I trust my life story, reduced to this connect-the-dots format, will allow like-minded readers and people in job transitions to likewise connect and take “next steps” with me. If you also share a certain faith and literary tradition with me, you’ll recognize this story as an extended parable pointing to a higher purpose, about discerning God’s will. Here then is a modern-day parable, made just for me (and you) to follow: The Chap Who Went Searching for a Call.
When this hard-working chap tracks all the meaningful jobs he’s held, as if they were cairns or guideposts to some future calling, the path seems to zigzag up some mountain. Cairns are visible signs of accomplishment/arrival that reward those look in the right direction. If only he knew where to look. Turning over every stone, from cairn to cairn or dot to dot, will plainly mark The Way, up or down, for this wayward trekker and earnest job-seeker. Or so he hopes.
From a 4-year Base Camp (college), a promising trail head leads our sojourner through several Crises to Christ.
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After many peak religious experiences, first major career path rises through Campus Ministry to Leadership Ranks.
From Relapse and Recovery, he’s led to Remarry and Renewal. Those 4 R’s beget another decade of ministry, a ‘Riting Career. Several writers become Trusted Mentors.
Therein he gets reacquainted with Grace, who comes to him through the Good Book. Our dear Chap and God’s Grace bond for good. Life is good. Too good to keep to himself, so he ventures out again, to share with others.
Trying short-term/temp jobs from Church to Census, he comes up short every time. Taking on Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE), Chap enters the School of Hard Knocks. Just beyond that CPE horizon, some distant hump looks like Summit. Awesome!
Suddenly Mental Fog envelops this chaplain-hiker, swirling his mind like unrelenting vertigo. Out of deep fog, more mental than environmental, he prays and probes for cairns to appear, at yet another Crossroads in his career.
The markers at Trail Junction, late in our particular chap’s story, unfold to the left as volunteer stints, and to the right as professional gigs. One is a vocation, the other an avocation. Each path in turn will branch into Promising Opportunity, or fun Rabbit Trails. Some will beckon Onward & Upward; others will turn out to be Dead Ends.
Oh, can it be that the decades-long, dotted-line arc of his life opens to a fourth career in ministry, yay, a certain call! Or will the arc not prove enduring, but rather ephemeral, ending in a curtain call? What can it mean for one and all?
Stay tuned for the rest of this story next week, to see where it leads for this chap, and how it applies to you.