Calling and Commitments

Peter Edman

We often think of calling or vocation as something we either choose or discern from our talents. This is how I approached the issue when I was younger and my friends and I were asking what we should be doing with our lives. But maybe there’s a different way to look at it, another dimension we need to consider.

I’ve recently been conversing via e-mail with Dr. Gilbert Meilaender at Valparaiso University, and he called to my attention the “letters to Derek” that he published in the Christian Century in the summer of 2003. I was able to find one on the web and found that, as often happens when I read something from Dr. Meilaender, I was presented with a new approach to a topic—in this case, calling. The quote below is from “Living into Commitments,” the second of these open letters to his adopted son. 

Much too often we suppose that the way to live is to think through what we want to do and then figure out how to do it. People talk constantly about setting goals. . . . Thinking this way does not really prepare us well for living as responsible people, because the truth is that life seldom works like that.

Much of the time we’re already committed in important ways before we really decide what our “goals” should be. And, because we’re already committed, other people have expectations based on those commitments. The trick of life is not to figure out who I am and then decide what sorts of commitments such a person should make. The trick is to become the person who can carry out the commitments I’ve already made. Don’t imagine that the point of life is to set goals. Think, instead, that its point is to be faithful to the commitments already built into your life. People who make goals central are people who think the most important things in life are consciously chosen. People who make faithfulness central are people who realize that, quite often, our obligations come to us in ways that are unexpected, unchosen, and even unwanted.

Meilaender suggests that there is something fundamentally human, fundamentally joyful, in this mystery. It reminds me in another context of Chesterton’s essay, “A Defense of Rash Vows.” (Oddly, when I looked this up just now, the first link was to an abridgement presented by computer columnist and science fiction writer Jerry Pournelle, who posted it just about the time that the Letters to Derek came out. Must have been something in the air that year.) Anyway, while Chesterton is talking about choice, a large part of his point and Meilaender’s is that our fullest humanity—which has to do with honor, integrity, responsibilty, humility, courage—seems to be tied to something other than control and planning. There’s a givenness, a need to trust to God’s providence. And the real thrill comes, paradoxically, only with commitment. 

3 Responses (comments are closed) • Fodder, Meaning and Calling, Thu 25 May 2006