Here’s the maddening thing, for me, as I try to figure out what exactly I’m doing with my life: even when you have a sense of what you’re called to, you can never know what it really means to choose it. We all commit ourselves to people, to places, to ways of life without any knowledge of what the future will hold: you can marry someone with perfect certainty that you’ll love him forever, and he could be hit by a truck the day after the wedding. Or you can take vows with a religious community a year before a Church Council permanently alters what religious life looks like, what possibilities it can encompass. More to the point: I don’t know what will happen to this community. I don’t know what will happen to me if I enter. Or if I don't. That is scary.
This is some real discernment if I've ever heard it. I have been doing quite a bit of my own reflecting on the topic of "calling" as I approach a new decade of life. Although I wasn't always aware in the moment, I spent much of my 20's listening to calls and trying to discern a response authentic to those calls. I became a teacher, forgoing use of my undergraduate degree. I tried to find a school that was the right fit for my teaching style. I entered the Erie Benedictine community when I still wanted more. It's only three items, but they are three big items, and I spent most of my 20's living through the life each situation presented (and maybe living through a few other experiences, too).
As I rested and reflected in solitude a few weekends back, I read an old journal of mine in which I wrote, "To risk everything for your passion..." I am currently re-reading a favorite book of mine, The Universe is a Green Dragon, which I first read at the start of my 20's. Brian Swimme writes: "The unity of the world rests on the pursuit of passion."
Our passions are so key; it is a gift to listen to Jackie as she discovers her own and as mine continue to unfold. Authentic living calls us to do this whole discovering thing together, in community. Authentic living tells us that we must pursue those things which allure us. Authentic living is filled with unknowns, but the promise enfolded in our trust of the process.
"Each person discovers a field of allurements, the totality of which bears the unique stamp of that person's personality. Destiny unfolds in the pursuit of individual fascinations and interests," Brian Swimme also writes. I like to ponder what might happen if we were to authentically pursue our collective destiny (because, as I've learned during my 20's, it's not all about me)—to ponder what might happen if everyone had a true opportunity for pursuit, if no one felt pressured by those who hold authority to forgo their dreams, if those who hold authority didn't hold anyone back for any reason, if we were to uphold one another through the challenges inherent in the pursuit. How beautiful to live authentically.
I am grateful for Jackie's writing, which calls me back to some of my own journeying through my 20's. I am excited for all that the next decade holds. I pray to live it authentically, in pursuit of and willing to risk for passion.
Let us walk in the holy presence.
