You can quit your job but you can’t quit your calling. –Lissa Rankin
Gentle reader, for the context of this topic, Guiding Life Principles, please see PART I.
Call. My ‘Guiding Life Principle’ is: Discern, embrace, integrate and live into and out of your life’s Call. I knew when I was 16 years old that I was called to serve as an educator. At that time I did not have the words, yet I heard and felt the ‘Call.’ The concept of ‘Educator’ did not fully emerge into my consciousness until I was in my late 30s (prior to this the concepts of ‘teacher,’ ‘counselor,’ ‘consultant,’ ‘advisor’ and ‘guide’ were the words I used to describe my ‘Call’). In my mid-40s I emerged the concept that I continue to hold today: depth-educator. ‘Teachers’ are charged with delivering information. ‘Educators’ are charged with calling forth (the root is ‘educare’ – to call forth).
As a ‘Depth-Educator’ I am charged to ‘call forth’ from the depth of the person (or the team or the organization) that which lies hidden. My main ‘tool’ for calling forth is ‘inquiry.’ As an Educator I am called to serve others in ways that help promote their own growth as human beings (the human dimensions that need nurturing so they can grow in healthy ways are the Physical, the Intellectual, the Emotional, the Spiritual and the Social dimensions – for some ‘Spirit’ resonates more powerfully than does ‘Spiritual’).
I am also ‘Called’ to help individuals, ‘teams,’ and organizations develop their ‘professional’ or ‘role’ capacities. Again, as a ‘Depth-Educator’ I strive to ‘Call Forth’ the gifts, talents, abilities, and capacities that lie – sometimes that lie dormant – within. Then I seek to serve in ways that promote growth, or healing or development.
The ‘context’ changes. I might respond to my call within the context of a classroom, or a retreat-conference center, or an office, or conference room, or a garden or a chapel. At times I serve as a ‘thought-partner’ – to a person or to a team.
I define ‘Call’ as using my gifts, talents, skills, and capacities to address and serve needs that exist in my/the world. For me ‘Call’ is rooted in ‘I MUST!’ If I am going to live the life I am ‘called to live’ then ‘I MUST!’ discern and respond to ‘My Call.’ I would like to be able to say that for these past 50+ years that I have always been passionate about my ‘Call.’ I have not. There have been times when I wanted to no longer ‘heed my Call.’ I even had an ‘escape route’ in mind. The times I did want to ‘escape from my Call’ the Universe nudged me and I decided to continue to heed my Call.
Gentle reader, I leave us this morning with Frederick Buechner’s concept of ‘Call;’ his words feed and support me: The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.’