how we serve.
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