The first steps addressing my calling

My first step was talking to my rector age 19 (see previous post). My sense of calling died down again to just a niggle for the future. A classic discernment question is "Where is your calling? What does it feel like?" I always said it was at the back of my head, in a corner, and it was just a gentle, constant prodding, a soft poking.

My job as a freelance stage manager is very precarious but I have been either skilled or lucky (I'm not sure which) that from leaving college at the end of my degree July 2014, I have been in constant work as a stage manager. The life of a new graduate involves a lot of applications, CVs and cover letters, and for a new graduate freelancer, whose contracts are usually between 5 and 9 weeks, that process continues once you start getting jobs, to book in the next one, and the one after that.

I had a series of jobs with a week or less between them, always having the next one booked in before the end of the current. I did have a low bar for what I applied for, so I applied for a lot; I'm going to be open and honest here and say that I was extremely lucky that I was always able to fall back on my parents if it came to it, so I occasionally took low paid jobs and my dad supplemented my income, to support my career. Again, I realise that I am a Very Very Lucky girl.

After a year, I decided to become more specific in my goals, applying for jobs that paid a minimum I could live on, and only in the roles I preferred. This narrowed my number of applications down considerably, and unsurprisingly, the offers dried up completely. I got to the end of the last job I had booked in with nothing to follow and moved back to my parents in their little village, away from London, at the start of September 2015.

Two weeks. I was unemployed for two weeks, and I went a little mad. After a week, I lowered my bar again for what I applied for, but started making lists of things to do, hobbies to take up, skills to learn. Having not been in that position before, it ate at me immediately. Yes, this is middle class pathetic-ness, but this is my story, I can only tell it honestly. And with made up words like pathetic-ness.

One of the items on my many lists was to start writing again. I used to be a prolific story writer, doing things like NaNoWriMo, but my inspiration/leisure time had dried up. I sat down with pad and pencil, old school to get myself into the mood, and wrote a few pages of a scene, a girl in a church service, a young professional (sound familiar?)

A few days later, I sat down to expand on this scene a create a character, a world, a plot. This took me on a research rabbit hole, and I started developing the idea that this girl could take a sort of gap year to explore her faith - visit Iona and Taize, go on a silent retreat, that sort of thing, culminating in doing the Camino di Santiago, something close to my own heart as we have a group at church called the Camino group, as it is also known as the The Way of St James.

Abruptly, I looked at the mind map I was creating and realised it wasn't fiction I was writing - it was a wish list. I looked up how long to the Camino took and got it in my head that a lot of people did about six weeks, and suddenly, with my unemployed future stretching out in front of me like an empty void, I thought "I could do that." Excitement gripped me as the reality of that thought sunk in, but rather than booking flights and getting my rucksack out, I went through all the usual vocation websites that I had gone through several times - CallWaiting, CPAS, LondonCallings (my church's diocese vocation page), CofeE Vocations - then calmed down a little and wrote another email to my rector, subject: "Adrift...again."

Could I arrange with [the parish secretary] a time to have another chat with you about vocation and looking into the discernment process?

I talked to my best friend, the one I met at sixth form, my parents, my boyfriend. By the time my appointment with the rector came around, it was on the same day as two interviews for jobs starting at the end of September that I had applied for before this massive kick from my calling. When asked again where it was, the niggle had moved and grown, and now felt like a pervading presence covering the top of my mind, a presence over everything in my life.

That meeting was mixed for me. She probed me to get an understanding of my position, which at that moment was a bit dramatic, wanting to give up stage management and concentrate on following my calling, under the continuing delusion I mentioned in this post. I just felt a sense of urgency but I didn't want to make a big deal, a "look at me, I'm special" statement, nor did I have any idea what the next step was, except maybe there was someone who's job it was to deal with people like me in the diocese and I needed my rector to put me in touch with them.

She was very supportive and encouraging that we needed to keep the momentum up and explore that I was feeling. We booked in another appointment that was sadly cancelled when I got offered one of the jobs I interviewed for, the schedule for which meant we didn't have any free time in common until a month later, and I went off wondering if she was taking me seriously. In hindsight, I didn't give her much to go on and she probably rightly assessed that I needed to do my own digging to come up with what I wanted to do next rather than just giving me options like I wanted to, because it needs to be a slow process. I have moments where I'm chomping at the bit, angry even that I have put up with continuing this stage management career whilst my want to make this other thing me priority.

But I have done some digging, like finding this amazing Guide to CofE Discernment, and done a few other things, and I've gained some perspective. More on that, and my second meeting with the rector, in my next post.

God bless.