"Your voice calls me..."

"Your voice
would rise above,
and carry me..."

Sometimes a song just won't let go. It steeps in the heart and stirs the soul. Kate Edmundson's  "A Voice,"has been one of those songs. If you were hoping for a new song today -- you might want to return later. Even though Kate's song was the keynote for a post earlier last week, it's still moving me.

The other day someone shared an excerpt from an interview with Parker Palmer. It took my breath away. How could I not have seen the connection between voice, hearing, vocation, and calling:

"Vocation does not come from willfulness.
It comes from listening.

That insight is hidden
in the word vocation itself,
which is rooted in the Latin for “voice.”

Vocation does not mean a goal I pursue.
It means a calling that I hear.
I must listen for the truths and values
at the heart of my own identity.”

Wow. Just wow. How often do we think that we are striving to make it in the world. That finding our vocation, and reaching our potential, is something that takes human effort. That we have to decide what we want to pursue, and then we have to throw ourselves into it.

The word vocation -- according to Webster -- means "a strong feeling of suitability for a particular career or occupation; a calling." Isn't this what we all want to feel? The strength of our suitability for a particular career, occupation (what we are occupied with) or calling?

But this isn't something we can search for in career guides or find in success-probability research polls. It is something we hear. But we don't hear it on the latest installment of Business News Nightly, or from a career counselor. We won't find it at a job fair, on LinkedIn, or in the pages of Forbes. We can only hear it in the deepest place - the place where Love speaks to our hearts. Paul refers to this "calling" in II Timothy:

"God hath saved us, and called us
with an holy calling, not according
to our works, but according to His own
purpose and grace,”

I love that. Not according to our works -- our efforts, our striving -- but according to his purpose and grace. I love the definition of grace that reads: "the unmerited and unearned favor of God." We are called into our holy purpose. We find it in the quiet space of listening for what is true and enduring in our hearts.  And sometimes, that calling may surprise us.

In referring to this calling, Mary Baker Eddy writes:

“We know that all things work together
for good to them that love God,
to them who are the called
according to His purpose.
What shall we then say to these things?
If God be for us, who can be against us?”

What a beautiful assurance. If we listen for our calling, and follow Love's behest in our hearts, who can be against us? Not even us. There is no self-sabatogue in the exercise of our calling. There is no resistance to our Love-impelled purpose. There is no sense of self-importance of self-doubt when we realize that this calling is not according to our works, but according to His own power and grace.

I will leave you with this passage from Eddy's earliest collection of published works, Miscellaneous Writings 1883 - 1896:

“We have nothing to fear
when Love is at the helm of thought,
but everything to enjoy
on earth and in heaven.”

When our vocation aligns with our calling -- there is a clear sense of purpose, there is joy. We can sustain this vocation for an eternity, because it is Love-impelled. We rise each morning with a sense of being given the gift of grace. And who wouldn't want to do what they love each day?


offered with Love,

Kate