Living Vocationally

We now embark on the next part of the story, Meeting the Mentor (Christopher Vogler's paraphrase of Joseph Campbell's hero structure).

Note: if you haven't been following my interactions with the Transforming Culture symposium, you can catch up by reading Debriefing, which consists of overall impressions, and Beautifully Unuseful to God, which tells of the artists' Call to Adventure.

As any heroine (or hero) begins her journey, she meets a mentor--Obi Wan Kenobe, Glenda the Good Witch, or, in this case, Eugene Peterson. The mentor gives advice, training, or gifts.

In this case, all three.

Eugene told his story of how he's been shaped by artists, specifically by three in his ministry. Again, my intention is not to tell you what he said but to tell you the effect it had on me.

Namely, that I'm an artist, and I'm doing what God has for me, no matter what the external success tells me.

We live in a world where businesses succeed and fail, and it's known fairly quickly which camp they'll fall in. We live in a world where if the facial lotion doesn't tighten your skin in two weeks, you try a different kind. We live in a world where day-traders make or lose millions of dollars in the stock market in minutes.

Not so the artist.

I forget this. I forget that instant success isn't my goal. Indeed, success in the public eye no matter how fast or slow isn't my goal.

Eugene's first story was about a group of artists in his congregation when he was an intern. While he went on to focus on one artist in particular, his description of the group as a whole struck me.

These artists were waitresses, janitors, short-order cooks. That didn't matter, though. Nor did it matter that they weren't "successful." Perhaps after Eugene knew them they rose to the top, but as far as contact with them, they were unknown. They weren't defined by their jobs but by the fact that they were artists. Being artists was their way of life. In this way, they lived vocationally. I looked it up on dictionary.com and found this definition: "a function or station in life to which one is called by God."

They lived understanding that this was their call. (Note: they weren't Christians, so I won't impose that they felt called by God, although they lived as if they were called to the work of an artist, no matter what their job was. As a Christian, I can affirm that the Man behind my call is God.)

In fact, Eugene said, we lose our vocation when we live for success.

Am I living vocationally or am I living for success? This idea struck me, because I struggle with it. I want recognition. I want not just to be great in my art but to be noticed as great.

In focusing on the greatness itself, I risk losing the vocation. Eugene the Mentor challenged me to turn to the art, to be willing to be slow and constant and to work underground. I may not be successful. I may not be published. No one may know my name (Cheers, anyone?). But in this vocational living, which is the essence of the Christian life, not just the artist's life, I live the Bible then begin to understand the Bible, little by little.

We have a fish tank, and my husband loves coral. We have this one coral that wraps around whatever enters into it--a rubber band, a rock, even a diseased area of itself. It wraps itself around that and creates life.

God's story wraps itself around me, diseased or lifeless though I may be, and creates life as I enter into it.

My art and my Christianity are about life and living my vocation, about being wrapped in God's story, not about my success.

I'll be out of town next week, so I'll continue my interactions with the Transforming Culture story the following week. In the meantime, I leave you with this clip of Eugene Peterson talking about the role of fiction writing and story in the pastor's and Christian's life.