Reading:  from Callings: Finding and Following an Authentic Life
                        by Gregg Levoy

     Because the notion of a call is historically tied up with religion, we tend to think of it as divinely inspired, which induces a good measure of terror.  Calls are, in our minds, big, and we feel we have to respond in a big way, which, of course, can be paralyzing.  It is therefore important to remember, first, that a call isn’t something that comes from on high as an order, a sort of divine subpoena, irrespective of our own free will and desire.  We have a choice.  We have a vote!  “Thunder doesn’t rent the sky,” Rod Serling once said, “and a bony finger come down from the clouds and point at you, and a great voice boom, ‘You! You’re the anointed!”

     Second, few people actually receive big calls, in visions of flaming chariots and burning bushes.  Most of the calls we receive and ignore are the proverbial still, small voices that the biblical prophets heard, the daily calls to pay attention to our intuitions, to be authentic, to live by our own codes of honor.

     Our lives are measured out in coffee spoons, wrote T. S. Eliot; they are measured out not in the grand sweeps but in the small gestures.  The great breakthroughs in our lives generally happen only as a result of the accumulation of innumerable small steps and minor achievements.  We’re called to reach out to someone, to pick up an odd book on the library shelf, to sign up for a class even though we’re convinced we don’t have the time or money, to go to our desks each day, to turn left instead of right.  These are the fire drills for our bigger calls. . .

     Perhaps our callings, the wisdom of our true natures, can only be hinted at, anyway – filtered through symbols, dreams, symptoms, happenstances, and synchronicities.  They are not shown to us directly but only mediated, for the same reason that . . . we can’t look directly at the sun.   The ancients believed that if gods or goddesses were to appear to us in their true forms, the sight would sear the flesh off our bones. . .

     We thus need to learn to recognize our calls in many disguises.  The channels through which they come are also like pierced ears – we have to keep earrings in them or they close up.  We have to stay in dialogue, stay vigilant, and be willing to be seized by our encounters, by what comes our way.
 And we have to act!  Responding to a call means doing something about it.

Sermon:
     This is the second in a series of messages on the theme of pilgrimage.  This week we consider “the call,” that which draws us forth along the journey – the pilgrimage – which is our life.  A few weeks ago I spoke of the longing that stirs us to set out in search of a path.  If that inner longing is the push that thrusts us out into the world of possibilities, then a calling is the pull that gives us direction, that brings some degree of clarity to our journey.

     In the Service of the Living Tradition at last summer’s General Assembly in Cleveland, Unitarian Universalist minister Dick Gilbert preached a sermon titled “Called!  By Whom?  To What?”  His theme was specifically the vocation of ministry.  But he made it clear that the notion of calling is by no means limited to the clergy.  I’d like to quote Rev. Gilbert on the question of whom is called and who does the calling.  He says:
 

  I have concluded [that] how we name the source of our call should
  not be our primary concern.  I am not worried about its theological
  geography, but its power and authenticity.  Whether we believe
  the call comes from God or from the heart or if they are part and
  parcel of the same notion – I am convinced that each of us is
  called.  We have but to open our ears and hearts to hear and heed.

     A moment ago I spoke of the call as that which pulls us in a certain direction, as if it were something outside ourselves beckoning us forth from a distance.  In fact, I believe that the call does come primarily from our own heart or soul, as Dick Gilbert suggested.  My conviction is that whatever I’m called to do or be really grows out of a greater calling shared by all of us.  That is the call to be who I really am, at my core, and to live that out in the world.

     In this view, the quest to find and identify my calling is really a process of self-discovery.  There’s a story of a Buddhist monastery that was being relocated, and this involved moving a very large clay statue of the Buddha.  As the statue was  raised by a crane, it began to crack.  And so the workmen lowered it carefully back to the ground so they could confer and formulate a new plan.

     As a number of monks sat regarding the statue, one of them suddenly rose, picked up a hammer and began attacking the great Buddha.  The other monks must have thought he was mad.  But in fact, as he sat there in the setting sun, the monk had seen a glint of light flashing out through the crack in the clay.  And as the other monks watched in astonishment, he pounded away the clay to reveal the solid gold Buddha enclosed within.

     I believe that our quest for our true calling is something like that.  We are called to take off our masks, to chip away the clay to reveal the real – the golden- self hidden deep within.
 In thinking about my own call and path to ministry, I have always understood that that journey included such a process of self-discovery.  I saw that process as part of the means to answer the call.  But in fact, discovering who I really am, and what gifts I have to offer, was all a part of understanding the nature of the call.

     Looking back, I can identify a number of knockings at the door which I never bothered answering.  There were those in my childhood church who were certain that I would follow in the footsteps of my grandfather the preacher.  My nickname among my closest friends in high school was “The Rev” for crying out loud.  But I would have none of it.  Just to be sure, I left the church altogether for twenty years or more.

     Then when I returned to church finally, this time in a Unitarian Universalist congregation almost fourteen years ago, I was fascinated by the role and the challenges of ministry.  But it really had nothing to do with me.  I was a scientific, mathematical kind of guy.  People terrified me, especially when a whole big group of them expected me to speak in front of them.

     After a few years of chipping away at the mask I wore, though, I finally caught a glimpse of the minister inside struggling to get out.  I finally answered the call, quit my job, shucked off a relatively safe and secure life, and stepped off the cliff into seminary.

     In the six years since, I have continued to chip away at the mask which had hidden who I was from myself as well as others.  I have continued to discover, identify, and cultivate my gifts.  I found that I could sometimes put words together so as to help people find new ways to think about things.  I found that when I let my compassion and empathy emerge, I could sometimes bring comfort to someone in need of a caring, listening ear.  I found that my non-anxious presence could sometimes bring a calming influence to a confusing, chaotic situation.

     In the years to come, I will continue, with your help, to clarify for myself what I am called to do; who I am called to be in ministry and in life.

     Once again I want to emphasize that the notion of a “calling” applies much more broadly than just to professional ministry.  And I want to thank Paula Ralph for helping to clarify that with her sharing this morning.  I think every one of us starts from a very young age to consider what we want to be when we grow up.  And whether you use the language or not, that process of figuring out what you want to be is a matter of finding your calling.  What are you called to do and to be?

     Some people identify their vocation, or calling, early on and pursue it for a lifetime.  I have often envied those people for their seeming clarity of purpose.  Some of the rest of us have gone through some major changes of direction along the way.  That may be because we missed or ignored our true calling for some time.  Or it may be that the earlier segments of the journey were all a part of the necessary preparation for the “real thing.”

     To me, what seems important is always to be open, to pay attention, to be ready to answer the knock of opportunity at our door that calls us to our more authentic selves.  And it does take close attention.  As Russian novelist Boris Pasternak once wrote: “When a moment knocks on the door of your life, it is often no louder than the beating of your heart, and it is very easy to miss it.”  And even if we hear the knock, that’s no guarantee that we’ll recognize it for what it is.  Novelist Robert Pirsig writes:  “The truth knocks on the door and you say, ‘Go away.  I’m looking for the truth,’ and so it goes away.  Puzzling.”

     So how do we know when it’s truth knocking, and when it’s simply illusion?  Ah, that’s the sixty-four thousand dollar question.  And there’s no sure-fire answer.  But the better we know ourselves, the more we can trust that which strikes a chord in our hearts.  And with practice and attention we can perhaps learn to decipher the signs around us that point us in the directions we need to go.

     Gregg Levoy, in his book, Callings, from which this morning’s reading came, suggests some things you might pay attention to in your quest to decipher a personal call to action.  They include:

  A dream that keeps coming back, or what it is that pursues
       you in dreams;

  A symptom that recurs and is exquisitely metaphorical, such
       as a pain in the neck from shouldering too much
       responsibility;

  A conversation you overhear in a restaurant that seems as
       though it was spoken directly to you;

  Places in your life where there’s friction;

  Song lyrics you can’t get out of your head;

  What you would preach about if given an hour of prime time;

  What decisions you need to make in your life right now; what
       issues are hanging in midair waiting for resolution.

     One last point I would like to make about callings.  Not every call is to a major, life-altering change of direction.  Life is full of smaller calls to action.  If we hear them and heed them, they can add to the meaning and fulfillment life offers us.  I came upon a good example earlier this week while I was at a ministerial retreat.  John Morgan, my colleague from our church in Reading, told of a knock of opportunity that he answered recently.

     In the aftermath of the September 11 terrorist attacks, and the accompanying sense of helplessness, John was struggling with finding some small way that he could be of use, to make things better.  And then into his church walked Natasha, a twenty-two year old woman from Kazakhstan.  She had come to the United States to spend the summer as a camp counselor, but now she didn’t know what to do.  Her home, near the border of Afghanistan was no longer a safe place to be.  Her parents tearfully and regretfully begged her not to return to the danger there.  What was she to do?

     John, prepared for the knock of opportunity, responded almost at once, “Come into my home. Join my family for a time.  Be our daughter and let us care for you.”  John and his family have found that Tasha has been as much a gift to them as they have been to her.  They feel blessed by her presence.  And all because they heard and heeded the call to action, that could just as easily have been missed or ignored.  They couldn’t do everything, but they could do one thing.

     Poet Mary Oliver writes: “Tell me, what is it you plan to do / With your one wild and precious life?”  Dick Gilbert, acknowledging that that is the fundamental question, responds:

  Listen!  Hear!  Heed!
  In those rare moments when we hear the voice –
  The source of which we do not know,
  But the reality of which is beyond doubt,
  May we heed its tender ministrations
  And be convinced by its strength.
  Listen!  Hear!  Heed!