6 - 15 - 17 Vocation Ownership

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[The previous section was a personal bit about how I was finding my willpower and motivation waning lately, while simultaneously feeling more stressed.]

I think it started in winter workouts but continued and to a greater degree in Spring Ball. Before that, I was very self-directed. I got up two and a half hours before I had to and did things I deemed important. Every day I had to decide whether I wanted to go to class, workout, write, or do anything that I decided was important. Once I started having mandatory activities, I think once anyone starts having mandatory activities as a large part of their day, it can start changing your perception of work.

If you’re free to do as much or as little work as you want, you may be ambitious and choose to do quite a bit and feel quite good about it. Every time you complete a task you get enough encouragement from that accomplishment to move on to the next. Not only do you have the freedom to stop or go on, and thus are constantly making the decision to continue, hardening your will, you’re also only doing things that you personally deem important which gives them a certain impetus beyond just that you’re supposed to. I think there’s a pretty critical difference there. I often have the thought that some good advice for those younger than myself would be “First, do what you’re supposed to do, what’s expected of you. Then, go beyond, above or outside.” But I think it’s also critical to identify where that “supposed to” direction is coming from. I think we must take great care in choosing our masters, some are much better than others. I think the life I was living was closely enough in tune with God that my interpretation of what God wanted me to do was a better master than football was. I think it is obvious then, for us religious, that the greatest director or master would be an honest and educated guess at what God wants us to do. This does not mean to ignore quite plain directives in Scripture against certain activities and promoting others, those who seek to escape moral accountability love to reiterate that the Bible is not written literally. I think there are two groups, possibly more than two, but definitely two who say this. One are these people trying to escape moral culpability, from no one not even themselves as they’re not fooling anyone, by ignoring the few black-and-white statements Jesus did give us in the Gospel. The other are scripture scholars, priests, monks and nuns, and holy and dedicated laypeople who are honestly trying to follow every directive they can decipher from the Word of God and the traditions of their Church. I don’t think it will be easy to tell the difference.

However, if one is a slave in the sense that one has not chosen one’s master, work is no matter of pride. If one is not free to disobey at any time, no virtue of obedience is built. Upon seeing a large amount of work assigned to us, we see not opportunity but long hours of toil and suffering. Perhaps most damagingly when one’s work is mandatory it almost ceases to be owned by the person. For we are not acting of our own accord, by our own priorities, we are acting under a debt. We are leasing our bodies to whatever cause or benefactor has claims on us, and pray for the day our whole self may be returned to us, hopefully not too much diminished.

I have accidentally stumbled into theological ground again. This second state, this state of not owning one’s work, is how many approach their spirituality, and it is clear why they will be miserable. CS Lewis mentions this concept in one of his books and I’ll try to reiterate it here. Christ wants our whole self, he doesn’t want to have claims over us. Rather than requiring some amount of holy work, or abstinence, or any other form of restriction on our carnal lives he just wants our entirety. He does not want the second, he desires the first. He desires us to choose Him in every moment of our lives, not to one time put us under his debt and serve out a sentence. Secondly, despite the greater motivation in the first case, the first case will also come to know the truth much better and perform with greater aptitude resulting from increased knowledge of what God really desires. They will gain this knowledge from the constant examination they must undergo to decipher what God desires for them to do.

I suppose this is quite abstract so I’ll offer an example that probably hits quite close to home. We all know some judgmental people in our parishes. Whether you call them “old church ladies” in a derisive tone (I actually use the term endearingly more often than not) or people who are stuffy or regressive it is quite plain there are always some people around that are very rules-oriented. This would make sense, in the same sense that a prisoner knows all the rules, all the sentences for various crimes, which drugs fall under which schedules. Just as a career criminal is versed in criminal law, so are these guilty (not that I say they are guilty, but they feel themselves guilty) versed in “church” law. And they may come down hard on those who do not follow the “church” law. This “church” law is something quite different than any spiritual doctrine, it is the customs and traditions, completely separate from our religion, which are in constant danger of being elevated to that place. This is why we see heated arguments over whether to hold hands with our neighbors during the Pater Noster, when to kneel and stand, and what is appropriate to wear to Mass. These people may or may not care what their offertory money is going towards. This would be the second type, those serving out a sentence and acting under a debt.

The first, well the first is what we all strive to be. I’m sorry to have written this in such a confusing order but this is the first, free, type of person from several paragraphs ago. The type of person who is so concerned with what is going on in the Mass, a truly remarkable thing to hear if we do care to really listen, that they could not care less or really take note that the young man two rows behind them is wearing a t shirt to Sunday Mass. Or perhaps they do, but also saw the young man at Daily Mass on Wednesday and thereby knows he means no disrespect by his dress, his faith is important to him.

I think the Daily Mass does have a higher proportion of this type of people, and it is easy to see why. If this free person feels the urge to attend Mass on a weekday, they attempt to do so. It is actually quite a simple way to live, reduces the need for much overthinking. The other however, would first examine whether this fell under their debt. Then they would examine whether it should fall under their debt and likely start to mix some theological reasoning with some practical reasoning. They would likely say, “Well if I go today it must mean I’m realizing that I’m obligated to go. But I can’t fulfill that obligation, not even twice a month do I have the time (this is likely not true).” For the debtor to submit more fully to God is a surrender, but not in the good sense. For it is simply the bearing of more burden for people who tend to look at the costs of their service. They will also have to engage in some doublethink, reasoning on whether they should do it based on whether it is practical, but then turning around and saying that if they were supposed to do it, it would be practical. I’ve never known God to be very practical, at all. You may notice that I’ve spent considerably more time talking about the indebted person than the free one. For the free person it is a simple asking of a question, and a decision, in the moment. As the indebted person lives under a legal contract every departure from the norm, deeper into faith, must be renegotiated, lawyers must be called, appointments made, and witnesses gathered in.