Vocation

( 1st half originally written in June 26, 2011)

The word vocation comes from the Latin verb vocare, which means to call.  The term vocation was mainly used by Christians to refer to God's call on an individual, or to a community of people; vocation is now used more in the secular sense to refer to one's occupation.

This past weekend, I shared with a group of Duke undergrads, who are living in community for the summer, my journey into L'Arche and how it helped me to figure out God's call upon my life.  I tried to convey to the students that I see my vocation as a call or an invitation to a certain way of life, or a way of being.  

When I initially lived at L'Arche Daybreak for 10 weeks two summers ago, I knew that I was not done with L'Arche.  That summer at Dybreak helped me let go of false identities and false images of God, and helped me be more open to my brothers and sisters with intellectual disabilities, and those who are defined by our culture as "non-normative."  I also encountered the God of mystery, one that I did not know, and God that was beyond my human understanding. 

I have been at L'Arche DC for three weeks now.  I am still trying to be open to how the Holy Spirit is working in my life and trying to open my heart-mind bit by bit.  My mind initially resisted community life here by comparing L'Arche DC to Daybreak.  I realize now that I have to hold my experiences in Canada gently, so I do not idealize them to the point that they become a hindrance to living out my life here and now at a different L'Arche community.

I would like to close with a quote from Jean Vanier's Community and Growth:

To grow in love is to try each day to welcome, and to be attentive and caring for those whom we have the greatest difficulty; with our 'enemies'; those who are the poorest, the oldest, the weakest, the most demanding, the most ailing; those who are the most marginal in our community, who have the most difficulty conforming to the rules; and finally those who are the youngest.
  

If people are faithful to these four priorities of love then the community as a whole will be an oasis of love.  

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(2nd half written January 8, 2015)

It has been over three and a half years since I wrote the first half of this blog about vocation, and since then I have been doing a whole lot of growing.  I struggle to grow in love, as Jean Vanier defines it, which is to "welcome, and to be attentive and caring to those whom we have the greatest difficulty."  

I have experience with this sort of growth not just with people, but life transitions that redefine or sometimes sheds old identifications.  

I had to adjust my perspective of individuality, when I took vows of marriage in October 26, 2013.  I had to let go of my selfish ways, and realized that my choices and decisions now effect someone else in a very direct way; I had to learn how to share my life and talk through decisions that affected my wife.  

Few months ago, on November 11, 2014, my daughter was born.  The greatest difficulty I have sometimes is realizing that the world doesn't revolve around me, and there is no better teacher in the world than a new born to get you out of your selfishness.  My daughter becomes center stage, and not my own selfish needs and thoughts.  Of course, I say all this with a grain of sand, I need to take care of myself emotionally, spiritually, and physically so I can show up fully for myself and my family.  I am not good to my daughter or my wife, when I am full of fear, resentments, and cranky because I have not eaten all day or taken care of my other needs.  All in all, I am learning to be responsible.  

What does this have to do have to do with vocation?  As I wrote before, the word vocation comes from the Latin verb vocare, which means to call.  God has called me to be a husband, and now a father to my daughter.  I am working on vocation as a profession as well, and hope to eventually follow my calling by exploring hospice chaplaincy.  But for now, I am called to be a stay at home dad and care for my daughter, my wife, and my home.  

I hope to also be a good member of the Religious Society of Friends, more commonly known as Quakers, and "let my life speak" as Quakers say.

A lot of my own vocation has to do with little moments, where I show up to myself and others without any expectations for pay or anything back in return.  I give of myself freely and without expectations, and in that moment I have truly fulfilled my calling.       

Gratitude

True spiritual gratitude embraces all of our past, the good as well as the bad events, the joyful as well as the sorrowful moments. From the place where we stand, everything that took place brought us to this place, and we want to remember all of it as part of God's guidance. That does not mean that all that happened in the past was good, but it does mean that even the bad didn't happen outside the loving presence of God.

It is very hard to keep bringing all of our past under the light of gratitude. There are so many things about which we feel guilt and shame, so many things we simply wish has never happened. But each time we have the courage to look at "the all of it" and to look at it as God looks at it, our guilt becomes a happy guilt and our shame a happy shame because they have brought us to a deeper recondition of God's mercy, a stronger conviction of God's guidance, and a more radical commitment to a life in God's service.

Once all of our past is remembered in gratitude, we are free to be sent into the world to proclaim good news to others. ---Henri Nouwen, Here and Now

Ever since I can remember, I felt things too deeply.  My feelings and thoughts were so overwhelming, and constantly playing in my head and steadily getting louder and louder.  In high school, friends of mine invited me to a party and I had my first taste of beer.  I hated the taste of cheap beer, but a funny thing happened; I loved how alcohol made me feel, so I ended up drinking way too much that night, and threw up in the bathroom.  I mentally promised myself I would never drink this much again, but the next chance I got, I drank too much.  I realize now, I loved the feeling being drunk made me, it gave me a sense of ease and comfortable, and gave me relief from my intense feelings and thoughts.  As I grew older, I unknowingly fell into a pattern of pursuing external things to quiet my internal condition, whether it be a new job, a new location, or a new relationship.  

I thought I was making choices, but in reality I was chasing after the illusion of serenity and peace I found that night at the party.  Alcohol used to be called spirit, and I think there is something to that notion of being drunk on a substance and overcome or "drunk" through a spiritual experience. 

 

I chased false spirits and temporary spiritual experiences to escape my past.  In my college years, I often mediated to check out or bliss out, and idealized a mental/spiritual state, where everything would become easy.  

When I came to L'Arche GWDC in June 2011, on the surface it looked like I had everything together.  I had just graduated from a prestigious seminary and had a Masters of Divinity.  I was now a spiritual expert and far more than just an ordinary assistant.  However, on the inside I was falling apart.  I had not accepted the past, could not really live in the present, and the future looked like a burden to be endured.  

I was so critical of everything and everyone, even the very community that was providing a safe space for me to fall apart.  If you told me then that I would be grateful for the experience of unravelling at the seams and be slowly put together with a help of a community and a loving God, I would have told you to go "f*#k" yourself.  I was so bitter.  Somehow my life was not what it should be, and no one saw my potential.  Something was wrong, and it must be because I was a victim of life , my parents, friends, and even my L'Arche community were against me.  I could not distinguish from the truth and the false.  

Lucky for me, I hit a bottom, where I asked another person for help, which was an outer sign of an inner surrender to a power greater than me. I was in so much internal and some physical pain that I wa willing to try something else.  During this time, a spiritual friend told me to start writing 6 things I was grateful for everyday and text it to him.  Needless to say, I found it impossible to be grateful for anything, because everything pretty much sucked. But gradually I found things in my life that I as grateful for, even the unpleasant and sad feelings, because it meant I was living a life.  I have continued this practice for over three years and it's helped me tremendously live in a state of gratitude that Henri Nouwen described.  Somedays I fall short, but I make an attempt to move towards acceptance, and thus towards gratitude.

Little by little I am becoming a little more free, where the past no longer holds be back from the past.  I no longer live in the future to escape the here and now.  With God's help I can use all of my experiences to help others.

Today, I am grateful I was able to spend the day with my daughter and my brother, and I was able to communicate through a miscommunication with my wife. A few years ago I could not fathom having a real relationship with my brother, because I was so checked out and absent in the lives of the people who loved me.  I also was uable to talk through my feelings with another human being, and today I am able to talk and be vulnerable with another person without totally shutting down.  These are small tangible signs of saying yes to what Fr. Henri called "radical commitment to a life in God's service."  I have learned that commitment is not a grand ideal or gestures, but saying yes to tiny little moments that draw us towards true connection.  Real connections can be frightening, because it means we allow others to truly see us as we are.  I know I still struggle with believing that I am deserving of love, but when I connect to a loving God, my heart is able to welcome everything as a free gift with deep gratitude.

Unlearning and Learning

"You must unlearn what you have learned," and

"Always pass on what you have learned."

--Yoda

I always found great wisdom coming out of a green puppet in the voice and movements of puppeteer Frank Oz, who also brought Fuzzy Bear to life.  Instead of a puppet, or as the cute yet grumpy green alien of Star Wars, I think of Yoda as a Taoist sage.  Like all other great sages, Yoda speaks in paradoxes and more lies in how he is being than all his sayings and doings.  

Chuck C. wrote in his book, New Pair of Glasses, that the spiritual journey is about "uncovering, discovering, and discarding."  A lot of healing can take place in unlearning or discarding the negative messages we learned as children.  We are also bombarded with an unconscious so i message that our value lies in what we can produce, and not on who we are and how we are being.  The journey of unlearning can thus teach us a lot, and them we can pass on that experience of unlearning to someone else.  In the process of unlearning and discarding some of my old stories, I have learned more and more that I do not have to earn someone's love.  I am loved for me with all my failings, weakness, and strength.  

My wife and I are currently about to embark in radical adventure.  She will be going back to work full time and in two weeks I will stay home and take care of our 2 month year old daughter.  I am really happy with this decision, but I had some butterflies in my stomach as I handed in my 2 weeks notice today.  Who am I as a man if I am not providing financially for my family?  I realize that within that question lies assumptions and values that predate my existence, and it assumes that "work" or being present to someone you love is less valuable than earning a pay check.  I am grateful that some of the unlearning I had to do I discovered at L'Arche, where I experienced a community where a human life is valuable not for his/her capacity for production, but for the natural human need for giving and receiving love.  Some people call L'Arche, the school of the heart; at a L'Arche home I uncovered my own brokenness, and discovered that it's ok to be human.  No community is perfect, but it was a place that helped me grow with its own failings and strengths.  

 I hope my journey with my community of my daughter and my wife will help me be a more full and whole person.  I am also grateful for other communities that I am part of that hold me in the Light.

Transformation

"Nobody knows how the kindling flame of life and power leaps from one life to another. What is the magic quality in a person which instantly awakens faith? You listen to a hundred persons unmoved and unchanged: you hear a few quiet words from the man with the kindling torch and you suddenly discover what life means for you forevermore."--Rufus Jones, Quaker historian, theologian and philosopher (Rufus Jones: Essential writings by Rufus Jones, Kerry Walters).

Jones puts words to a subject that I've pondered about, what makes people change?  My friend HyunSoak pointed out in seminary that he knew a church member that prayed and prayed, but she never seemed to change.  How does faith awaken that radically changes someone from the inside out?

My own experience of inner and outer transformation came not out of choice, but out of necessity.  I was in a deep place of pain, and either I could give up my life all together or choose to change.  It did not hurt that I fell apart at a faith community called L'Arche in DC, where I found a safe place in which to fall apart.

I choose to incorporate some time of silence and solitude to ignite the "kindling flame."  On most days, I barely feel a spark let alone a flame.  It has been more difficult to make time for silence and solitude as I welcome our almost 2 months old daughter.  How do I awaken faith in the midst of my very ordinary life?  I hope to uncover and discover this as I keep experiencing life and writing about it.

Getting Current

I started this blog when I lived in L'Arche GWDC, while I was a practicing Catholic.  I am still drawn to contemplatives and mystics of the Catholic Church, but I am also drawn to mystics of other Christian traditions and other faith traditions as well.

I am currently a practicing Quaker (Religious Society of Friends).  I now live in Richmond, VA.  A lots changed and I hope to update this blog more regularly both for myself, and for whoever my experiences can be helpful to.  Thank you for reading.