What Color Is Your Parachute? Part 24

Our Mission Is Already Written, "in Our Members"

It is customary in trying to identify this part of our Mission, to advise that we should ask G.o.d, in prayer, to speak to us-and tell us plainly what our Mission is. We look for a voice in the air, a thought in our head, a dream in the night, a sign in the events of the day, to reveal this thing that is otherwise (it is said) completely hidden. Sometimes, from just such answered prayer, people do indeed discover what their Mission is, beyond all doubt and uncertainty.

But having to wait for the voice of G.o.d to reveal what our Mission is, is not the truest picture of our situation. St. Paul, in Romans, speaks of a law "written in our members"-and this phrase has a telling application to the question of how G.o.d reveals to each of us our unique Mission in life. Read again the definition of our third Mission and you will see: the clear implication of the definition is that G.o.d has already revealed His will to us concerning our vocation and Mission, by causing it to be "written in our members." We are to begin deciphering our unique Mission by studying our Talents and skills, and more particularly which ones (or one) we most rejoice to use.

G.o.d actually has written His will twice in our members: first in the Talents that He lodged there, and second in His guidance of our heart, as to which Talent gives us the greatest pleasure from its exercise (it is usually the one that, when we use it, causes us to lose all sense of time).

Even as the anthropologist can examine ancient inscriptions, and divine from them the daily life of a long-lost people, so we by examining our Talents and our heart can more often than we dream divine the Will of the Living G.o.d. For true it is, our Mission is not something He will reveal; it is something He has already revealed. It is not to be found written in the sky; it is to be found written in our members.

Comment 2:

Career Counseling-We Need You

Arguably, our first two Missions in life could be learned from religion alone-without any reference whatsoever to career counseling, the subject of this book. Why, then, should career counseling claim that this question about our Mission in life is its proper concern, in any way?

It is when we come to this third Mission, which hinges so crucially on the question of our Talents, skills, and gifts, that we see the answer. If you've read the body of this book, before turning to this section, then you know without my even saying it, how much the identification of Talents, gifts, or skills is the province of career counseling. Its expertise, indeed its raison d'etre, lies precisely in the identification, cla.s.sification, and (forgive me) "prioritization" of Talents, skills, and gifts. To put the matter quite simply, career counseling knows how to do this better than any other discipline-including traditional religion. This is not a defect of religion, but the fulfillment of something Jesus promised: "When the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all truth" (John 16:12). Career counseling is part (we may hope) of that promised late-coming truth. It can therefore be of inestimable help to the pilgrim who is trying to figure out what their greatest, and most enjoyable, Talent is, as a step toward identifying their unique Mission in life.

If career counseling needs religion as its helpmate in the first two stages of identifying our Mission in life, then religion repays the compliment by clearly needing career counseling as its helpmate here in the third stage.

And this place where you are in your life right now-facing the job-hunt and all its anxiety-is the perfect time to seek the union within your own mind and heart of both career counseling (as in the pages of this book) and your faith in G.o.d.

Comment 3:

How Our Mission Got Chosen-A Scenario for the Romantic

It is a mystery that we cannot fathom, in this life at least, as to why one of us has this Talent, and the other one has that; why G.o.d chose to give one gift-and Mission-to one person, and a different gift-and Mission-to another. Since we do not know, and in some degree cannot know, we are certainly left free to speculate, and imagine.

We may imagine that before we came to Earth, our souls, our Breath, our Light, stood before the great Creator and volunteered for this Mission. And G.o.d and we, together, chose what that Mission would be and what particular gifts would be needed, which He then agreed to give us, after our birth. Thus, our Mission was not a command given preemptorily by an unloving Creator to a reluctant slave without a vote, but was a task jointly designed by us both, in which as fast as the great Creator said, "I wish" our hearts responded, "Oh, yes." As mentioned in an earlier comment, it may be helpful to think of the condition of our becoming human as that we became amnesiac about any consciousness our soul had before birth-and therefore amnesiac about the nature or manner in which our Mission was designed.

Our searching for our Mission now is therefore a searching to recover the memory of something we ourselves had a part in designing.

I am admittedly a hopeless romantic, so of course I like this picture. If you also are a hopeless romantic, you may like it, too. There's also the chance that it just may be true. We will not know until we see Him face to face.

Comment 4:

Mission as Intersection

There are all different kinds of voices calling you to all different kinds of work, and the problem is to find out which is the voice of G.o.d rather than that of society, say, or the superego, or self-interest. By and large a good rule for finding out is this: the kind of work G.o.d usually calls you to is the kind of work a) that you need most to do and b) the world most needs to have done. If you really get a kick out of your work, you've presumably met requirement a), but if your work is writing TV deodorant commercials, the chances are you've missed requirement b). On the other hand, if your work is being a doctor in a leper colony, you have probably met b), but if most of the time you're bored and depressed by it, the chances are you haven't only bypa.s.sed a) but probably aren't helping your patients much either. Neither the hair shirt nor the soft birth will do. The place G.o.d calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet.

-FRED BUECHNER, Wishful Thinking-A Theological ABC Excerpted from Wishful Thinking-A Theological ABC by Frederick Buechner, revised edition published by HarperOne. Copyright 1973, 1993 by Frederick Buechner.

Comment 5:

Examples of Mission as Intersection

Your unique and individual Mission will most likely turn out to be a mission of Love, acted out in one or all of three arenas: either in the Kingdom of the Mind, whose goal is to bring more Truth into the world; or in the Kingdom of the Heart, whose goal is to bring more Beauty into the world; or in the Kingdom of the Will, whose goal is to bring more Perfection into the world, through Service.

Here are some examples: "My mission is, out of the rich reservoir of love that G.o.d seems to have given me, to nurture and show love to others-most particularly to those who are suffering from incurable diseases."

"My mission is to draw maps for people to show them how to get to G.o.d."

"My mission is to create the purest foods I can, to help people's bodies not get in the way of their spiritual growth."

"My mission is to make the finest harps I can so that people can hear the voice of G.o.d in the wind."

"My mission is to make people laugh, so that the travail of this earthly life doesn't seem quite so hard to them."

"My mission is to help people know the truth, in love, about what is happening out in the world, so that there will be more honesty in the world."

"My mission is to weep with those who weep, so that in my arms they may feel themselves in the arms of that Eternal Love that sent me and that created them."

"My mission is to create beautiful gardens, so that in the lilies of the field people may behold the Beauty of G.o.d and be reminded of the Beauty of Holiness."

Comment 6:

Life as Long as Your Mission Requires

Knowing that you came to Earth for a reason, and knowing what that Mission is, throws an entirely different light upon your life from now on. You are, generally speaking, delivered from any further fear about how long you have to live. You may settle it in your heart that you are here until G.o.d chooses to think that you have accomplished your Mission, or until G.o.d has a greater Mission for you in another Realm. You need to be a good steward of what He has given you, while you are here; but you do not need to be an anxious steward or stewardess.

You need to attend to your health, but you do not need to constantly worry about it. You need to meditate on your death, but you do not need to be constantly preoccupied with it. To paraphrase the glorious words of G. K. Chesterton: "We now have a strong desire for living combined with a strange carelessness about dying. We desire life like water and yet are ready to drink death like wine." We know that we are here to do what we came to do, and we need not worry about anything else.

Comment 7:

Using Internet Resources

There is a website that deals with news, etc., about all faiths, which you may want to look at: www.beliefnet.com.

Then there is a Jesuit site that leads you in a daily meditation for ten or more minutes (in more than twenty languages with a visual, but otherwise no sound or distraction): http://sacreds.p.a.ce.ie.

There is also a site that gives you a daily podcast of church bells, music, Scripture reading, and meditations or homily, with no visuals, but with sound, and an audio MP3 file that can be sent to your phone, computer, PDA, etc.: www.pray-as-you-go.org.

There is a site dedicated to helping you keep a divine consciousness 24/7, by helping you link up to other people of faith, through prayer circles, sharing of personal stories of faith, etc., aimed especially, but not exclusively, toward young adults. Its ultimate message: you are not alone: www.24-7prayer.com/communities.

Lastly, there is a site dedicated to helping you find a spiritual counselor (or "spiritual director"), as well as retreat centers, in the Christian, Islamic, Buddhist, Jewish, or Interfaith faiths: www.sdiworld.org.

Final Comment: A Job-Hunt Done Well

If you approach your job-hunt as an opportunity to work on this issue as well as the issue of how you will keep body and soul together, then hopefully your job-hunt will end with your being able to say: "Life has deep meaning to me, now. I have discovered more than my ideal job; I have found my Mission, and the reason why I am here on Earth."

1. See the Atlantic magazine poll, published 6/27/12, at http://tinyurl.com/aljh4ze.

Appendix B

A Guide to Dealing with Your Feelings While Out of Work

Introduction.

Unemployment can take a terrible toll upon the human spirit. In a recent study of over 6,000 job-hunters, interviewed every week for up to twenty-four weeks, it was discovered that many workers become discouraged the longer they are un-employed. In particular, the unemployed express feeling more sad the longer they are unemployed, and sadness rises more quickly with unemployment duration during episodes of job search. In addition, reported life satisfaction is lower for the same individual following days in which comparatively more time was devoted to job search.... These findings suggest that the psychological cost of job search rises the longer someone is unemployed.... One reason why job search a.s.sistance may have been found to consistently speed individuals' return to work in past studies is that it may help the unemployed to overcome feelings of anxiety and sadness that are a.s.sociated with job search.1 I know the truth of this from my own experience. I have been fired twice in my life. I remember how it felt each time I got the lousy news. I walked out of the building dazed, as though I had just emerged from a really bad train wreck. The sun was shining brightly, not a cloud in the sky; and, since it was lunch hour, as it happened, the streets were filled with laughing happy people, who apparently had not a care in the world.

I remember thinking, "The world has just caved-my world at least. How can all these people act as though nothing has happened?"

And I remember the feelings. The overwhelming feelings, that only intensified in the weeks after that. Describe my state however you want-feeling sad, being in a funk, feeling despair, feeling hopeless, feeling like things "will always be this way," or feeling depressed-it doesn't matter. I was terribly unhappy. Unemployment was rocking my soul to its foundations. I needed to know what to do about my feelings.

I have since learned that my experience was not the least unusual. Many of us, if not most of us, when we are out of work for a long time feel weary and depressed.2 Our greatest desire is to get rid of these depressed feelings. After talking to thousands of job-hunters, I think there are:

Ten Things We Can Do to Deal with Our Feelings, When We Are Unemployed