In picking a vocation, consider joy, talent and community needs

When I returned from my sabbatical to Seattle University last month, I was pleasantly surprised to discover widespread conversations around the campus about vocational discernment.

Vocational discernment involves a series of three crucial questions:

1. What gives you joy?

2. What are you good at?

3. How do your talents contribute to the community's deepest needs?" Or as the popular theologian Frederick Buechner described a vocation, "[It is] the place where your deep gladness meets the world's deep need."

For most students, these questions have a deeply spiritual or religious grounding. For others they are simply questions of professional development.

Answering the first question about what gives you joy is not as easy as it appears. It involves discovering who you are. It asks, "What you are most passionate about? What have been turning points in your life that manifested joy?"

As the theologian Michael Himes of Boston College cautioned: "We are talking about joy, not happiness. Happiness comes from without and often depends on physical well-being, the weather, or just a good meal. Joy comes from within and has to do with a deep sense of the rightness, the goodness, the fruitfulness of what you do with your life."

Nor is joy mere satisfaction, Himes continues. "Satisfaction means to be full or to want nothing more."

Joy is an alignment of our deepest self with God. It is often a recognition of God's delight in us. It might result from sensing God's loving presence, as Jesus did: "You are my beloved son. You are my beloved daughter in whom I am absolutely delighted" (Luke 3:22).

Of course, a university is most centrally about academics, about rigorous research and scholarly instruction. It is at its best in helping students to realize what they are really good at and then developing those skills and talents to pursue this particular vocation.

A young woman recently said to an academic adviser, "I'm a biology major. And I have great teachers. I'll never win a Nobel Prize, but I just love lab work. I could put on my white lab gown three times a day and never get tired of it. I'm a biology babe!"

She has a frank assessment of her talents and a contagious joy about her major.

The second question about what I'm good at can't be answered only by myself. The answer emerges in dialogue with teachers, mentors, friends, peers or a future spouse. An honest assessment helps students to discern their talent and to develop their intellectual and professional skills.

Unfortunately, this assessment doesn't always occur in a timely fashion. One highly successful student in accounting said at graduation: "I was excellent at accounting, but I hated every minute of it. In retrospect, I should have majored in English, taken some business and accounting courses, and then opened up a children's bookstore. That's where my passion is."

The third question resolves around the needs of the world. If it's a genuine vocation, we don't just live for ourselves alone. What are the world's deepest needs? Does anybody need what you're offering? One young man, a sophomore, began as a science major and experienced boredom, frustration and a loss of purpose. "My parents urged me to major in science," he said.

Then he briefly switched to business: "I was still bored out of my gourd."

At the same time he started volunteering for an international, faith-based AIDS foundation and finally could claim: "I am totally jazzed when I volunteer. I have high energy. I'm good at it. I work well with all kinds of people, and I'm a pretty good leader. A degree in nonprofit administration is just what I need."

As a Jesuit Catholic university with a strong ecumenical tradition, Seattle University encourages students from multiple religious traditions to discern their vocations by looking at what God might be saying.

What occurs in your quiet moments of prayer? Have you allowed yourself the opportunity of a retreat? In your moments of solitude and deep listening, how is the Spirit moving and loving and acting within you?

How is God moving you toward making these life decisions? Graduates soon realize that a lifetime series of questions and answers lies ahead of them.

The Rev. Patrick Howell, S.J., is vice president for mission and ministry at Seattle University. He and other columnists take turns writing for the Faith & Values page. Readers may send feedback to faithpage@seattletimes.com.