As has been noted above, all things have a nature. As has also been noted above, that nature exists as the Grand Narrative inside of which ‘we’ (humans as selves) live and move and have our being. The consequences of inverting character and story, of mistakenly subsuming one under the other, of prizing individual experience at the expense of the Grand Narrative—the dynamic relationship between God and humanity of which I am but a part—are that I never properly apprehend either the Story or my place in it.
We come here to the matter of nature as it regards both humanity and the individual selves who populate it in the most intimate of ways: we glimpse the human individual at the heart of their aspirations, in the core of their quest, either, for meaning in an ordered universe of purpose, or conquest in a disordered universe of chaos. The frame that one holds for all of life—one’s worldview as a whole—comes here into view as the axial matter in the nexus of human becoming.
Perhaps more than any other matter, our understanding of ‘calling’—of our vocation—will reveal both our capacity and our readiness to benefit humanity and creation, because vocation is essentially about a life submitted to that which it deems to be higher than itself. This is the seeming paradox at the heart of Christian worldview; that fulfillment in this life is contingent on my willingness to lay my life down—to submit my whole self—into loving interest for God, my human neighbour and the creation we are each called to steward.
Thus, to the Christian, a submitted life is a responsible life, and a responsible life is a life of freedom. Freedom is here understood, not as the absence of constraint, but as the capacity to do in any moment what will bring more life to life; to readily act in the interests of God’s love. Such a paradox is brought into vivid light and clarity in the life, legacy and unparalleled goodness of Jesus of Nazareth. And it was against such a backdrop of considerations that he exclaimed, “I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto myself.” It was of course, through such an utterance that he forecast both his death and resurrection, but also the new inauguration of access into his Kingdom. He was declaring the very means by which his Kingdom would be incorporated into the entire created order: loving sacrifice. Accordingly, it is through such means that way has been opened both to humanity and the rest of creation to be reconciled to God. We are meant to repeat such sacrifice as a way of life. This is what it means to become an apprentice of Jesus. We are not meant to live his life for him—that belongs to him--but we are meant to live our lives as he would were he in our position, our era, our sex, our financial picture, our family dynamic, our host of ailments, infirmities and afflictions.
Oscar Wilde once quipped, “Be yourself, everyone else is already taken.” That such a committed hedonist could so properly issue such a summons is more paradox, to be sure. Wilde exists for us as both an icon to the chaos that stems from the inversion of Story and character and as an exemplar of the hijacking of vocation. Wilde publicly avowed himself to the pursuit of his wants with seemingly unflinching conviction. He summarized this ethos with the statement, “I can resist everything except temptation.” Wilde’s life is celebrated and relished in manners that belie a cathartic interest in the depths of our humanity to entertain wickedness, to live on the other side of the statement that “The corruption of the best is the worst.” The degree to which such impulses are entertained is always the degree to which one’s calling, that which “I truly am” is sacrificed and squandered. We all journey in a dynamic battle between these two ends within us and, just as importantly, aid (as Lewis remarked above) one another to either of these two ends with every human interaction we engage.
In the end, this is a battle between my lower desires and my higher convictions, a reflection of to what extent I have surrendered my appetites into submission under love. It is, therefore, impossible to truly ‘discover oneself’, to learn the essence of one’s personality, gifts and capacities, apart from the submission of those beautiful traits into the world of others’ needs. Fredrich Buechner famously announced that “The place God calls us to is the place where your deep gladness and the world's hunger meet.” Submission to love is not the abdication of personhood. That is, it is not through the denial or elimination of one’s true interests, say, one’s creative eye, or inexplainable love for mathematics—that which a given individual cannot not be interested in—that one becomes themselves. I do not become myself by disavowing myself from these in some blind version of asceticism. Such ‘lives’ have been lived—history is riddled with them—and they are as tragic and seemingly wasteful as their hedonistic counterparts. The key in the Christian life, therefore, is not denial of self, but denial of want, wherever want would subsume the interests of love. I am to ‘listen’ within to learn how to “live the life that wants to live in [me],” as Parker Palmer so artfully opined, and this, with careful interest. Victor Frankl found the heart of the matter when he expressed,
Love is the only way to grasp another human being in the innermost core of his personality. No one can become fully aware of the very essence of another human being unless he loves him. By his love he is enabled to see the essential traits and features in the beloved person; and even more, he sees that which is potential in him, which is not yet actualized but yet ought to be actualized. Furthermore, by his love, the loving person enables the beloved person to actualize these potentialities. By making him aware of what he can be and of what he should become, he makes these potentialities come true.
It turns out that such intention always carries reciprocal benefit. Frankl has here captured something at the heart of Jesus’ declaration about the greatest commandment to “Love the Lord your God with all your mind, body, soul and strength and to love your neighbour as yourself.” As we endeavor to do both (to love God and our neighbour), we are accompanied into the most inner chambers of our own minds and hearts. We must, after all, love our neighbour as ourselves—that is, we must love them in the way that is proper to the constellation of personality that we inherited as ourselves at birth; our interests, our particular voice and the gifts of our embodiment (our sex, our stature, our posture, our delights), each one given to our neighbour as we submit the whole of ourselves to Love. As we endeavor to do so, we live out Kierkegaard’s prayer, “And now God, with your help, I shall become myself” and, as we do so, we aid our neighbour under the staunch weight of their glory—the sacred potential that exists in them—in doing and becoming the very same. This is our collective and individual calling and it is the primary means by which we reflect God’s nature into the creation that He has established for us to care for with Him.