CPE: Running from God's luring

“Yes, but how do you know you are called?” He asked again, for the third time since we began to talk fifteen minutes earlier. 

He was a man in his late 60s, in the hospital for heart problems and a probable stroke three days prior.

The first time he asked, I was a bit taken aback.  I’m not often asked this question outside of divinity school or church circles.  I’ve written essays about this, but I still do not have an answer to this question that I can give in under 30 seconds.  I mean, what do I include? How much of my personal history? Feelings?  Mystical experiences?  The wisdom of a community gathered to discern?  Answering the “how are you called?” question is hard enough to answer once, but trying to answer it three times in a short period of time is difficult.  You start to wonder if there is any way you can speak of calling in a convincing manner. 

Personally, his question to me was also a taste of what I did on a day-to-day basis:  I asked probing questions into subjects that are felt very deeply.  It takes a soft touch to do this work with the gentleness needed to gain trust and keep people from fearing so much self-disclosure.  It is a skill I’m still working on, as one who is sometimes more comfortable with the style of a police interrogator.

I tried to answer, knowing that giving a little of myself tends to get something in return from the other person…and I wanted him to open up a bit.  We had passed the point of a visit in which a chaplain is easily dismissed.  He wanted me there.  But this was a man who informed me that he was willing to talk until it was a subject I shouldn’t touch.

The second time he asked, I thought it could have been that the possible stroke was interfering with his memory.  Then he asked a third time.

People sometimes try to deflect conversation from themselves…is he trying to keep the conversation on me to keep from talking about himself?  I thought, as I tried to answer his question again. Why would he want me here just to deflect the conversation to me?

Then it occurred to me.  He wasn’t deflecting the conversation away from himself.  We aren’t really talking about me.  Somehow we are talking about him.

I answered the question again for a third time, and rather shortly.  Before he could respond, I quickly followed up.

“You have felt called before, haven’t you?” I asked knowingly, with a confidence I did not necessarily feel.

He looked at me—hard—for a moment.

“Yes.”

“How long ago was that?”

“It was around the time I was twenty-five.”  The hardness and the walls he had put up quickly crumbled.  He considered becoming a minister, but he became a lawyer instead.  He had a successful practice.  But I got the sense that he was missing something.  He still felt the call lingering—if not so fresh, it was certainly not forgotten.  We spoke very candidly for about five minutes.

“Do you regret not acting on the call?”  I asked.

“I do,” he said, “and I’ve had a good life, but I do occasionally wonder what might have been.” 

At this point his wife and grown son came into the room, and his manner changed.  People for whom a different role was assumed.  And then his minister came in.  The patient was a devout parishioner in the minister’s eyes.  But could he be more?  Ordained or not, what were the contours of this patient’s priesthood?  What could the contours be.

I participated that day in the Sacrament of the Sick with the patient, his family, and the minister, but I didn’t get a chance to see him alone again.  If I could have, I would ask him if his calling could be re-pursued…how his current occupation could be re-enchanted with the presence of God…I would explore with him how to ask God for guidance.  Would the regret go away?  I doubt it.  Could this patient learn how to follow the lure of God even if not ordained?  I hoped so.  I still hope so.

Being around the seminary means I meet a wide range of people in different places in their life and journey with God.  Often the story of someone’s calling by God is partially a story of running away from a God who emanates a Divine Lure; a beckoning to join God in God’s work in the world.  The joke everyone seems to get is that “you can only run away for so long.” 

Are you running? 

From what are you running? 

To what are you running?