Vocational Sipping and Spitting

Last summer, while in the Willamette Valley of Oregon exploring the concept of "terroir," three colleagues and I heard more than one farmer and winemaker exclaim that "these hills were made for pinot noir."  Of course the hazelnut growers who had been there first might quibble with the assessment, but that clarity of discernment was striking.  By that time we had come to the strong conviction that places are particular and best suited for certain things and not others.  Agriculturally speaking, soil and climate, accumulating valleys and sunning slopes mean certain plants grow well while others flounder -- or require the vast amounts of artificial inputs that we now think of as "modern agriculture."  The right crop in the right place, however, doesn't have to strong-armed.  It simply flourishes and fruits.  Pinot Noir in Oregon; apples in Washington; onions in Georgia; grapefruits in South Texas.  Etc.  Sure, a lot of places do pretty well with a lot of crops, but a few places accommodate a few things exceedingly well.

And people.  This isn't ultimately about raw talent or innate ability, although those are relevant markers. I'm talking here more about "doing" than "being"; less about who we are and more about the particular things we are up to.  In one of the most-quoted definitions of vocation, Frederick Buechner observes that “… The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.” (Wishful Thinking: A Seeker’s ABC) 

It is, in a way, finding the groove; cutting with the grain instead of against it.  Admittedly, that "place" is not always that easy to locate, and I'm not sure that everyone would agree that a great pinot noir counts as one of the world's deep hungers.   Those farmers' clarity about that soil's purpose, however, is animating.  Unlike some of us who flounder around trying to figure out what we are supposed to do when we grow up, hoping it will simply hit us in the head one day, they, at least, have analyzed and experimented, taken notes and compared them with others who were trying to accomplish the same thing.  They have noticed how the soil drained and where the daylight hours cast their shadows.  They have watched and tasted and observed and been willing to fail.  They have planted and uprooted, sipped and spat and above all been patient.  And they have discerned, gleaning the insights observed and connected the dots.  And it has all brought them to strong convictions about what those hills are for.

I think of those farmers as I read the Apostle Paul's reflections in Ephesians 3. He speaks forthrightly about the "commission that was given me...to bring to the Gentiles the news of the boundless riches of Christ..."  Paul is not confused about what he needs to be up to.  He has a particular job to do, and he is working it.  It is his "groove" -- the intersection, he is convinced, of his deep gladness and the world's deep hunger.

In a way, of course, it almost feels like he cheated.  He didn't have to nose around for grain like a blind hog; he was knocked off his horse one day and struck temporarily blind except for the vision that filled him in on the details.  For most of us it doesn't happen that way.  Our discernment process will bear more resemblance to the Oregon farmers than to Paul's blinding vision, but the clarity about the work we have to do is worth the patience. 

That kind of sipping and spitting wouldn't be a bad way to spend this New Year just beginning to bud. If those hills were made for pinot noir, surely I have been made for something precious and needful as well.