"Vocation does not come from willfulness. It comes from listening. I must listen to my life and try to understand what it is truly about..."1
SNYDER: The first day back. It always gets me.
GILES: Yes.
SNYDER: I mean, it's incredible. One day the campus is completely bare. Empty. The next, there are children everywhere. Like locusts. Crawling around, mindlessly bent on feeding and mating. Destroying everything in sight in their relentless, pointless desire to exist.
GILES: I do enjoy these pep talks. Have you ever considered, given your abhorrence of children, school's principal was not, perhaps, your true vocation?
Vocation is a term that has been secularized and much of its original connotation has been lost. When vocation is heard it is often understood as "one's paid work."2 And while "one's paid work" can certainly be contained within one's vocation, there is much more to vocation than the place where the paycheck is earned. The word vocation comes from the Latin word vocare meaning to call, or to voice. Vocation then is not related in any way to compensation, but rather to that which one is called to do or be, or "a divine call to God's service or to the Christian life."3
Many of the episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer acknowledge this broader and deeper understanding of vocation and calling. Catheleen Kaveny notes, "The series is about vocation; it explores what it means for Buffy to be a vampire slayer, not merely to slay vampires for fun or profit. It shows her struggling to live up to the demands of the role, sacrificing the usual teenage pleasures to meet her unusual responsibilities. It also shows her growth in competence, wisdom, and confidence, and her eventual realization that the sacrifices are worth it. In exploring the meaning of vocation, the show suggests ways of overcoming several dichotomies that hamper a creative and humane response to the contemporary situation of women."4 Buffy's vocation is not to slay vampires, but is to be a vampire slayer with all that entails - adventure, struggle, and sacrifice. Her vocation has nothing to do with compensation, but rather is that which she is wholly and fully at the depths of her being.
Many of the episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer acknowledge this broader and deeper understanding of vocation and calling. Catheleen Kaveny notes, "The series is about vocation; it explores what it means for Buffy to be a vampire slayer, not merely to slay vampires for fun or profit. It shows her struggling to live up to the demands of the role, sacrificing the usual teenage pleasures to meet her unusual responsibilities. It also shows her growth in competence, wisdom, and confidence, and her eventual realization that the sacrifices are worth it. In exploring the meaning of vocation, the show suggests ways of overcoming several dichotomies that hamper a creative and humane response to the contemporary situation of women."4 Buffy's vocation is not to slay vampires, but is to be a vampire slayer with all that entails - adventure, struggle, and sacrifice. Her vocation has nothing to do with compensation, but rather is that which she is wholly and fully at the depths of her being.
Martin Luther speaks to this fullness of vocation for all people. He writes, "Every person surely has a calling. While attending to it [he] serves God. A king serves God when he is at pains to look after and govern his people. So do the mother of a household when she tends her baby, the father of a household when he gains a livelihood by working, and a pupil when he applies [himself] diligently to [his] studies...Therefore, it is a great wisdom when a human being does what God commands and earnestly devotes himself to his vocation..." 5 Every one of us has a vocation, for as Frederick Buechner said, “The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.”
Where is your deep gladness?
Where does this intersect with a deep hunger/need in the world?
1 - Palmer, Parker. Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2000. p. 4.
2 - Schuurman, Douglas J. Vocation: Discerning Our Callings in Life. Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. 2004. p. 1.
3 - Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1). Retrieved February 24, 2007, from Dictionary.com website: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/vocation
4 - Kaveny, Cathleen. What Women Want: 'Buffy,' the Pope, and the New Feminists. Commonweal November 7, 2003, pg.18-24p
5 - Luther, Martin. Luther's Works, vol. 3: Lectures on Genesis. Pelikan, Jaroslav & Lehmann, Helmut T. , Eds. Philadelphia, PA: Fortress Press. 1995.
1 comment:
Here's a thought or question I suppose - given Luther's quote, do we have one vocation or multiple vocations? Do I have the vocation of pastor, daughter,and sometime in the future hopefully wife and mother all at once or just one of the above? Does Buffy have the opportunity/capacity to have another vocation in addition to the slayer? Or is vocation something that encompasses all of that?
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