A recent Inside Higher Ed piece by Amy Colbert offers a brave and instructive reflection for anyone navigating a vocation in the academy while living with a chronic illness. In it, Colbert recounts her meaningful work as chair of a department—one full of great colleagues and abundant strategic planning—that provided her with a strong sense of purpose. Then an unwanted Parkinson’s diagnosis came along and interrupted it all, upending the vision she had for her life before she got sick. As she reflects, Colbert shares the lessons she’s learned about how to navigate this vocational path that she did not choose.
The piece explores how being chronically ill challenges not only one’s vocational path but also one’s sense of self. “Who I am?” she asks, especially when she’s no longer department chair or the person who’s trying to become provost. Colbert explains that after a period of being the “ex-” department chair—an identity without much sense of purpose—she has found a new leadership role at another institution that allows her to use her gifts and affords her more flexibility. Lesson #1 is to try and avoid being an “ex” for very long.
It’s impressive and commendable that Colbert finds a new academic vocation that can better accommodate a life with Parkinson’s. But this path might not be as accessible to other academics with serious chronic health conditions as it was for her. Some may need to remain the “ex” for economic reasons. Others may find that their chronic conditions force them to resign from academic life altogether. In these cases, the blow to identity may run deeper than it has thus far for Colbert.
In Follow Your Bliss and Other Lies About Calling, Bonnie Miller-McLemore explores the shadow sides of callings, ones that are missed or blocked, unexpected or conflicted. The one that relates most closely to what Colbert discusses in her piece is what Miller-McLemore calls “relinquished callings, a phrase that evokes a hand-on-heart response.” The word “relinquish” captures well the ache in having to give up on something precious—to conclude a chapter in which your deep gladness and the needs of the world seem powerfully aligned. In the writing and speaking I do about living with unchosen vocations like the one Colbert is navigating, I advocate for leaning into the sadness that comes from these unwanted paths and for encouraging practices of lament over the relinquishment of vocational dreams that have long been part of the fabric of our lives.
It is at this point that Colbert’s lesson on finding a new narrative thread can play an important role. She cites research on the importance of rebuilding one’s “identity story” after a significant disruption like the one she’s had. Colbert does so by discovering ways to continue mentoring others through informal networks beyond the academy. Our collective conversations within NetVUE also remind us that our lives and our vocations are more than our careers. We are all also called to vocations of being family, friends, neighbors, citizens, and more. Attending to the many narrative threads that make up our lives and identities give us purpose and meaning beyond our paid work, and focusing on them can open up ways to move forward.
One of the ways that Colbert is creating new possibilities in her life has been to start a Substack in which she writes about changing identities in the midst of disruptions like chronic illness. In this work she’s not only modeling meaning making amid the continual—and at times relentless—disorientation brought on by chronic illness, but she’s also sharing the joys and challenges of this new vocational path in ways that instructs others. May she get to pursue this new vocation for a good long time.
Deanna A. Thompson is the author of many books, including Glimpsing Resurrection: Cancer, Trauma, and Ministry; and The Virtual Body of Christ in a Suffering World. Most recently, her essay, “Beyond Deep Gladness: Lamenting Trauma, Injustice, and Suffering in Service of the Flourishing of All,” appears in Called Beyond Ourselves: Vocation and the Common Good. She will soon be relinquishing her vocation as Martin E. Marty Regents Chair of Religion and the Academy, and Director of the Lutheran Center for Faith, Values, and Community at her alma mater, St. Olaf College, in Northfield, Minnesota.