“And there's a million things I haven't done.
But just you wait, just you wait...”
~ “Alexander Hamilton”, Hamilton
For me, a calling is an intense belief that God requires me to embrace a vocation in order to make the world a better place. At one time or another, I have felt one of four callings: to become a healer, a soldier, a priest, and a teacher. Some times they have appeared strong and forceful, revealing an obvious path. Other times they have been subtle, even nested in other callings. Or, they have been all together hidden, emerging after years of contemplation. As I have grown older, I have begun to realize that each one of the original four can take on many forms.
Finally, as I enter the second half of my life, it has been made clear to me, I need to combine all four into a single path.
Yes, there were two times in my life when I believed God was calling me to become a Catholic priest. I was baptized a Catholic and attended Catholic school for eight years. Therefore, it is no surprise that I heard something at least twice in my life. The first whispers arose during the fifth grade. I responded by becoming an altar boy. That did not last, and not for any nefarious reasons. The calling just faded away. The second one, a bit louder, and clearer, sounded right before my senior year of high school. That inspired a trip to a seminary located on the campus of a local college with the family priest. But when I saw a bunch of young priests in robes playing ball on the sidewalk, ignoring the young women who passed by them, that particular line to God went silent.
Yet, I could not shake off God had a plan for me: there have been way too many signs.
Throughout my life, God has always been there. Whenever I have called out in fear, pain, or confusion, I was given a response. And, just like when asking people difficult questions, I may not have always heard the answer I wanted, but I have always received the answer that I needed. Conversely, whenever I have turned away from God, I was never abandoned. A way back was always shown to me. Most of the time, these signs were people arriving at pivotal points during my life. God has never failed to provide guidance.
But having that connection does not necessarily mean that there was a calling. Perhaps God simply loved me. Being an altar boy, and considering the priesthood, were strong signs, initially, but they did not last very long. However, there were a few other signs later in life that have given me reason to think there is a plan.
In college, I minored in philosophy. While I studied under a handful or professors, all of whom taught me valuable academic and life lessons (even the one whose classes bored me each time), one in particular stuck with me for all four years, and beyond. He was the only theist in the department. Although not a Catholic, he was a Christian, and not in any fundamentalist way. His lectures included information beyond philosophy (law, history, mathematics, science, theology, literature, etc.), and his personal stories illuminated, and never undermined, his lessons. But above all, he showed me that religious belief is quite rational and can be reasoned just as well as math and science. It was not an intellectual sin to believe in God.
This teacher’s greater purpose in my life revealed itself several years after graduating college. During my time teaching at a private elementary school, a career I had never contemplated, and one I chanced upon while seeking another career, I had the pleasure of teaching both his grandchildren. Over the course of several years. In a variety of subjects. Eventually, I witnessed both their graduations from the school.
He told me once, “There is something special about a former student becoming a teacher. And there is something unique about seeing that same person teaching one’s own grandchildren.”
A Christian professor, who taught me philosophy and theology, and his two grandchildren, who became my own students? For me, that was no coincidence.
But if that experience was not enough, there was the place I ended up teaching, the school where I taught those children. After a year of working in IT (but with no formal education in the field), I made a decision to return to academia and get a Masters in computer science. But at the time, I was not completely satisfied with that path. A part of me was hesitant. The wife of my former Ancient Greek professor heard about my plans. She suggested a meeting with her employer, the headmaster and founder of a small, private elementary school. She informed me that he was the type of person who changed people’s lives. She was right. Just not in the way I had expected.
I went in to visit him for some advice. I left accepting a teaching position I was not trained to do, with an age group I had never considered. I took a leap of faith, with a man of faith. My employer and mentor was a former missionary priest. He attended seminary straight out of high school. By his early twenties, he found himself serving at a church in Chile. And then he walked away from that calling, because he wanted a wife and children. Eventually, he would have two daughters, build a small school, get divorced, hire me, have a stroke, and finally pass away. I learned a lot of lessons from that man: many good ones, some bad ones, but above all, the importance of love and kindness.
He always told me, “only those who love can know justice” and “remember to be kind to the children”.
I spent nearly thirteen years serving, sacrificing, struggling, and failing to keep alive his dream of a “small school in the woods where children meet the Universe”. Despite the difficult and humiliating conclusion to that career, I have no doubt, to this day, that God wanted me to experience it all.
Whether it was the family priest, my philosophy professor and his two grandchildren, a mentor who was a former missionary, or the countless other times God presented signs for me to embrace, I learned through them all that a priest has many roles. Sometimes it is about healing the pains of his parishioners. Other times it is sacrificing, like a soldier, his body and mind in the face of a terrible enemy. Then there is the teaching aspect: guiding others toward understanding and acceptance, instructing people in traditions and beliefs, sharing insights and wisdom. Finally, there is the listening. Not just to confessions, anxieties, hopes, and desires. But also to the calling that brought him to serve God in the first place. And that requires a leap of faith.
At some point I have to bridge the gap between all this analysis and introspection on the one hand, and my final decision on the other.
Therefore, like a priest, I must listen carefully, and then apply faith in order to accept what I am called to do.
(To be continued...)
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