By Demi Prentiss, reprinted from Living God’s Mission.
“We are all one in mission; we are all one in call….”
Rusty Edwards’ lyrics remind us that, at bottom, all vocations are essentially the same – to be Christ’s ambassadors in, to, and for the world. For many, discerning how to enact that call in their own life can become a challenging, confusing puzzle.
As one way to engage with that puzzle, SSJE brother Geoffrey Tristram extends an invitation to every Christian to “Choose life!” by paying attention to what lies “at the very core of [our] identity”:
If you have been baptized, then you have a vocation! So what is a vocation? Some people think it must be something that you suddenly get. You’re walking along quite happily one day, and God suddenly “zaps” you with a vocation! I don’t think that’s quite right. I believe that your vocation is that which lies at the very heart, the very core of your identity. It is discovering who it is that you most truly are…..
You can say “no” to your vocation. You can choose a life more in keeping with your parents’ wishes, social convention, or simply greater security and wealth. God never forces us to say “yes.” But God, who knows the secrets of our hearts, will never stop calling us, inviting us, enticing us, to live the life for which we have been made.
Such relentless invitation may cause us to tremble. God invites us to lay down our fear and step into engagement. The Lord of Life is here – within us and without us, in every particle of the universe. God invites us to fully become all that we truly are. And accepting that invitation is experienced more as a loving embrace than a command performance, more as a companioned journey than a desperate solo marathon. More like an invitation to the Eucharist: “Behold who you are. Become what you receive.”
And the end of all our exploring. Will be to arrive where we started. And know the place for the first time.” T.S.Eliot, “Little Gidding”
The Green Room 