Calling
In 8th grade I memorized “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost. It captivated me, and has stuck with me since. “I shall be telling this with a sigh, somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood and I – I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.” From that point on, I vowed to take the road less traveled in my life. I became hooked on the idea — anything ordinary would not do. Whenever I saw two paths branching out before me, I looked at each to see which might create the best story. When my life felt dull and ordinary I’d become itchy in my own skin, restless and unsettled and ready to jump at the first sign of adventure. This provided a great deal of good in my life. I traveled more than I ever expected in my twenties, and I pushed myself to do things I always wanted to do. The road less travelled took me to unexpected places in the world and in myself – but somewhere along the way it became dark; it led me straight into a deep and depressive anxiety.
For Christmas this year some friends of mine sent me a gift – a print of a painting by an artist I love. The painting is of an old man, standing in front of a tree and wearing a light blue cloak, holding a nest with a bird in it. The old man, to me, is God – he looks wise and kind and good. And the bird is me, held by God in my little nest here on earth. The bird is holding a string in its mouth, though – the string leads out of the painting, and for a while, I saw it as the things I hold onto that I shouldn’t. The string, to me, represented the things that tie me down, the things that keep me from taking the road less travelled. But then I met the artist on a cold, snowy day at our church food pantry this February. In a lull of activity, I asked him what it all meant – who was the man, and why did the bird carry a string? He couldn’t remember the exact painting, but he said the string always means something. When you see a string in his paintings, he said, it’s the thread we pick up that leads us home. It’s like in A Wonderful Life, how everything is connected, and everything really does matter, but sometimes we only see it in a moment, when the dust settles and it all connects. The string is that, the thing that ties us to God, that ties us home.
A print by Cody F. Miller.
I wept when he shared this, because it was a different way of viewing calling. It wasn’t about choosing this way or that, or about doing the harder thing, or about doing the softer thing, even. It wasn’t even about letting go. In fact, it was about not letting go. It was about holding on, about keeping that string in my hands, in my heart, and about letting it do its work in leading me home. It wasn’t about me or the choices I make or don’t make; it was about home, and about letting the things that tug me in that direction stay with me. I think about children at the zoo, all holding onto one of those ropes so that they don’t get lost. That’s us, I think – all shuffling around, holding onto this rope so that we don’t lose our way. It’s the thing that keeps us tethered, even when we feel lost, even when we’re just sitting around doing a puzzle, or watching a bird eat out of a bird feeder, or sipping wine while laughing with friends. It’s that string that ties us all together, and ties us to something more.
“The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn, and provide for those who grieve in Zion – to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of his splendor. They will rebuild the ancient ruins and restore the places long devastated; they will renew the ruined cities that have been devastated for generations.”
For me, this is all summed up in Isaiah 61. For a long time, I thought it was my job to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom, to comfort and release and provide. And it is, but not in the way that I thought. It’s my job to become like Christ, yes. But only Christ can truly bind up, heal, and provide. I can point to him, always. I can be filled with his Spirit so that these things flow through me, yes — but it’s never really me. It’s always Jesus. What I am called to be is actually so much bigger than an individual calling, because it’s about us, it’s about we. We are called to be oaks of righteousness, planted for the display of God’s splendor. We are called to be rooted, and then we are also called to create. We are called to rebuild the places that have been torn down, to renew, to revitalize and strengthen what has been broken. Christ is the way – but planted in him, we are called to build the Kingdom. And the only way to do that is to keep hold of that string that connects us to home, that connects us to each other.
I would even take it further than this. Calling is not about getting somewhere at all – about following a path, or even a string, home. What it’s really about is forever gently pulling that string into our current reality. This relieves us of all frantic energy, of trying to get somewhere because that’s where our “calling” is. Instead, we can rest, knowing that our calling in this current moment is to allow goodness and grace and healing and hope to be built into whatever we are doing right now, whether that be feeding the baby or building homes for refugees, filing paperwork or listening to a friend sharing their struggles. Instead of always having somewhere else to be, this version of calling allows us to be exactly where we are, all the time. This is radical. For someone who has spent her life chasing the next thing, trying to find the right path home, it changes everything to think that my calling is actually to plant myself, to be made into an oak of righteousness, and then to slowly, and with patience, pull the Kingdom into my present reality in order to build that Kingdom right here, right now. Instead of my calling always being a thing that is out there somewhere else, this calling is forever present, always within grasp if I want to lean into it. And the best part about it all is that this isn’t an isolated calling. This calling belongs to all of us, and can only be done when we all tug on that string together. I don’t have to do this alone, and you don’t, either. The way home is always with us, if only we choose grab onto it — together.
