Gambling for Love
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by Rose Mary Dougherty
Recently, in a walk with an old friend (an 80-something youngster with lots of wisdom), he shared with me a conversation he had had about vocation. Someone had told my friend what he considered his vocation to be, now that he was retired. He asked my friend about his own sense of vocation in these later years of his life. My friend talked about his response, what he thought gave meaning and purpose to his life. Then he turned the question to me, "So, Rose Mary, tell me: What's your vocation now?" Up to that point, I had been content to be listening to my friend. I hadn't seen the conversation moving in my direction. The question literally stopped me in my tracks, but only for a moment. Without much hesitation, I responded: "I think my vocation has something to do with hanging out with God and seeing what shows up that invites my involvement. I'm not sure there is anything special I think I have to do."My response took me by surprise. Surely it was more spontaneous than thoughtful. Had I thought about it at all, I would have talked about my choice to live as a vowed religious within my congregation, and the work with individuals and groups that I do through Shalem. I might even have mentioned the writing on discernment I hoped to do. But none of this came to mind. What came to mind as I later tried to think about my vocation were the events, circumstances, tasks and relationships that I found myself involved in the immediate past. Many of these, in retrospect, seemed almost serendipitous. They had no particular significance that I was aware of. They didn't seem to flow from, or provide insight into, some great scheme of life. My involvement in them didn't require a lot of forethought or discernment. It just seemed right at the time.
This reflection on my immediate past seemed to support my spontaneous response about my vocation. I realize that for me now, vocation has more to do with an invitation to a quality of being, rather than any particular role or work. "If this is true," I asked myself, "how does being a vowed religious, how does my work at Shalem or my writing fit into my vocation?" Hopefully my life as a vowed religious supports the quality of being I feel called to; hopefully my work at Shalem, my writing, or anything else I do flows out of my vocation, but neither my vowed life nor my doings are the essence of my vocation. My vocation is to be.
This realization about vocation as being, while growing inside me for some time, is relatively new for me to claim. At times it is unsettling, especially when I try to think about the concept abstractly. When I think about it too long, it can seem like an excuse for irresponsibility, or a lack of commitment to any project or relationship. I fear it could keep me living just on the fringes of life. I am also aware that while it seems to rid me of the burden of unreal "shoulds" that can so easily dictate my actions, it also removes the security of clear parameters that a particular life project might give to my choices. In my thinking state, I'm left with concern for confusion and lack of direction. Yet in my living state, there is deep trust.
There is a freedom and expansiveness that comes with this sense of vocation as being. It allows for very few absolutes in my life, few certitudes. Without the parameters of a particular role or task, it invites a panoramic view of possibilities for choices/responses to Life. Seldom offering anything clearly "now" about what I must do "then," this vocation as being invites what Thomas Kelly calls "continuously renewed immediacy," over and over and over again, renewing my desire for God and my openness to the present moment. It's not that I have stopped "doing" in any present moment or that I no longer perform particular duties and tasks. It's just that what I am doing no longer seems so very important. It's just what there is to do in this moment. I can do it with lightness of heart, without a driveness or a sense that I need to do it all myself. I can be a little more present to all of life while attending to a particular part of it. At least for the present, I can give up trying to measure the results of what I do. Failure is not a great concern right now. There seem to be no clear norms for determining either failure or success.
I mentioned earlier that this new sense of vocation is unsettling at times. It is also invigorating. It seems as though it is both inviting me into and simultaneously gifting me with the freedom and spontaneity of Love. The poet Rumi speaks of "gambling everything for love." Maybe after all my years of measured living, I'm finding I'm a gambler at heart.
© 2008 The Shalem Institute.