Tuning Into Your Calling
Comments by the Rev. Susan Manker-Seale
March 2, 2004
The pitcher cries for water to carry and a person for work that is real.
--Marge Piercy
The question Marge Piercy's quote brings to my mind is "what is real work?" What does "real" mean? In the case of the pitcher, perhaps water isn't real to it. It might be made for water, and carry water adequately for many years, but what if this pitcher really wanted to carry wine? Or fruit juice? Would it think that carrying water was work less real? This is assuming that the pitcher has a mind, of course.
I wish I could remember the story of the two water jars. I'll tell it in my own way to make a point, whether it's the right way or not. There was a young woman who carried two jars to collect water at the well every day. She hung them on a pole across her shoulders, one jar on each side. One early Spring day, as she returned home, she noticed that one of the jars was only half full. It had a crack in it. The jar was ashamed and thought the woman would set it aside now. (Stories always give personality to our mundane things!) But in spite of its flaws, the woman continued to carry it back and forth every day to get water, even though each time half leaked out. This went on for many weeks until, finally, the jar asked the woman why she continued to carry it when she could make a new jar and gather more water for her troubles. The woman replied that she got plenty of water for her needs and in addition, the water leaking from the jar had lined the path with flowers for her to enjoy every day on her journey. She valued both the perfect jar and the cracked jar, for each served her in fulfilling her needs for health and beauty.
The point of that story is that we don't always know the results of our efforts and our blunders. It's the same root moral as The Lord of the Rings, in which the disgusting and loathsome creature, Gollum, turns out to be the only one who could save Middle Earth, by biting the ring from Frodo's finger in the end. In an earlier key scene, Frodo tells Gandalf that it was a pity Bilbo hadn't killed Gollum when he first met him. Gandalf replies that it was pity that stayed Bilbo's hand, and Gandalf asks Frodo in return whether we should judge the life and death of another. Even the meanest might purposely or inadvertently do great work for the benefit of the world.
Not that any of us identifies with Gollum! But we do have parts of our personalities that tend to be highly critical of ourselves and cause worry that our efforts, our work, is not good enough to be valued by others. The thing is, how do we know what it truly is that others value in us? How can we see the flowers that spring up behind us in the footprints of our inadequacies or mistakes?
What it comes down to is that each of us needs to determine for ourselves what work is meaningful in our lives, and I don't mean just paid work. All that we do, whether carrying water or wine or spilling everything as we go and making flowers along the way, are worthy tasks if we value them, if we see them as real. It is in our own eyes that our work is meaningful.
One major joy of being part of a religious community is that we have the opportunity to choose some work that is real to us, regardless of how we feel about our jobs, our paid work in the every day world. If we are stuck carrying water and really wish we could carry wine, the congregation is a place where we can try wine for a while. If we are retired, and done with carrying things all together, there is still meaningful work crying out to us in this congregation. And we are not about perfection here, as we know that our imperfections are often the key to new growth and beauty on this common path we walk.
Marge Piercy says that every person cries out for work that is real. I think "real" implies that our hearts are caught up in the work. "Real" means that the work is meaningful to the one doing it. "Real" means that our efforts make a difference that is important to us and to others, as in the flowers springing up from spilled water.
Part of our spiritual growth involves learning about ourselves enough to choose work that is real to us. That may take some exploration, but mostly, it takes some paying attention to our hearts, to what calls to us. "Tuning into your calling" is what Rita Schmitz came up with as the title for this service today, and I like the analogy. We speak of ministers being called, and we speak of lay ministry as also responding to a call, a call to do work that is real in the world. That means something different to each of us. Your ministry lies in tuning into what is calling to you. What do you really care about? What real work needs doing? What would you love to do?
As part of a religious community, and as persons on a path of spiritual exploration and growth, we each have a responsibility to choose work that is real within this community as well as in the larger community. Congregations are made up of volunteer efforts, gifts of service, people choosing to help through doing real work for all of us. Ministry is not just preaching, or creating worship, or visiting the sick, or doing weddings. And ministry is not just done by ministers. Each member, each participant of this congregation has a ministry. Each of those ministries looks different, but they serve all of us together. Teaching, organizing, answering the phone, welcoming, writing, singing, cleaning, planting, pruning, scrubbing, designing - these are all ministries if you find in your hearts that the work is real, is meaningful. We do our best in these efforts, and hope that our mistakes will still bring beauty to the congregation in unforeseen ways.
It is true that giving is receiving, that those who spend themselves on others are the happiest, the most fulfilled in society. Volunteering one's time is a well-known cure for depression and many other ills. Having a place to go, a purpose to fulfill, people to be with, are all ways to heal the isolation many feel in our society today. We need community, and we need to be needed. Just as we need work that is real. I challenge each of you to consider how you are or wish to be doing such work within this congregation, to tune into your call to ministry, to give of your time, your expertise if you have it and your best efforts if you don't, but in any case, to give of your heart to creating this religious community.
Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Northwest Tucson