This particular exchange was
brief. We had already spent several days traveling together, an important
manager and myself, driving and discussing, intermingling business, family, and
reflections upon life. He, within the past few weeks celebrated being a first-time
grandfather, and now excitedly adjusting to his new role. A few days earlier he
talked of retirement, something, that for him, was only a couple of years
away. Then the comment came from
deep within, evidenced by the result of agonized reflection, a regretful
introspection, ‘I’ve often wondered if I’ve wasted my vocational life.’ Cold
and stark, the comment was freighted with emotion. In his younger years he had
considered medical school, surely a far nobler endeavor, ‘At least every day
you save the world just a little bit.’ But now, after almost forty years in the
tooth and nail of the corporate workplace it came down to this, ’Who really
needs what I do?’
As humans we are what we do.
There is profound significance attached to the work that we perform. Everyone
from ‘Bob the Builder’ to ‘Bill Nye the Science Guy’ identifies themselves by
what they do. Since we are what we do the common second question in polite
conversation with strangers is usually directed at vocation. Our internal
ontological collision comes when what we do is far less noble, or far less
altruistic, or far less heroic than we’d hoped. We want to be known for who we
are, and we want who we are to be greater than who we’ve become. In essence,
for most of us, who we’ve become falls far short of whom we’d hoped we’d be.
In his wise and helpful book, Visions of Vocation[1],
friend Steven Garber writes about living our lives ‘proximately.’ As an
unquenchable ideologue I first chafed at Steven’s suggestion. His premise is
that we presently live stretched by an inherent tension - a vocational now and not yet - what we experience and
know now contrasted with what we ultimately think could be. We have the ability
to see the world through an idealistic and ideological lens. We know the world
is broken, but through this lens the world can be seen and made right, if we
only have the right tools and enough time…. In the time since I’ve read the book I’ve given Steven his
due. He’s convinced me that our lives must be lived cognizant of this tension
lest we be consumed by regret. In our vocational lives we live surrounded by
fallenness. We, ourselves, bear the marks of fallenness. In everything we do the mark will always
be missed. In this tension and where we live now our vocation will only be
proximately redemptive and we will experience only proximate fruitfulness. And
while vocationally we must ‘kick at the darkness ‘til it bleeds daylight’[2]
Milton was right, paradise is not found in this life.
My friend was feeling the
tension. He saw the disparateness between what he had become and what he
could’ve become. The specter of Thurber’s ‘Walter Mitty’ hangs in the
background as a haunting reminder to those of us whose imagined lives don’t
square with reality. We’ve ignored the tension and to our peril have avoided the
proximate. Close isn’t good enough so in our minds everything else is wasted.
Throwing ourselves headlong toward the not
yet we’ve rendered the now unimportant. We’ve unwittingly adopted the mantra of
Mitty – If only.
Steven’s book paid off. I had enough
sense about me to remind my friend that what he does is important. The people he interacts with as a manager and the
equipment he helps sell are both serving a grander purpose. Without his
managerial skills our business unit would be in chaos. Without the equipment he
sells pharmaceuticals could not be made and many industries would be far less
efficient. In spite of his vocational disappointment there is ‘common grace for
the common good’[3] in what he
does. And while it may be more difficult to see what he does is as important as
what a physician does, in a very real sense he is saving and improving lives
proximately. Truthfully, in a broken world everyone’s vocations are only
proximate.
This should give us hope. In our
pilgrimage toward the not yet, and in
the smallest of tasks, in the most mundane vocation, or in the most menial of
legitimate labor we are by incremental measure proximately contributing to the
common good. Our vocational lives, our callings, are important because in the
proximate now we are assured of the
perfect not yet. For the Christian
there is a redemptive purpose behind it all. The deep-freeze of Narnian winter is over, and the persistent and proximate drip-dripping of spring has begun. We are no longer caught in an endless
cycle of vocational frustration or the merciless tyranny of If only. To be
faithful in the small things as we value the tasks in front of us and to be faithful in doing them is to enable us to recognize that simply by doing them we are contributing to the common
good, albeit proximately, and incrementally the darkness is in retreat.
http://www.amazon.com/Visions-Vocation-Common-Grace-Good/dp/0830836667/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1448391612&sr=8-1&keywords=visions+of+vocation
http://www.washingtoninst.org/
http://www.washingtoninst.org/
-DJM
11/24/2015
