Reason for Being
When you were a child, what was the first job you dreamed of doing when you grew up? Maybe you thought about being a dancer, a doctor, a fireman or something else. When I was a child, one of my youngest aspirations was to be a famous country music singer. As a child, I loved to sing country music and I went with my dad to see many country music artists in concert. We saw some of the legends including Barbara Mandrel, Loretta Lynn, Crystal Gayle, Conway Twitty, George Jones and other famous country artists. One highlight in my childhood was meeting Johnny Cash and getting his autograph. Obviously, becoming a country music singer did not pan out for me. It did not help that I don’t read music well and sometimes sing off key!
As I look back on my childhood, I am really grateful that my parents never pressured me in any particular vocational direction. They always encouraged my brothers and I to listen to our inner spirit and do whatever we felt drawn towards. And so as a young person some of the careers I thought about included: being a singer, a lawyer and even a military officer. It may sound vain, but when I met with the military as a high school student to discuss a career in the armed forces, learning from the recruiter that I would have to cut my long hair left me running for the hills. After taking career assessments and also praying and thinking about my future, I decided in high school that I wanted to be in ministry.This was likely a surprise to my family and extended family, because I was the first person in our extended family to pursue a career in ministry.I wasn’t sure exactly what type of ministry I wanted to do, but I decided a good starting point would be to go to college and study religion and psychology.
While I was in college, I attended a retreat called, Exploration. Exploration is a weekend event that is a safe space for young people, ages 18-26, to wrestle with their vocational call. During this weekend, I was able to spend more time in a small group discerning my call to ministry. This retreat offered a sacred space for me to explore the question, “Why am I here on this earth?” This weekend was an important step on my journey of self-discovery, because it took me back to the kid inside of me who dreamed about what I wanted to be when I grew up, but also granted me the opportunity to ask existential questions in community with other people who were seeking to find their own meaning and purpose.
Attending Exploration helped me to discern that I wanted to attend seminary after college. Seminary is a graduate level school of theology that helps people prepare for ecclesiastical ministry. During my three years of seminary, I worked as a youth minister and then after seminary I spent a year in England serving as a minister in the British Methodist Church. It was during my time in England that I realized my passion for visiting parishioners who were in the hospital and in their homes. This lead me to come back to the States and spend two years working in two hospitals as a Chaplain resident. In the Chaplain residency program, I spent half of my week visiting patients and the other half attending pastoral care classes.
During this chaplain training, I was encouraged by one of my teachers to read a book by Parker Palmer called, “Let Your Life Speak.” Parker Palmer is a Quaker theologian and in this important book, he encourages his readers to carve out space for solitude, so they can listen to the voice and values within them, in order to point them to their call. This book was a valuable tool for me in my own discernment process and I often recommend it to clients and friends who are trying to find their vocational identity.
Frederick Buechner once said, “The place God calls you is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.” Working as a chaplain was work that provided “deep gladness” in my heart and including my years as a Chaplain resident, I ended up working for sixteen years as a chaplain.
In my work as a chaplain, I continued to ask the question, “Why am I here?” and I was aware of “deep gladness” I experienced offering bereavement counseling to clients who were grieving the death of a loved one. This led me to go back to school and get another degree so I could meet the requirements to become a licensed marriage and family therapist.
I studied French in high school and college, but did not have an aptitude for learning languages and so I don’t speak French. However, my French classes and a few trips to France did introduce me to the term, raison d’être, which is the French concept of “reason for being.” This French word means that everyone has a primary reason for their existence on this earth.
It does not escape me that I have been fairly privileged to have parents who encouraged me to seek out my raison d’etre from a very early age. I had space in my childhood to dream about my future and opportunities in my adult life to pursue my educational and vocational dreams. Sometimes because of a parents unmet dreams or fears, because of financial necessities or for other reasons, some people end up pursuing a job that would not have been their first choice. If this has been your own reality this has likely been painful for you. But even if we have not historically been afforded the option to follow our dreams and even when it may not be realistic to switch to our dream job, I still think it is important to pursue the philosophical question, “Why am I here?”
I don’t necessarily think our “reason for being” has to be our vocation and our existential purpose can certainly change throughout our lifetime. Whether we are retired, working or out of work, I believe finding our reason for being is important to keep discerning. Whether it is professional work, volunteer work in the community or work inside the home, I believe we all experience more fullness in life when we seek our “deep gladness” and offer this to the others.
The answer to why we are here may organically change over time, but it is important spiritual work to keep seeking to answer this question. How can you get in touch with the inner child inside of you who dreamed about what they would be as a young child? As you contemplate your own meaning and purpose, maybe you can even come up with your own personal mission statement. I feel like my own mission statement keeps changing, but if I answered this question today I might say my purpose is to help others connect more fully to their authentic self, vocational identity, their body, loved ones, the created world and the Divine. I believe we all have a reason for being. Maybe you are here to help others be more compassionate with themselves and others. What is your own raison d’etre?
This new year of 2021 is a perfect time to consider your own “reason for being.” Whether you process what might bring you “deep gladness” in a journal, as a prayer, with a friend, in a religious community or by reading “Let Your Life Speak,” I encourage you to take some to evaluate why you are here. I believe each and everyone one of us can find a greater sense of existential purpose and offer this to the world.
Let’s keep asking existential questions,
Christy
A version of this article was originally published in the Lookout Mountain Mirror. www.mountainmirror.com
