Day Eight- 1/8/11 Vocare Special! Vocation, Visuals & Vegetation

Day Eight: 1/8/11
New Thing: Vocare Special! Vocation, Visuals & Vegetation
Inspiration: Vocare #1, Lynn and Mike Tax
Cost: A few dollars for the flowers
Time: Several Hours
Bottom Line: My life’s calling has been fulfilled. No, not being a priest; being a visual aide in a Lynn Tax speech.

The Wedding of Mr. and Mrs. Tax

Reflection: This was such a packed day that I will not truly be able to give it justice here. But, I will try to focus on the new activities in the midst of this Spirit-filled day. As mentioned in my last post, the focus of a Vocare weekend is to help young adult discern God’s calling in their lives. (See the below video for a really great meditation on calling) As we journeyed through this weekend, we used the ancient practice of storytelling and holy listening to trace the workings of God in our lives and to see where we are being lead. 

One part of this day included a vocation panel where people who have different callings speak about their ministries as well as take questions in the “hot-seat.” The panel included a married couple (Lynn and Mike Tax), a single person (Sarah Tax, my co-leader), a lay person (Torrey) and an ordained person (me). Now, there are clearly tons more vocations that could have been included in this panel, but these 4 are a good starting variety to start seeing vocation in all facets of our lives. While I had certainly had to answer questions about my calling in my own personal discernment process as a requirement for ordination many years ago, I had never taken questions from my peers about this. Some of the questions included, “How do you balance multiple callings such as motherhood and priesthood?” (Short answer: The Holy Spirit, prayer and support of others—along with the occasional panic attack) “Do you ever have the fear of failure? Failing the congregation? Failing God? Failing yourself?” (Short answer: YES!!!!) and “Can you tell us about your ordination day?” (Short answer: It rained which is how God tells me He is with me ;) It was a great panel and even better questions. 

 

Torrey, Sarah, Lynn, and the picture

The panel began with another first for me. I was a visual aide in a Lynn Tax talk!! This is a bit of an inside joke, but a long time ago, Lynn helped me shape a talk I was giving as a youth at a retreat. Her advice was as simple as it was elegant: “Use visual aids. People love them.” Since then, I am not sure that I have ever seen a Tax talk that did not follow this wonderful principle, even if the visual is in the form of a verbal description and I have tried to incorporate that spirit into my sermon writing. So, when Sarah told me that her mother had declared that there would be no visual aids in her talk due to time, I didn’t believe it for a second. I was handsomely rewarded for my faith. Not only did she bring in her actual wedding veil, and wedding picture, but she told me that I was to dress in full priestly array and read the first lines of the wedding ceremony to start the talk out right. My dream had come true—I was finally the ultimate visual aide.

Finally, we had a very beautiful table Eucharist that included some of the most stunning faith stories that I have ever heard from a retreat group. The service has a hand washing moment and we used some edible flowers in the water. It occurred to me that I had never eaten a flower and I promptly remedied that along with several of the participants who were game to try the blooms with me. The moment and the flowers were both beautiful and tasty.