Monday, November 21, 2011

More on Vocation: Things I thought today in my office


A girl came into my office jokingly asking me if I knew anything about American foreign policy and religion after 1914, and was shocked when I provided her with three separate answers and sources for each (1. American endorsement of radical Islam during the Soviet-Afghan War, 2. Vatican-U.S Relations from Truman to Kennedy, 3. The preferred status and evacuation of Christian South Vietnamese for refugee status after the fall of Saigon). She kept telling me I was so smart, but she has more funding and higher grades than I do because she doesn't argue with the professors.

I prayed a bit, trying to discern my vocation and came to these hesitant conclusions:

1. You are more intelligent than most professors, but there are many other people who are just as intelligent as you are, and plenty of people more intelligent. It is good, and you should be grateful for it, but it is not the one needful
thing.

2. You really need to be married, and loved. I can do a lot, but I have no faith in myself. If there is someone who is in my corner, so to speak, I could do so much more with my life.

3. There will be nothing ordinary about your life. There is no template you are working against. My story doesn't fit the 'traditional' vocation stories of a cleric, professor, or anything else. I will have to be led by God himself to what my calling is.

2 comments:

  1. have you read Malcolm Magee's book on Wilson: What the World Should Be?

    ReplyDelete
  2. I have not. I'll add it to my list.

    ReplyDelete