Tonight - or more accurately this morning - I decided to use the caffeinated energy that I have to continue my posts on Mertons "Contemplation in a World of Action". As the book continues it explores the idea of Vocation. To many of us we relate to the world with our vocation. Vocation is what we do, it is who we are, it is where most of our energy is expelled, and it is where we feel the most away from God. So maybe the last one is more me. I know some people who feel close to God or feel like they are doing Gods work while at work, but for me I find it as a place where I am isolated many time from Him.
In the past I have attempted to bring Christ into my workplace - but in that I have often found myself taking advantage of work in the sense that I don't accomplish all that I could if I wasn't listening to the podcast, or doing what have you. It has gotten better as I have moved into a job in which I can bring Christ more into my workplace, and it is also great in how I can listen to music while working - but I still find that I feel my job isolates me more from God than brings me closer to Him.
For Merton - and monks in general - this is not the case. Vocation for them is what helps bring them closer to God. Brother Lawrence is a perfect example of this. For years and years he washed dishes, and in the simplest job he drew close with God and experienced Him in new and revolutionary ways.
So how are we as Christians to react in this age? What is a Godly view of vocation?
What I have outlined in my own honesty is that I am like the young monks (novices) that Merton talks about. There is an eventual identity crisis which many people reach. My life has been - and continues to be - a seeking [of] truth in themselves, seeking to experience themselves as real and authentic human beings. They come seeking identity, and an experience of identity which is largely denied them or frustrated in the world.
We are continually looking for the simple answer to life. Everything will make sense or will fit in place when we understand what our life is meant to be. While it appears that we - as modern men [and women] - are willing to seek out this simple answer or a black and white formula is not what will bring us true joy and peace. In an age when science has discovered the utility of an "uncertainty principle" to correct the errors and false perspectives engendered by logical certitude of classical physics, there is also felt to be a need for a more existential spirituality in which uncertainties and hesitations are to some extent accounted for and in which everything is not immediately and forever settled by good resolutions and categorical affirmations that see all things in black and white.
This identity crisis that we live our lives in, this life in which we battle the want for order and formulaic truth and the acceptance of uncertainty, our society has brought us to a place in which we rely on self-help books in which in 5 simple steps we can create a strong enough character, and that character will solve all of our issues. And while society stresses the importance of helping ourselves it discourages us from being alone. Oh how ironic.
Critics have also noted the American fear of loneliness. Individual identity is sacrificed in an effort to stay close to the herd, to be no different from others in thought, feeling, or action. To stand aside, to be alone, is to assert a personal identity which refuses to be submerged. Society will not tolerate this. Innumerable social features are designed to prevent it: stadiums to accommodate thousands at sport events, open doors of private rooms and offices, club cars on trains, shared room in colleges and boarding houses, countless clubs, organizations, associations, societies, canned music (for silence is unbearable) piped into hospitals, railway cars, and supermarkets.
Yet, one of the surest signs of the resolution of the identity crisis is an increased capacity for being alone, for being responsible for oneself. The gradual process that will end in perfect identity involves an awareness of the fact that there are decisions in life and aspects of life's struggle that a person must face alone.
We are constantly pulled away from alone-ness in society. We are told that we need to extrovert ourselves, that to be a 'loner' is wrong and that a life alone is not a life at all. And yet we need this alone-ness. We need to pull away as Christ did to find ourselves, to find our identity, and through that we will find our vocation; for our true vocation is where the deep yearnings of our heart meet a deep need in the world. In this however we also learn how much we differ from each other, and how isolated we truly are. Merton summarizes this in a paradox:
the more richly a person lives, the more lonely, in a sense, he becomes. And as a person, in this formative isolation, becomes more able to appreciate the moods and feelings of others, he also becomes more able to have meaningful relationships with them.
And since we are continually encouraged to make our lives easier, and not more difficult we all too often try to evade this by running with the heard, and at all costs staying away from loneliness and solitude. Sometimes we will even run to each other and try to explore our identities together, but in such we are still leaving behind the solitude and loneliness which we need to truly live the rich lives we feel drawn towards. So we settle for what we can, rarely what is best designed for us, and simply what is most easily attainable.
Pulling this back, how do we live in the way in which God intends for us to live? Has He not made each one of us purely unique, and in that should we not honor Him by seeking this out? The question has moved from being about vocation to being about identity; that is where our vocations will pour out of.
Solitude, loneliness, silence, alone. The good and pure water that these words should evoke in our souls has been poisoned by a world which sees them as everything which is wrong. And yet, the world still doesn't realize - or more accurately don't know - that these are the things which will bring healing. I am terrified by these words still. It goes against everything I have been looking for in life. I have spent years striving to find a wife so that when I come home I won't be alone; and the Lord blesses me with daily solitude and aloneness, and I disregard these gifts. I look for ways to fill up my time with movies and music; and I miss the still soft voice of God.
Jesus,
Your life is a model of how I should live. You so often pulled yourself away from those around you in order to seek and preserve your identity. The importance of silence and solitude is so evident and yet I long for noise and busyness. Forgive me for the errors in my ways, for not accepting the gifts of aloneness and solitude that you have given me in my life. If this gifts lasts months, years, or until I die please be graceful and continually bring me back to this place I am at - a place that recognizes how sacred and perfect these gifts are.
While my heart pulls me away from these truths, may Your life and actions be evidence of the light. Darken the worlds cries and bring light to your truth. Bring me to a realization of joy when the world tells me to wallow in my aloneness. Bring peace to my soul when the lies surrounding my loneliness want to bring anxiety. And provide wisdom to me when the noises of the world must be pushed aside so that you can bless me with silence and solitude.
Your follower,
Andrew
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