Pondering One's Calling

Some of you remember that I renounced the notion of calling entirely a while back. I decided that popular culture had reached a saturation point and it was time to shrug off the fantasy of *A* gleaming *ready-made and personalized* DESTINY.

But the reality is that this blog has continued to ponder its own shape. the shape of my life. the shape of my communities life.

Figuring out a sense of vocation is one way of dealing with the questions:

What does it MEAN that I'm doing this? Where is the MEANING that stitches together my work and play and friends and family and hopes and dreams and past and self?

And these questions Press us mostly:

- when we have extra time to think about them
- dislike the thing that we are doing
- and the thing we dislike is not demanding our whole attention
- or when that thing has exhausted us so thorougly that we ignore it and try to re-examine

what in the world got us to here anyway? is this road leading somewhere?

So as I come near the end of this blog, I'm thinking about: thinking about calling.

And I realize that such questions emerge either from:

Great Luxury (which has often been the case for me)

or

Great Disatisfaction (which, unfortunately has sometimes also been the case for me)

so what?

I guess I'm thinking that I need to be keenly aware whenever I'm suddenly caught in the whirl of --

why am I here? where am I going? how can I disembark this merrygoround? --

I should either:

1. ) Figure out whence comes the luxury that affords me the time and energy to consider (and then devote some of my *plan-for-the-future* to honoring those who gave me these resource...)

or

2.) Try to re-understand my dissatisfaction(s) as a kind of wealth instead of a kind of poverty, and think about how *that* changes the shape of things...