To or From?

One of the things that has bugged me about this blog since I started seminary is the name of it.  I no longer think of myself as being called "from" something.  I was not/am not "called from corporate."  I am called to minister to people wherever I am.  We are all called to minister to people wherever we are.  If I died tomorrow, I surely hope that my life would still be classified as one in which I was able to minister to others.  And given that the last 12 years of my life were spent primarily at my job in a corporate environment, I was just as much called to minister there as I am to minister here now, someday in a church, or who knows where else.

That being said, "Called From Corporate" bugs me as a blog title.  I wanted to get across the fact that this is my second career because I am able to use that as a connecting point with so many people that I meet.  As I move into my first pastoral leadership roles, I feel like my experience will be a blessing to help me understand the ins and outs that my parishioners might be facing in their daily grind.  Yet, I wasn't called away.  I moved on to the next great adventure to which God was nudging me.  And it is my understanding - at this point, anyway - that my corporate understanding of business structure, organizational challenges, cultural needs, vision planning, and goal-setting are part of this next great adventure of leading and administering Christ's church.  Thus, I carry my previous calling with me.

A lot of my friends and family have asked me over the last few years, "How did you know?"  Did I have the divine writing in the sky, a burning bush, a booming voice, a soft whisper in a breeze, etc?  No, though I did ask for all of those things over the years.  I simply knew.  I just had to get past my own fears and inadequacies blocking the way.  And as you may have read in previous posts, it wasn't because it was the easiest route.  In fact, it was quite painful to rip the band-aid off so that I could keep moving forward.  Yet, I knew the entire time that I was doing the right thing, even if I did it kicking and screaming.  I had to shed every voice of doubt, discontent, and fear that kept reappearing.

A wise leader at Southwest once told a leadership class that we all should take our lives as if we were walking through the grocery store and simply taking different things from the various shelves and making this glorious fruit basket.  [That is a horrible paraphrase, but this is what I took from her lesson.]  While she was more specifically referencing the perspective change that happens after working at different management levels for different leaders across different workgroups, I think it's applicable to life as a whole.  Even if you and I grabbed the same fruit and shared a life experience -- a boss, a job, a school, a church, a friendship, etc - we would use that fruit differently as we made our basket creations.  For me, corporate America might just be a foundational fruit - perhaps the watermelon that sits at the base as a strong anchor to which I can tether everything else.  Perhaps for you, a giant pineapple of parenthood is your anchor, while for me, my pineapple will fit differently into my life calling than it does for you.  The beauty of it is that there are no two baskets that are alike, but they all end up being a beautiful reflection of the various people and places that have touched our lives.  And there is no way that any of the baskets would even exist if it weren't for the Creator of the fruits.  We get to make our own way, but the fruit Creator is right there with us to gently guide us with a whisper or a nudge when we might be trying to stack things too high.  I think God enjoys the process of creating these masterpieces called life, just as much as we fear the "what's next?"  God knows that they all are beautiful, so long as they are created in community and in love.

I'm still in the process of savoring the smells and textures of all of the fruit that is piled up in my cart right now.  There is a lot of wisdom, love, and grace contained in those fruits.  I wouldn't be who I am without anyone represented in my previous 34 years, so there is no way on earth that I am going to say that I have been called away FROM anyone or anything.  I simply pray that we all continue to live each day in a way that is representing how to show God's love and receive God's love.  In that way (forgive ending the sentence with a preposition), we will be seeking who we are called to minister TO.

I'm craving a piece of fruit now.