I read each of these books, and then we got the assignment: Mini-Paper. "The Mini-Paper is not a mere reflection on your ideas or thoughts about the topic but a well-reasoned response based on your reading, research, and our classroom interaction." EEK.
So anyway, I don't know whether I fulfilled the requirements for this paper... but I like (most of) how my paper turned out, anyway.
**Disclaimer: I may or may not have finished writing this paper (in order to meet the 6 pm deadline) while playing some thinking/planning/quick-paced type games with my newest friend group on campus... So... don't judge my writing too badly because of this paper!**
Guinness and Palmer both wrote books about calling. They
have different ideas about what calling is, and they seem very contradictory
when one reads the books.
According to Guinness, Calling is two levels: on the
first level, “our primary calling as followers of Christ is by him, to him and
for him. . . . Our secondary calling, considering who God is as sovereign, is
that everyone, everywhere, and in everything should think, speak, live, and act
entirely for him.”[1]
Both of these two pieces of “calling” are universal for all believers.
The first part of this calling is also the same for
everyone, whereas the second piece of this calling looks different for each
person. Under this second piece, each person’s specific life path is part of
his calling, though one’s job is not
the same as one’s calling. Each person must find his main purpose in pursuing Christ. Another distinction Guinness makes
is between corporate and individual calling: there are things to which the individual
is called, but the Church also has a calling.[2]
As each person seeks for his calling, Guinness explains
that he must come to understand his gifts as given to him to be used in service
of others, and to prepare one for the place where he is called.[3] This
understanding is juxtaposed against understanding gifts as being given so as to
make oneself happy or that a man must seek a position which fulfills his gifts.
This understanding of calling leads one to be all he can be, to lead a “higher
life” (though not in the sense of needing to be a monk or a pastor).
By contrast, Palmer sees calling (or “vocation”, as he
labels it) as being part of the person one already is. To him, when one pursues
a position or “calling” too hard, he risks missing his calling. Palmer’s
understanding is that calling is living to be who one naturally wants to be,
following one’s abilities and desires. To Palmer, “Vocation at its deepest
level is, ‘This is something I can’t not do, for reasons I’m unable to explain
to anyone else and don’t fully understand myself but that are nonetheless
compelling.’”[4]
One of the biggest aspects of Palmer’s understanding of calling
is seen in his appreciation for closed doors and recognition of things for
which he is not gifted. He has
learned to see each closed door (non-opportunity) as part of God’s leading in
his life. Palmer does not see that he needs God to show him exactly where to
go, but instead sees each place God shows him not to go as an integral piece to finding his calling. He also
explains like this: “When I give something I do not possess, I give a false and
dangerous gift, a gift that looks like love but is, in reality, loveless – a
gift given more from my need to prove myself than from the other’s need to be
cared for.”[5]
Where Guinness sees calling as an intentional pursuit of
God, Palmer sees it as the directing God already does in one’s life. Guinness’s
“calling” requires all one’s attention; Palmer’s requires not trying too hard.
When one first reads these books, as mentioned earlier, the
ideas presented in them seem as though they are almost in direct conflict. I
would suggest that the best understanding of “calling” is only found when one combines
both ideas presented in these books. We cannot understand our calling as merely
a pursuit of righteousness (similar to Guinness’s position), and we cannot
understand our calling as merely “following our hearts,” as they say (similar
to Palmer’s position).
I think we must learn to see calling as being compelled
because of and by Christ to live a life worthy of Him (or as close as we can
come to such a life) which utilizes the good gifts, abilities and desires God
has given us.
Our calling is not something we should be afraid of
missing for it is comprised of all the ways (small or gargantuan) we seek God,
and all the ways He directs us. When we pursue Him, He will direct us to our
calling. One of the ways He does that is through our desires, hopes and dreams.
We know that “God saw everything that he had made, and
behold, it was very good” (Genesis 1:31a, ESV). Since we know that He has not
made us bad, we know that He has made us good. When God made us, He also put in
us desires. If “everything” God made was good, then can we not also know that
the desires He gave us are good? We also know that “Every good gift and every
perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom
there is no variation or shadow due to change” (James 1:17, ESV). These desires
(and hopes and dreams), which are gifts from God, we can use as directions
toward our calling.[6]
At the same time, these desires can easily become wrong
when they are dis-ordered and placed in our lives as more important than our
desires for God. This is where Guinness’s idea comes in – we must have Christ
as our main goal, and only as seeing pursuit of Him as our primary calling will
we be able to keep our desires ordered correctly behind Him.
So, after reading both books, and after thinking through
the fact that they are not actually nearly as contradictory as one originally
thinks, he comes to the realization that these are actually complementary ideas.
When one combines the two concepts, he comes to find a fuller and better
understanding of Calling.
[1] Os Guinness, The Call: Finding and Fulfilling
the Central Purpose of Your Life (Nashville, Tenn: Word, 1998), 31.
[2] Ibid.,
chapter 12.
[3] Ibid.,
chapter 6.
[4]
Parker J. Palmer, Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the
Voice of Vocation. (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2000), 25.
[6]
Obviously, this is/could be/should be an entire theological discussion by
itself. Also obviously, I do not have time nor space to discuss it thoroughly
here… Maybe someday I’ll be able to write the paper that’s begging to be
written.
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