I’m sitting in a coffee shop with Nic, from the Seattle School. His Dad was killed in a motorcycle accident on Sunday in Arizona. He asked me to simply be with him as he got on a conference call with his brothers and Mom, planning his Dad’s memorial service. I'm happy to be here, writing these words to you.
Earlier, as Nic and I ate lunch, one of the things he said to me was that he knew his Dad loved him and was proud of him. He could “just tell.” I pray that you can “just tell” how proud I am of you and how grateful I am to be your Dad. Rod Stewart wrote to his children, and I want to echo his words, “I’m right beside you, win or lose.” No truer statement has ever been uttered by me. The two of you are by far and away the greatest gift I will ever leave this world. And by giving you to it, I will leave it better than I found it.
Given Thomas’ current decisions around what to do with the military, etc., I realized that I never talked to you about vocation and calling and the difference between the two. I figured it might be good for me to share my thoughts on vocation and calling.
In my world view, our calling never changes. Paula teaches about "a first-order calling." In our world — it may or may not represent your understanding of calling. Her teaching comes from Jesus' answer to a question, "What is the greatest commandment?" Jesus answered simply, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind and soul." Then continued, "The second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself." Paula teaches simply that above all else, everyone is called to know (experience) the love of God and then, in turn, respond to that love by loving Him back. She continues that every Christ-followers' second order calling is to love others, themselves, and the world. Notice that we are to love others as we love ourselves. Since we know ourselves better than anyone else, sometimes loving ourselves is difficult. It is much easier to talk shit about ourselves, or to ourselves and others, thinking we are “less than” or, “too much for.” In so doing, we don't love ourselves at all. When we do this, it is also easier to disregard our neighbors as well
No matter what you do in life (your vocation) sales, public relations, teaching, engineering, construction, pilot, psychologist, doctor, attorney, chef, beautician, janitor, customer relations, management, street sweeper, plumber, electrician, or whatever, so long as you can fulfill your first and second order calling, your vocation doesn’t really matter. You will try some things and they will work better than others. Somethings you do will give you success as American culture defines it, but you can’t really fail at a vocation. Your vocation can detract or add to your happiness, but ultimately, you can be happy in anything you do, so long as you are fulfilling your first and second order callings.
Vocation only becomes a problem when it interferes with our ability to live into our calling. So vocations such as mercenary, thief, exotic dancer, or POTUS can be problematic because they necessarily take us away from our ability to love the world the way Jesus did. For he asks us to love it the same way.
So whatever you do vocationally will help you move toward your calling or be a hindrance to your calling, but other than that your vocation is not unlike the decision of choosing a movie to watch. It doesn’t really matter as much as we think it does. Love matters. It is all that ultimately matters. The rest will eventually burn.
I love you. You can’t choose badly unless you are guided primarily by fear or indifference toward love. I do not think that those are insurmountable problems for either of you.
In the end, you can be successful in your vocation and fail in your calling, but if you are successful in chasing your calling you will also find success in whatever vocation(s) you choose. So, find the freedom to go boldly forward knowing that vocationally you can’t make a wrong choice. So long as you make sure that every choice gives you an opportunity to love.
I love you,
Dad
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