I don't know exactly
what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay
attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to
kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and
blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have
been doing all day.
Tell me, what else
should I have done?
Doesn't everything die
at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it
you plan to do
with your one wild and
precious life?
—Mary Oliver the
American poet who died on Thursday had the knack of seeing deeply and describing
what she noticed in ways that spoke directly into the heart.
These lines from her
poem "A summers day" include a question for us all.
What IS it you plan to
do with your one, wild and precious life?
It's a question that
we all need to engage with.
Life is too precious a
gift to simply shuffle through it in our sleep.
There are things that
each one of us needs to do, tasks that are ours and ours alone, sings that will
remain silent unless we accept that they are ours to sing and launch into them
with open minds and hearts.
That's what vocation
means.
It's not a particular
agenda for people of a particular stamp...strange misfits who might look better
in a clerical collar, super-spititual beings who know themselves called to a
life of rarefied holiness.
Vocation is for each
of us and actually it is, quite simply, the reason for our existence.
That sounds very glib,
doesn't it...but sometimes it can take a lifetime to live into the calling, to
claim it and make it part of our daily reality,
It's not always
straightforward...sometimes anything but.
The call of Samuel
which we heard about on our OT reading makes this ultra clear.
We might imagine that
if God calls to us in the silent darkness of the night, amid the house, in
essence of his Temple, it would be immediately and gloriously obvious not only
who was speaking, but what we should do.
Samuel. Samuel.
Surely that voice is
unmissable and unmistakable?
Except that it isn't.
The rational mind
takes over, asserting that if Eli and Samuel are alone, sleeping in the Temple
compound, then it MUST be Eli who speaks. After all, there's nobody else there!
Even Eli, knowing he has said nothing, takes a while to
wake up to the reality that the God whom he is called to serve has decided to
stir himself (remember the word of the Lord was rare...there were not many visions),
calling in the night in the hope, I suggest, that this is the one time when Eli
and Samuel might be free from the white
noise of daily distractions.
God speaks.
Persisting in the face
of incomprehension til at last he hears those receptive words
"Speak Lord,
for your servant is listening"
And no, the call is
not a welcome nor an easy one. If God plans to work through someone to change
the course of history, it's never likely to be a comfortable experience. ..but
to turn your back on your calling is to turn away from life itself.
And through all that
happens from then on, Samuel knows that the Lord is with him. This is a new
chapter, a chapter of struggle and blessing, of a long obedience....
All well and good, you
may think, but Samuel died centuries before Christ and there are not many
visions in these days either. How do I discover where my calling lies, how do I
follow Paul's direction "to lead a life worthy of the calling to which I
have been called"?
Paul speaks wisely
here, presenting a whole gamut of gifts which we might have received, to build
up the Church, Christ's Body on earth...and of course, there are more. Often
your calling will turn out to be something that makes your soul sing
Frederick Buechner writes
of "vocation as the point at which your deep gladness and the world's
deepest hunger meet"
So pay attention to
those things which give you real joy
They may not be
excessively active...a calling is often to BE as much as to do.
But be conscious in orientating
your life towards God and expect to hear God's voice. If you find there are big
choices to be made, talk to someone you trust and get help in discerning God's voice amid competing options.
But whatever you do, stay
attentive.
There IS something for
you to do, be assured of that, something that is yours alone. So don't worry if
you are called in a different direction from your neighbours. In this week of
prayer for Christian Unity it's important to remember that God is active throughout
God's Church, and we're not necessarily called
to imitate our brothers and sisters, though we can always learn from them.
So, listen and respond.
The hope of our calling is, quite simply, that we will grow into the full stature
of Christ, or, to give it a local twist, that we might begin to "build a kinder, more Christ child like
world" starting from now.
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