listening to the “in here” voice of vocation

Matt Scrimgeour
Aug 25, 2017 · 4 min read

Some love their work, others not so much. Some wish they had work to love, others prefer the brew. Some live to work, others work to live! Whatever our relationship to our daily work, whether remunerated or otherwise, the deeper challenge of vocation is to do our work informed by the gift of ourselves. Have you caught up with yourself recently?

After I returned to work a few years ago, following an extended period of additional paternity leave. I felt like I had returned to a different workplace. Many of the operational challenges remained, the physical space was relatively unchanged, the same faces were present but the energy, the tone, the “je ne sais quoi” had for me, been different. Perhaps my experience could be explained as a consequence of getting my head showered, something we can all benefit from prioritising.

One of the words that I heard repeatedly as I re-entered the workplace was the word vocation. Which got me thinking about how I understood the term. Across our traditions we associate vocation variously. The word vocation derives from the latin for voice. It can refer to identification with religious, married or single life. It is used in careers to indicate suitability for a particular profession or career path. It is also commonly used as a synonym for having been called to be or do something. Others understand vocation to be an intrinsic aspect of the gift economy. Dorothy Day founder of the Catholic Worker movement taught: “Give only if you have something you must give; give only if you are someone for whom giving is its own reward.” Vocation is fundamentally about reconciling who we are, with who we are known to be.

As I contemplate my individual sense of vocation I am curious too about whether organisations and structures have corporate vocation? In either case I’m interested in how vocation is realised, known and might change?

The Quaker educationalist Parker Palmer suggests that “Discovering vocation does not mean scrambling toward some prize just beyond my reach but accepting the treasure of true self I already possess. Vocation does not come from a voice “out there” calling me to become something I am not. It comes from a voice “in here” calling me to be the person I was born to be, to fulfil the original selfhood given me at birth by God.”

Parker warns us that vocation is not to be found in fidelity to external influences rather only as we know ourselves, as we listen to our inner voice, are we likely to discover and therefore live out our true vocation. Thomas Merton said something like “A person knows when they have found their vocation when they stop thinking about how to live and begin to live.”

As a family we recently attended a party at neighbours in our street whose first language is not English. As part of the evening Happy Birthday was sung to the host in their native language. Those of us who did not speak the language were able to interpret the context but the linguistic specifics were beyond our comprehension. As I have experimented with tuning in to my true self I am struck by my inability to comprehend what my inner voice might be communicating. I wonder if I have lost my ability to speak the language of my self?

Our religious traditions counsel us that tuning into the gift located within our inner most being is the great adventure in being human. All that is necessary to begin the journey is to want to. Nothing additional is required. The way for each of us will be as diverse as the created world we are located in and it’s not given that we will all arrive at the destination of ourselves. Rabbi Zusya reminds us that “In the coming world, they will not ask me: ‘Why were you not Moses?’ They will ask me: ‘Why were you not Zusya?’”

In Familiaris Consortio John Paul II reframes vocation with the gospel invocation to love one another. He suggests that “Love is the fundamental and innate vocation of every human being”. Any vocation that fails to ongoingly express this self-giving ontology is a life shaped by the wrong voice, as Parker Palmer delineates.

The Presbyterian Frederick Buechner exhorts us “Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery it is. In the boredom and pain of it, no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it, because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace.”

The invitation to the practice of silence articulated by our contemplative traditions is all about the pursuit of our true selves and the inner voice, that Buechner and others, invite us to listen to. Young or old if we haven’t yet encountered ourselves in this way now is always an opportunity to grab a cuppa and catch up with yourself for 20 minutes, as often and you feel the need.

Only when we invest in this habit, individually and corporately, are we likely to realise, know and synchronise with any changes in vocation that our inner voice invites.

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Matt Scrimgeour

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presently failed creator of fictional narratives coded with girardian veracity - however the silly bulls gather and I will write another 500 words this day

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