call
All work is honorable and people show up to fill every need, sometimes chosen, sometimes you just fall into it. It's been said that everyone has a calling in life and it's up to each one of us to find our own calling. From personal experience, I know that if you find your calling, it can mean great satisfaction and happiness in life.
But I also know from watching others in their lives, that if you find your calling but leave it and go on to something else, you may be buying into misery.
Some callings seem to come natural or familial, families of doctors, families of lawyers, families of cooks, families of actors, military or seagoing families; in my case a family of Episcopal priests and I grew up knowing my calling, settled in my mind by the Time I was ten years old. While in college I renounced it and on graduation wandered into the U S Navy, where I was so well received that I thought I'd found my calling, but halfway through realized that I hadn't, and, still later while doing something that earned me a constant flow of new cars, I got called up short for, as my rector challenged me, "how much longer are you going to ignore God's call on your life?" I said "oh, what the Hell, I give up," went to theological seminary and surrendered into my happiness.
What stirred this thought into a blogpost? Passing 7H on St Andrews Bay as I watch under a half-moon at 2:41 a.m. this humid Wednesday morning, a tugboat pushing barges. At first I couldn't tell what it was, just that the forward white light and a red port side running light. were moving at the same speed as the cluster of lights way back behind it. Not a ship leaving port, so, What? long, low barges being pushed by their tug. A tugboat captain, someone following their calling, probably loving it and cannot imagine any other life. https://americanwaterways.com/sites/default/files/legacy/IndustryToolkit.pdf
"A typical tugboat or towboat carries anywhere from three to 10 crewmembers and includes a mix of highly skilled, experienced personnel and entry-level deckhands. Tugboat and towboat crews work varying schedules, but most crews live aboard the vessel for two to four weeks and then have one to three weeks off." (pinched online)
IDK, in my imagination it seems like a romantic, Tom Sawyer Huck Finn lifestyle, maybe the captain with spouse living aboard as ship's cook? I've known someone whose son is a Mississippi River tugboat captain. A highly responsible job, backbreaking work all the way up a career calling, but every Time a tug passes here I've wondered if I missed my calling. I might say "next time" except that this is it, life is short and we haven't much Time, so I'm content watching as the water traffic glides close by 7H in the moonlight.
Wednesday -> hey! I showed up again! Thank you, God.
Bless the hot & black, and bless this morning's email saying that my next bag of coffee is on the way.
RSF&PTL
T
generally I never post two blogposts in the same day. but the first one, sprouts & collards, I wrote last night before bedtime at the end of an exhausting day but held until this morning to publish; the second is just thoughts about life here in 7H before I start contemplating what to say from the pulpit this coming Sunday