The Vocation of Being Me

"Remember who you were when you first arrived and reclaim the gift of your true self." -Parker Palmer

As a third grader I was fascinated with an old book that had pictures of presidents busts on it. Consequently I found myself drawing those busts on 2' by 3' large posters that hung in honor in the hallways of my grade school. I was always facinated with creating...action figures were not availbale or affordable so I created my own. I went to the store and purchased an inexpensive bag of soldier figures, took a razor blade and trimmed them and repainted them to be my Spiderman, Iron Man, and Superman. Then as a young 13-14 year old, I began teaching with my father in Sunday School. He had to work swing shift so when he was gone I was called upon to teach 8-9 year olds - quite a formitable task for one only a few years older than they were. Within a short period of time I was teaching 100 junior age kids each week through a professional puppet stage with puppet characters teaching truths through real life stories. I created and built the 30' set, wrote the scripts directed the weekly production, and assumed the role of a dozen characters.

This combination can be traced throughout my young life...a mixture of creativity and a love for teaching. I arrived in this world with birthright gifts (creativity and teaching) then I spent the first half of my adult life abandoning them or letting others disabuse me of them. As an adult I was surrounded by expectations that may have little to do with who I really was, expectations held by people who are not trying to discern my selfhood but fit me into slots. When I graduated from college with my B.A. in Fine Art, my dad looked at it as a waste of time. "You should have stayed in the factory and you would be making more money for a sensible future," he would say.

In families, schools, workplaces, and religious communities, we are trained away from true self images of acceptability; under social pressures like racism and sexism our original shape is deformed beyond recognition, and we ourselves, driven by fear, too often betray true self to gain the approval of others.

No wonder when I pastored many would try to shape me into the pastor they wanted me to be according to the expectations of the "pastoral mold." But I was different...I would use my teaching and creativity because that was who I was created to be. The battle to face expectation for me continues even to today...potential churches and schools looking for a person to fit a vocation mold disregard my life journey and personhood as unacceptable according to their standards and expectations.

Discovering my true vocation does not mean scrambling toward some prize just beyond my reach or reinventing myself to be what others want, but accepting the treasure of the true self I already possess.

What do I want to do with the rest of my life? I want to follow the inner voice calling me to be the person I was born to be, to fulfill the original selfhood given me at birth by God...that is my vocation...that is being me!