Vocation

One of the great gifts of a book is that once it is written it slips outside of time. Words written years ago can jump off a page fully alive in the present to challenge or comfort or delight. For me this has happened again and again over the years, but each time it feels new. Most recently I have Frederick Buechner to thank for something he put in print in 1973 in his book Wishful Thinking: A Theological ABC.

In it he sets out to define words in fresh and personal ways and one of these words he tackles is VOCATION. His actual definition for VOCATION actually takes up several paragraphs, and includes, among other things, a discussion of its Latin root. Yet in the end it is his last sentence that dances off the page - shaping my life now.

Vocation is "the place where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet."