The Problem With The Word “Calling”
Every time I hear someone say they’ve discovered their life’s calling, I wonder how they have arrived at this place with such certainty. There is a twinge of envy towards such a concrete statement, as well as irritation when it turns back to me as a gnawing question, ‘have you arrived yet?’ I can’t help but hear an impatient tone, a deep sigh, a cadence of contempt demanding that I work my life’s meaning out.
In the fundamentalist Christian culture I grew up, this was thematic throughout devotionals and retreats. We were constantly asked what our calling was. I hated this question, because I knew what speech to give that would suffice leaders, but innately felt nothing at all. I would weave theology, scripture and meaning, and then place a very apparent period on the end that said, ‘it is finished.’ The calling is titled, punctuated, and complete. The leaders would then smile and congratulate me on a calling well articulated, ushering me into leadership positions because I said just the right thing. What did I say? I have no idea.
I felt like a parrot in a cage mimicking language and expressions, but had never used my wings to fly. The bird was born with a price tag, a calling really, to be sold. As I’m writing this a crow hops onto the step beside me with a plastic orange band around his foot. He looks like one who has escaped from prison, but doesn’t really know how to be free. I can relate to that. Calling must come from the inside of a person where the roots lie deep, and like sprouts, burst from the ground when they are ready to show their face to the world.
The word ‘calling’ was not part of my families vocabulary. We lived in the present, rarely in the future, and most definitely not in the past. I grew up with parents that worked hard in jobs that consumed their time, but not their passions. They worked because it’s what they had to do, but not necessarily what they longed to become. My brothers worked manual jobs that kept them structurally wedged between 8–5, and I went on to college following the tide of High School graduates assuming this was the way.
I went where the wave took me, and it seemed that it carried me right along with the majority, though it never seemed I belonged there. I jumped from major to major, traveling in between, and picking up random certifications along the way. There was a deep search for this word ‘calling’ that I heard about, prayed on, but for the life of me couldn’t embody.
This shift around ‘calling’ really began when first read Parker Palmer’s words, in his brilliant book, Let My Life Speak. “Before I can tell my life what I want to do with it, I must listen to my life telling me who I am.” This quote liberated something locked up in me. Something that I avoided knowing in myself.
I am a couple of years from forty and am just now owning that I am an artist and writer, not because of what I produce and sell, but because creativity runs through my veins like wet paint, and words are the bones my muscle clings to. When I began to release the evidence of a ‘calling’ and live the most sacred one of being a human, broken, beautiful, and alive– that’s when the word really began to make sense. Suddenly, the search for ‘calling’ wasn’t so daunting. In fact, it wasn’t even necessary. Why? Because the calling was already within me. I only needed to look inward to see.
Are you aching for clarity, for calling? Look inside yourself. Bravely see who you are and who you long to be. Your answer is there waiting for you to receive it.
Megan Febuary is an author, trauma-informed book coach and creative mentor. Helping women write their books, heal their stories, and understand their unique human design. You can learn more about working with Megan at yourbookyear.com
