Listen to this story:
By Eric Clayton
In my early professional days, I believed I was destined to be a peacebuilder. There were a number of suitable job titles that reflected the kind of work I imagined myself doing: diplomat, humanitarian aid worker, specialist in peace or good governance. I was fine inhabiting any of them. Ultimately, I would be doing the work of peace — and that’s what mattered most.
I’d studied international relations during my undergraduate under the mentorship of a peace scholar, spent just shy of a year volunteering in Bolivia after graduation, and was working for Catholic Relief Services — a faith-based organization known for its peacebuilding work. It seemed like only a matter of time before the obvious was recognized by the leadership team: I was destined to work in peace. Meanwhile, I pursued a master’s degree in international media with an emphasis on how storytelling and peacebuilding went hand in hand.
My Jesuit spiritual director often said that God works in patterns. From my own life of prayer, I knew God to be present in all things, that all things could work together for God’s greater glory if we had the eyes to see. And I had those eyes; I looked at the patterns of my life, at the events unfolding in the present — the job, the degree, the colleagues — and I told God exactly where I was going. I would be a peacebuilder.
You’ll not be surprised to know that I was wrong.
In the Ignatian tradition, we place a great deal of emphasis on discerning the stirrings of our heart or — better said — our desires. We believe that these desires are in fact the whisperings of the Holy Spirit, God tugging our lives in the direction we naturally most want to go. In many ways, our desires — when well-discerned — mirror God’s own will for our lives.
“When we discover and live out our vocation, we unleash our own unique offering to God and God’s world.”
But we also must remember that St. Ignatius of Loyola — before saying anything about discernment — quite clearly stated that the goal of our lives and our vocations is to praise, revere, and serve God. All we do and all we are is for the greater glory of God and God’s people. We hold everything else loosely, using the gifts of this world and this life as much as they help us achieve those ends for which we were made.
When we discover and live out our vocation, we unleash our own unique offering to God and God’s world. Both our calling and our response become personal ways in which we live out God’s greater glory for the good of all.
In my wrestling with this desire to work for peace, I had confused a few of those finer points. Yes, God was in fact inviting me to this work, but it was me who was imposing the particular job title and career path. Yes, God was at work in my hope for and dream of peace integrated into my vocation. But I was the one limiting God’s dream; I was putting God’s unique call to me in a very small box. I thought I had read and discerned the signs of the times and the patterns of my life, but in fact I had merely arranged them in a way that best suited my own desires.
Many of us may look at our lives — the broad strokes or the finer details — with frustration. We feel we’re made to do something else, something more. But that greatness seems to be lacking in the humdrum of our actual lives. I wonder if, rather than assume we’ve made a wrong turn, disappointed God, or simply used up all of our second chances, we take a step back and look anew at the puzzle at hand.
“But I was the one limiting God’s dream; I was putting God’s unique call to me in a very small box.”
For me, this happened during a Lenten book study. We were reading a book on peace, and I assumed I had all the answers. But what the book made clear was that we cannot limit peace to a job description. Rather, peace is for all of us. Peace must be part of each of our lives: in our relationships, our conversations, the way we view ourselves and our world.
Peace, it turns out, was exactly what God was calling me to. But this peace was so much harder. I couldn’t step away from it at the end of the workday; I had to live it every moment. But, if I was serious that this peace was my heart’s desire and thus God’s own dream for me, then I needed to answer this call.
Today, I’m a writer, not a peacebuilder. I just published a book on peace and Ignatian spirituality drawn not from my own professional expertise of diplomacy, humanitarian work, or governing but from my prayer. I’m not an expert, but I am willing to wrestle with God’s invitation as it takes new form in my life.
As you look at your life, at your vocation, where is God trying to surprise you? Where might you be ignoring God’s invitation and instead burying your head in what you assume is the only path forward? As Ignatius reminds us, we are called to serve the greater glory of God and the good of all people — that challenge is always one that opens horizons and expands the possibilities of God-at-work in our lives.
