Distinctions

Along the way perhaps we read about, heard about or saw a movie about some people leading extraordinary lives. Maybe they encouraged or inspired us or, alternately, we could have felt discouraged or estranged.

Part of the difficulty in speaking about vocation is that the examples we know about are exalted ones—national heroes, saints, genius-level artists—and we know we don’t have that much in common with them.

We feel unworthy.

About six years ago, by chance I walked into a church in Rome and found a painting by Caravaggio explicitly on this subject. It’s beautiful, powerful, memorable.

In it, St. Matthew, one of the first disciples of Jesus and a tax collector for the occupying Roman authorities in Palestine, is sitting at a table. Jesus walks in and points to Matthew, who does exactly what you and I would do: points to himself and returns Jesus’s gaze with befuddlement as if saying, “Who me?”

You see the question of our having a vocation is really a deep, deep question about life itself. Are we here merely as a random product of natural selection and natural processes? Are we here just to pass along DNA, genetic or social, to the next generation so that life / our culture can continue? Are we here only as a member of the herd supporting the truly important people, as at least part of Nietzsche’s work would claim?

“After all, however, it is a matter of indifference whether one opinion is imposed upon the herd, or five opinions are permitted to it. But he who diverges from the five public opinions and stands apart, has always the whole herd against him.” — Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science, Book III, 173: To Be Profound and to Appear Profound.

No one else’s answers to these questions can help us because we have to sort it for ourselves. The difficult part for some of us is that there is no evidence, no third-party objective view to rely on. It’s more a matter of a deep sense or feeling or an experience that something is missing that can be found. For many it’s a longing of the heart that even deep romantic or familial love or success or fame cannot assuage.

How is it for you?

Okay, well, if we somehow arrive at an openness to uncovering our vocation, we still have to face how it would fit in with our current life of many concerns, commitments, obligations and interests.

Isn’t it too late? Shouldn’t we have come to this long ago before we had rent or mortgage to pay, jobs to go to, people to take care of?

How can I have a vocation, an intentional center to my life and still be viable and responsible?

Each of us has to find out for ourselves how this works in our particular circumstances. I recommend starting with small experiments, slowly, gradually moving the whole of our life, piece by piece, closer to our vocation.

We could devote a small amount of time, maybe scheduled far in the future, to our art or our teaching or our working with others in healing, or……… And seeing how it goes and correcting from there and seeing what unfolds and so on.

My strong suggestion is that we don’t do this as a mental imaginary event but as a real-life one in which we simultaneously discover the difficulties and our untapped strengths in facing them.

There is rarely certainty in this arena but we can rely on our innate goodness and ability to learn. As you can probably tell from reading this we also have to cultivate mercy and forgiveness towards ourselves as we make endless mistakes, often with the best intentions.

I don’t think we can “succeed at our vocation.” There may never be much to show for all our efforts, we may never be recognized for it (and here again is the difficulty of pointing to famous cases), and yet the world opens to us, meets us, dazzles us, befriends us in unexpected, exceptional, personal ways that otherwise would not be available to us.

Are you ready to begin? Are you ready to be in territory where only you and your connection to life can guide you?

More on this essential topic in upcoming issues and at our November Free Integral Learning Lab in San Francisco.

Also this issue’s Practice of the Quarter, poems and book review may assist you. Finally, here is a song that relates to this topic.

Take care of yourself.

Love,

• When did I act/speak/plan from clarity of purpose and intent?
• When did I act from fear, avoidance of discomfort?
• When did I remember and act from my values and commitments?
• When was I acting to please others, from habit and familiarity?
• From what I learned in this reflection, what will I take up and what will I put down?

From Moby Dick

Herman Melville

Call me Ishmael. Some years ago—never mind how long precisely—having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen and regulating the circulation. Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people’s hats off—then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can.

On The Off Chance

Ingrid Goff-Maidoff

On the off chance I am more
than a monkey who dreams,
raising bread to my mouth
I thank some kind, nameless source.

On the off chance I am more
than a monkey who dreams,
sipping the dark wine
I feel part of the river.

On the off chance I am more
than a monkey who dreams,
nibbling your soft, generous lips,
I make love to your ancestors.

Success is counted sweetest

Emily Dickinson

Success is counted sweetest
By those who ne’er succeed.
To comprehend a nectar
Requires sorest need.

Not one of all the purple Host
Who took the Flag today
Can tell the definition
So clear of Victory

As he defeated—dying—
On whose forbidden ear
The distant strains of triumph
Burst agonized and clear!

Climbing

Amy Lowell

High up in the apple tree climbing I go,
With the sky above me, the earth below.
Each branch is the step of a wonderful stair
Which leads to the town I see shining up there.

Climbing, climbing, higher and higher,
The branches blow and I see a spire,
The gleam of a turret, the glint of a dome,
All sparkling and bright, like white sea foam.

On and on, from bough to bough,
The leaves are thick, but I push my way through;
Before, I have always had to stop,
But today I am sure I shall reach the top.

Today to the end of the marvelous stair,
Where those glittering pinacles flash in the air!
Climbing, climbing, higher I go,
With the sky close above me, the earth far below.

A Secret Life

Stephen Dunn

Why you need to have one
is not much more mysterious than
why you don’t say what you think
at the birth of an ugly baby.
Or, you’ve just made love
and feel you’d rather have been
in a dark booth where your partner
was nodding, whispering yes, yes,
you’re brilliant. The secret life
begins early, is kept alive
by all that’s unpopular
in you, all that you know
a Baptist, say, or some other
accountant would object to.

It becomes what you’d most protect
if the government said you can protect
one thing, all else is ours.
When you write late at night
it’s like a small fire
in a clearing, it’s what
radiates and what can hurt
if you get too close to it.
It’s why your silence is a kind of truth.
Even when you speak to your best friend,
the one who’ll never betray you,
you always leave out one thing;
a secret life is that important.

Letter from the Graduate Director

Dear Graduates,

As I sat down to write my letter to you for this issue of Distinctions, flashes of news articles about the increase of national anxiety in relation to American politics, images of refugees escaping turmoil, a recent update from our friends in South Africa where protests are occurring, and the overarching narratives that have women dismissed and objectified all burst into mind. As peoples before us have said, these are crazy times. Times that, the persecutor-turned-mystic St. Paul said, we were made for (Acts 17:26). And yet, being “made” for something, for a time in history, speaks to the nascent qualities and capacities available. There is great suffering and need in the world. My hope—dare I say prayer—is that as each of us partners with the mystery others will join in, bringing greater wholeness to what is fractured.

It’s the joining in that is most present with me.

In this spirit, I’m thrilled that Sahar joined NVW to help support you and bring this work to others.

Love,

Adam Klein, Graduate Director

The graduates graduate!

Congratulations to the graduates of the Presence, Freedom & Belonging: Addressing Immediate Concerns and Balance, our first Towards Mastery course in San Francisco. Led by Sarita Chawla and Karen Aznoian, these 20 pioneers spent 9 months honing their coaching in a community of profound self-discovery. Said one class member, “There are no words to describe the beauty we created.”

The next course starts in San Francisco in April with a slightly different format: sessions 1 & 3 will be in person, and session 2 will take place virtually. Read more about the course.

An oldie but a goldie

Here’s throwback to a PCC graduation in 2005. Styles have changed, but the post-certification glow is timeless (as is the LCC classroom decor). Recognize anyone?