AWAKENING VOCATIONS

By Mary Sharon Moore

Some days I daydream about what it would be like to have a job defined by tasks that have a beginning, a middle, and an end. Or maybe a job that yields a product that I can see, touch, wrap my hands around, measure, even package and sell. My line of work, vocation development, can oftentimes seem a lot like planting seeds, perpetually planting seeds for some hoped-for but often elusive harvest.

No wonder my mother still doesn't know what to say when her friends ask, “So what does your daughter do?” Well, I explain, I do some listening. I do some writing. Now and then I teach or talk. Now and then some money floats in. I can't explain, but it all seems to work.

Add to this rather vague “job description” my recent realization that the current economic drought has slowly dried up the many little tributaries that make up my income stream. I am not alone in awakening to the new world of economic angst, and as you too no doubt have noticed, the pain is personal.

So imagine my surprise as I prayed the Magnificat — Mary’s hymn of praise—at the close of Evening Prayer one evening, and this phrase came out of my mouth in the present tense: “The Almighty is doing great things for me!” I stopped. I was suddenly confused, and I fumbled through my book to find the right words. Sure enough, the text was in the past tense: “has done great things for me.” But my imagination was still hearing this phrase in the present tense. The Almighty is up to something in my life right now, exactly when I think there’s nothing going on. This must be a vocational moment!

In the Book of the Prophet Isaiah God says, “See, I am doing something new! Now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?” (Isaiah 43:19). I’ve always felt slightly irked by that exclamation point with the words “something new!” Why does God have to be so mysterious, so cryptic, so elusive with my life? Why can't God just be obvious? “Do you not perceive it?” God asks. Frankly, no.

That’s where I was, in that “frankly, no” state, on the evening when the Magnificat turned to the present tense: “The Almighty is doing great things for me.” There I was. I had to admit what I cannot perceive, that God’s movement in my life is vocation in the present tense.

It’s easy to think of vocation in the past tense — what God has already done in someone else’s life, or in the future tense, as something I hope God will do in my life. But I risk missing God’s work in my life here and now, unglamorous as that may be. Despite the evidence, I am still God’s anointed, and God’s purpose for my life will be fulfilled.

God’s calling is just as real and present even in the moments when the best I can do is to sit in the water and hope for a wind to fill my sails. Sitting and waiting in faith, facing into God with radical trust in the mystery of God’s plan, is authentic vocational response. To say “I can't see what God is up to but I give my Yes in faith anyway” is far more honest than threshing around in desperation to beat my way out of the doldrums.

The young Virgin Mary had no idea what she was saying Yes to, but in radical trust she sang forth her hymn in praise of God’s faithfulness. So I invite you right now to say these words with me: “The Almighty is doing great things for me.” I invite you to reflect in the coming days on what these words mean, vocationally, in your life right now.

God engages us in the ever-changing present tense of our lives. Holy is his name!

Mary Sharon Moore is founding director of Awakening Vocations and author of Touching the Reign of God and Living in God’s Economy. This column first appeared in the Diocese of Dodge City Southwest Kansas Register. Her article “Four Steps to Divine Carelessness” appears in the July 2010 issue of St. Anthony Messenger. Mary Sharon may be reached at info@awakeningvocations.com; on the web at www.awakeningvocations.com.