There are good reasons to be wary of leaders when they invoke the “ancient Chinese wisdom” that in crisis lies opportunity. It often portends dramatic or controversial decisions that have not been sufficiently considered, but are now seemingly justified by the needs of the moment. A dead give-away that such thinking is at work is the gleam in the eye of the one so relishing the moment. Such opportunism is not always but often enough at odds with long-standing mission.
But today’s Inside HigherEd includes an opinion piece that exemplifies a different kind of opportunism.
The photojournalist turned his camera toward the angry protesters, freeze-framing their raw rage and shouts of protest over stay-at-home orders… What does all this have to do with the calling to educate for meaning, purpose, responsibility, and commitments to the common good? How about the central vocation that Christians share with other religious and nonreligious people of good will—the calling to love and serve the neighbor in need?
My vote for the press photo of the year would be the one taken by Joshua Bickel on April 13 and circulated widely since. Covering a Coronavirus response update from within the Ohio Statehouse, the photojournalist turned his camera toward the angry protesters with flags, red Trump hats, and masks outside—freeze-framing their raw rage and shouts of protest over stay-at-home orders.
The photo captures some of the painful divisions and complex ironies of our political/economic/cultural fabric—including, here, the irony of “law-and-order” conservatives defying local laws and taking to the streets, the President goading them on. One hopes that the new activists will gain some measure of empathy for more experienced protesters within Black Lives Matter, MeToo, or immigrants’ rights movements. One hopes, too, that liberals quick to relish in their anger can see also the real pain and anxiety underneath it. We may yet find ways to connect.
Recently, in my perusal of the Sunday New York Times, I saw the headline “Vocations: Tasting chocolate every day, for pay.” Vocations and chocolate? I had to read on.
What I found on the second page of the business section was an extensive interview with Brad Kintzer who is the chief chocolate maker for Tcho Chocolate in Berkeley, California. There were many moments of vocational reflection in the interview, including Kintzer’s review of his academic path: “I’d been interested in plant life as an environmental studies major at the University of Vermont with a focus on botany…. The cacao bean fascinated me from the first time I saw its tree in a greenhouse at the Montreal Botanical Gardens.” He also commented on his general curiosity and wide learning, describing the botanical aspects of cacao, the cultural uses of the bean, and its historical and spiritual significance.
The Vocations column is full of these sorts of stories—tracing people’s professional paths which inevitably involve other aspects of their lives. Though the Times’ writers describe the column as “people from all walks of life talk about their jobs” the column really does much more than that. The title “vocations” is obviously meant in a more narrow sense from the newspaper’s perspective, but I think we can see it in a broader, more nuanced way which speaks to the important work of vocational discernment, of finding individual purpose in communities and relationships throughout one’s life. Continue reading “Finding Vocation in The New York Times”
