Identity in transition

I had to have business cards made. It just had to be done. Even if people never use them any longer, they still ask for them. I struggled with what to put on them. I hovered over at the Zazzle site for far too long. Finally I settled on my name, address, email and cell phone. I didn’t try to say what I do—a pastor, a blogger, a columnist, an author, an artist, a consultant, an UNCO founder—I didn’t know what to list. When the plain, white cards arrived in the mail, I felt bereft, like I had lost something.

I spent seven years as a pastor in D.C. There are many things I learned about life inside the beltway, and one of the biggest things was the sense of job impermanence. With each election, careers would be made or destroyed. With each tremble of the stock market, foundations would cut funding. It usually didn’t matter how hard or how well a person worked, it was simply the case that their career could end in a flash. Since the cost of living was so high, the loss of a job often led to financial instability. And since identities were so closely tied to careers, the professional fault line often shook to the core of one’s self. Then it crumbled marriages and relationships.

So I often worked with people, trying to untangle a job loss or transition from their sense of purpose, identity and worth. But it’s hard. So many of us preach that our jobs are vocations—and when we dig up the linguistic and theological root of “vocation,” we recognize that they are callings. God calls us. God made us for a reason. God equipped us with talents and abilities. And we can find meaning by using our skills for a purpose greater than ourselves.