Our Call to Others

Many of you have heard Frederick Buechner’s brilliant quote on vocation. He said,

“The place God calls you to is the place where your deep joy and the world’s deep hunger meet.”

It is brilliant in that it brings together two critical aspects of vocation: the uniqueness of the individual, and the needs of the world. Using my particular spiritual gift of muddying the waters, I would like to elaborate on this quote. (It is what I do best—taking something that is relatively simple and straightforward, and making it complicated.)

A Joyful Struggle

I am pretty sure that when Buechner spoke of the “deep joy” of call, he didn’t mean there wouldn’t be moments of struggle, doubt and questioning. It may be why he used the word “joy” rather than “happy”. As the Jesuit Priest Michael Himes writes, “Happiness is dependent on a thousand external factors, whereas joy is the interior conviction that what one is doing is good even if it does not make one happy or content.”

I struggle plenty in my work at FAW. Yet there is no question in my mind that it is what I am called to do right now. The same is true for my call as a parent and a husband.

Call is a joyful struggle because call always has something to do with making the world more the way God envisions. Which requires us to step outside of ourselves, which is often difficult. The truth is, I find self interest to be much more fun than thinking about the needs of others. It is just that, at the end of the day (and here is the irony) caring just about myself doesn’t make me happy.

Sometimes the “other” is the particularity of a 4 year old who is calling her dad a “bad habit”. (Which is what my daughter called me the other day. Kids have a way of dragging you outside of yourself whether you want to go or not.) Other times stepping outside myself involves some larger societal issue.

There is irony here as well. Michael Himes says that if we go deeply enough into our desires, we will find the will of God. That is where we will find our cross, and where we will find the other. He writes:

The cross is our desire to give ourselves away. It is our hunger to genuinely (emphasis mine) hand ourselves over, to give ourselves to others, because it is in doing so that we are most who we are. ….You are the image and likeness of God. If God is pure self-gift, then self-gift is the image in which we are made, the blueprint on which we are built. Therefore, to give ourselves away is what we most deeply desire.

Give Ourselves To What?

The Where and to What and exactly How Much we give ourselves is the hard part. It is why we need each other, spiritual companions who can help us sort through the complexity of what it means to love both our neighbor and ourselves on any given week.

Having recently moved, and being in between communities, I am missing being a part of a group that can help me sort through these questions. The gift of this absence is that it has made my need for community all the more clear. I find it very difficult to give myself to others without the help of others.

Full Circle

The gospel is considered good news because it is an invitation to wholeness. It is true that we are asked to give ourselves to others, to care about the common good, and it is true that this is a hard thing to do. You could almost call it a mini-death each time we choose to step out of ourselves to consider the other.

But here I have stumbled into the heart of the gospel (which is pretty much the only way I find the gospel these days.) Isn’t Jesus’ death and resurrection the most profound example of this willingness to die, in order to find deeper and fuller life? Is it the most profound example of his words “In giving we do receive”? I wonder if in the very act of holding in tension the world’s need and our joy, we find deeper joy. I wonder if we are willing to be “selfish” enough to go deeply into the desires of our own hearts, we will find a truer way to give ourselves to others.

Clear as mud right?

On the Road with Doug

New York City • Stewardship Meeting . . . . . . . . . . .Sept 27, 2006

Detroit MI • Great Lakes Covenant Clergy Retreat) . .Oct 3-5, 2006

Warwick NY • Mutual Ministry Project Retreat . . . . Oct 12-14, 2006

Chicago IL • FAW Board Meeting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Nov 9-12, 2006

Chicago IL • Preaching at LaSalle Street Church . . . . Nov 12, 2006

Lincoln NE • FAW Executive Committee Meeting . . . . . . . . 3/16-17/07

New York City • Marble Collegiate Church Men’s Retreat . .3/23-25/07

Cleveland OH • Coalition for Ministry in Daily Life Meeting . .4/13-15/07

Doug Wysockey-Johnson is the Executive Director of Faith At Work. He, his wife Kathryn, their daughter Isabel Marie, and their son Soren William live in Richmond VT. Read about his call and vision for his journey ahead.