I have spent a great deal of time thinking, writing, and praying about my “vocation”. It is such an elusive idea, what I am suppose to be doing with my life. I face all the normal complications in trying to understand this: cultural pressures and norms, my own desires and insecurities, and that small quite voice in my soul.
By nature I am contemplative (often to a fault). It is not enough for me to ponder what in front of me (as well as the here and now), but I also spend a great deal of time with the past. I mull over the choices I have made and the outcome of these choices. This is a fine process (assuming I don’t get too consumed with the past).
Through all of this I keep trying to see if I am living my vocation. Again, I think a fine and noble practice. Often times the way I see if I am on the right path is by the outcome of the circumstance of my life.
That is a very natural approach, especially for the full-blown product of the scientific method western mind. We live in a world of cause and effect. It makes sense if we have the right effects (read outcomes) then there is a very good chance that we have the right causes (read choices). Meaning I see the outcome that was “suppose to happen” therefore I must have made the right choice therefore I am living my vocation.
But I think that process is flawed. My vocation has nothing to do with outcomes. I am not called to eliminate hunger. I am not called to teach someone to read. I am not called to bring someone closer to God. The reason I am not called to any of these things is because I can not make any of them happen. There are so many factors and circumstances that are out of my control.
I would like to pretend I am in control (it makes me feel better). I would like to pretend that I can make a certain outcome (it makes me feel better). But it is not true. I can’t control outcomes.
If that is the case, then it would seem impossible that my vocation would be to create certain outcomes. I could not be called to something I cannot do. Then what does that leave me with?
The question is “What are you going to be?” That is the question of vocation. It is about “being”. Being is who we are in this moment. Who we are in this moment is the choice make right now. It is the choice we make right now in relation to the circumstances around us. It has nothing to do with outcome. It is how we respond to that quite voice in our soul with the gifts we have.
The outcome doesn’t matter.
That is really hard to say. The outcome doesn’t’ matter. “Why are we acting if the outcome doesn’t matter? That is why we make choices, is to create an outcome.”
No. We make choices to create who we want to be. Hopeful for me that is a person of love who is acting justly to others (which is hard) and justly to myself (which is harder).
We fall down and feel pain (of failure and unworthiness) because we don’t met the expectations we have set. Because we didn’t live up to our potential. Because we didn’t live our vocation.
I don’t think that is the view God takes of our actions. I don’t God is quite so worried about how things worked out, but instead the choices we made and why we made them.
It is easy to argue that this is a wishy washy approach to our lives and what we are suppose to make of them. But I think it is harder. It is easy to live up to outcomes. You reach the goal or you don’t. And you move on. There is an end. When we are faced with the challenge of who we “be”. That is a process of constant re-evaluation. It is not a moment, but moment to moment of a life time.
If you sit quiet and listen…in your soul you will hear…not inspired outcome to reach…but inspired action to take…with love.

Over the last few weeks, a great deal of time has been spent by the media over the issues of abortion (in light of the pending Supreme Court Appointment) and immigration (because the president has brought it up). I am struck by the fact that these issues have a least two things in common: 1) desperation and 2) we seemed very preoccupied with the symptoms and not the root of the problems.
I can’t image (even in my wildest dreams) what it must be like to think that risking ones life by hiding the back of a 18 wheeler for days on end, with no food or water, with 100 other people, after paying a coyote (read smuggler) hundreds if not thousands of dollar to come to the US to do a job for minimum wage that most American would never dream of doing. I cannot understand the level of desperation in ones life to believe this is the only way to a better life.
I can’t image (even in my wildest dreams) what it must feel like to believe ones only choice is to have an abortion. Yes, I know that there are people who have abortion not out of a sense of desperation, but there are those who do. There are young women who believe their circumstance is so dire that it is their only way out of their circumstance, regardless of the short term (often depressions) and long term (heighten risk of breast and cervical cancer) effects. [And that doesn't even bring into the conversation of what happens to the child who is aborted.]
I have never been that desperate in my life. I know I have had it good. Hopeful I will continue to daily count my blessings.
What I have found odd in these debates of weather or not someone can cross an imaginary line in the sand or if an abortion can be performed, there has been no conversation about why these desperate circumstances exist. It seems to me it would be easier (and much more just) to deal with these problems at their roots and not just the symptoms.
Why aren’t we asking, “What can we do to raise the quality of life for those South of the boarder so they don’t feel their only way out is to risk their life getting here to work?” It seems healthier to act from a place of help (to do for others) and not fear (what are they going to take once they are here?).
In many cases the abortion question seems to be similar. Wouldn’t it make more sense to find way to insure young women aren’t in circumstances where they are faced with such a desperate choice?
In the long run it seems better to eliminate desperate situation than trying to fix them once they are desperate.