Spiritual Steps on the Road to Success

Many aren’t sure what they’re called to do in this world. How they are asked to contribute. There are a number of tests that can be helpful to determine, and even judge, your calling. There are those who say that whatever you do successfully as an adult, you were probably doing, and even loved to do, as a child. It is, as if, we are called at an early age. It’s as if our identity is determined when we’re young, and as if we’re put on a path as children that will fulfill us, and fulfill our identities, as adults.

My husband is a massage therapist, and he remembers massaging his grandmother’s hands and feet as a young child. It was something he liked to do. He forgot about this, until, in his 30’s, he passed a sign for a massage school and responded. He’s been doing this work for over 30 years now, and loves doing it.

My career consultant (Judith Claire from Santa Monica, CA) remembers her mother asking her for advice from the age of 5. She became a career consultant, and advises others about their career paths.

When I was young, I loved to write and loved to talk. My mother used to respond to my constant chatter with the words, “Linda has something to say!” I became a seminar leader, and can easily talk for 6 hours or more a day. I began writing when I was 10, and have recently completed my 12th book which will be published in 2011.

Think about what you loved to do as a child, and how it relates to what you love to do as an adult. Then think about how you might define this connection between childhood and adulthood. I see it as a consistent calling from God. You might see it as simply affirming our identity and recognizing that we continue to contribute what we were born to do. However you define it, you may recognize that this spark is worth following, and brings fulfillment to our lives, as well as the lives of others.

Many people are absolutely clear about their Calling. They hear an inner voice, or sometimes an outer voice, and they suddenly know. I’ve had several Callings in my life. The first when I heard an Inner Voice call me into Drama, and it was clear that I was to follow that voice. A second when I decided to go to seminary, but was still grappling with the decision. I was driving to the college where I was teaching at the time (Grand Canyon College in Phoenix), turned a corner, and suddenly I knew I was going to seminary.

But sometimes the Calling may not seem as clear, and we continue to wonder. Here are some ways to discover if it’s a true call, or just an idle thought:

(1) Test the Call by waiting. Don’t do anything right away if you’re not sure. Pray.  Just sit with the feeling. Get centered. If there’s too much that is frenetic around this sense of a Call, chances are, it’s not a real call. God is at Peace and we need to enter into that Peace. If it’s a true Call, it doesn’t leave and you’ll feel right about it.

(2) A True Calling doesn’t contradict the Gospel and doesn’t contradict what you know to be Spirit-Led or Spirit-Filled. It will be in tune with other experiences and events in your life that you know have been led by the Spirit.

(3) The Call will use your spiritual gifts. Paul, in the Epistles, talks about the gifts of the spirit of love, joy, peace, kindness, goodness, self-control, etc.  (Galatians 5) So  if the Call is about making more money, being more famous, it is undoubtedly not a true Call.

(4) A True Calling can also be discussed and discerned by members of your spiritual community.  Some people call together a group of spiritual people they trust to discuss their Calling. Quakers (my spiritual community) has Clearness Committees, where a group of people from the Quaker Meeting sit down and try to discern, together, the movement of the spirit. When you and your spiritual community agree, it may very well be that this is a True Calling.

Of course any Calling takes discernment. Sometimes we’re wrong about what we think we’re called to do.  If we are wrong, either we’ll get an inkling of this when we sit peacefully, listening to the Spirit, or it will become clear that nothing is working and that you don’t feel right at all about what you’re doing. That doesn’t eliminate the struggles against the world’s resistances, but it’s the Call that helps us be able to deal with the struggles and problems as we move ahead.

Many people wonder if they’ve really been called to the work they do. They might like it, feel it contributes in a good way to life, and feel it suits them. Some say they’ve felt called, guided, led, nudged, pushed or shoved into their work. Some might wonder – “God calling me? I’m much too small a person to be called.”

Our theology and philosophy about our work determines, to a great extent, how we see our work and what motivates us to keep going.

There are many theologies about spirituality and work. I grew up with the Middle Class Theology that says we contribute something worthwhile to the world in what we do, and we work for a living. When I was 19, I experienced a Call to Drama. I stood in my dorm room talking to God, and asked: “I love drama. Yet, how can I go into drama when I’m not good at acting, don’t know what else to do with it, and yet, this is the most exciting subject to me.” I heard the Small Voice Within say, “Your job is to keep the dream of drama alive.” I understood immediately what they meant, and as the years have gone by, have become clearer about this meaning. For me, drama is a humanity – it illuminates the human condition. That is what I must do – use my work in drama to emphasize that insight at the heart of drama. As the years have gone by, the Calling has become clearer: I work to help express the spiritual aspects of drama which does not mean being explicitly spiritual (although at times I do that), but to express the intrinsic spiritual aspects of the human condition.

Some of my theology then developed around this Calling: I learned to see God as personal, and that God had an interest in my individual life. Some denominations within Christianity express it as: “God has a wonderful plan for your life.” Other denominations would support a personal theology  that God cares about us individually and cares what we do in our lives.

There are other theologies that tell us that the “flow of life will take us where we need to go.” We often buck the flow in our lives. We don’t follow where we are seemingly being led. We don’t believe in our happiness, so when some wonderful opportunity is presented to us, we sabotage it.

Some might substitute “Spirit” for “flow” and try to tune in to those gentle proddings and those whispers and the occasional push and shove. Others might recognize that we are made in certain ways, to respond to science or math or music or drama or art or business In a way that satisfies us. We try to understand our identity and therefore might say “I want to be what I was created to be.” We try to become Respond-ers to the moving forces in our lives.

Whatever your theology of Callings, you can test your theology to see if it’s clear enough and strong enough to get you through the tough times when the Guiding Star becomes dim.  Sometimes we need to expand our theology, or even choose a religion that has a big enough theology to contain the many questions in our lives and to help us make wise decisions in our careers. A cohesive theology in itself is not enough, but it’s a start for us to understand whether we’re called, and if so, what are we called to do.

Dear readers, I realize that this is an unusual subject for my first blog on my Spiritual Steps website.  I visited Auschwitz in July when I was teaching in Poland. It was such a powerful experience that I wrote this, first as a letter to a friend of mine, and then, as is often the case when we write something, I wondered where to put it and what to do with it. So, I thought I’d start with this blog.

I know it doesn’t seem relevant to Spiritual Steps to success, but in the next few blogs, I’m going to take apart some of these ideas and show how they relate to our careers as well.

The day before my husband and I visited Auschwitz-Birkenau near Krakow, Poland, we challenged each other to find God in Auschwitz. We recognized that we would be going to one the most horrific, dark places on earth, and wondered how one finds God in the midst of this darkness.

When I returned, a mentioned this challenge to a friend of mine, and she wrote back and asked where I found God. I wrote her the following letter:

The answer to “Where is God in Auschwitz” is involved because there are really 3 considerations in thinking about the question – one’s theology, seeing the hand of God, and  experiencing the presence of God.

I’ve been intrigued with this question since I was quite young – how does one keep faith or find God in the midst of the most horrifying circumstances? That question has always fascinated me.  I was very moved by many books as a teen-ager – Treblinka, The Diary of Anne Frank, Man’s Search for Meaning – and always believed that it was possible to get through the worst tragedies without losing that connection with God. You probably know, of course, that I see the world through a religious perspective. We all have a lens through which we figure out meaning and through the years we keep refining that way of seeing. If it works for us, we stay with it, and if not, we adjust. For me, my religious perspective works and it has come about after much searching and thinking.

So, first the Theological Idea. If one’s Theology doesn’t leave room for the Problem of Evil and Suffering, any horrifying event would be even more traumatic because there’d be no way to put meaning around it. It would seem useless and therefore lead to despair and loss of faith. In seminary, I focused on Christian theology, but also studied Judaism and took a class on the Religions of the World. I know that both Judaism and Christianity have a very strong and very encompassing theology of Evil. That doesn’t mean that every Jew or Christian knows it or believes it or can find meaning in it, but it’s there. When I was doing a great deal of religious searching in my early 20’s, I wanted to know that my Faith had theological answers that satisfied me. They did, and as a result, I remained a Christian. There are philosophical systems that either can’t deal with evil because they ignore it or deny it or don’t take it seriously enough and some that I don’t respond to since they don’t jive with my experience. But certain theological frameworks recognize that this kind of evil is possible, and does exist, and that this isn’t God’s fault. One only has to read the Bible (especially the Hebrew Scriptures) to see that the Holocaust isn’t new. Perhaps in degree, because of its immensity and numbers, but not in terms of the hatred, tribalism, divisiveness, egocentricity, and madness that led to this. One only has to read Judges 19 to see slaughter and rape galore… (one of my favorite ‘texts of terror’ if one can have favorites) and to recognize this isn’t new.

I don’t believe that theology, especially as an intellectual process, can always stand up against the horror of evil, but it certainly has been proven, time and time again, that a good theology can  make suffering not only bearable but give it  some kind of meaning.  *(i.e., one only has to look at my sister, Holly, or others who are ill and die with grace, to see how one’s theology can lead to a sustaining attitude toward a very difficult situation.)

I also don’t believe that one begins their theology with Auschwitz. I don’t know if somebody would find God there, but I think that if one had found God in the normal, it’s clearly possible to keep that faith in the abnormal. I think people who don’t believe in God because of Auschwitz are making that the center of their theology, and that’s a rather poor excuse, much like Christians who can’t consider Christianity because they can’t believe in the Virgin Birth. Theology doesn’t start there. I see Auschwitz theology as that shadowy part in the corner that we rarely think about because we don’t have to. But when we do think about it, in my case, my theology has a perspective on it which greatly helps me. I don’t fall into despair over Auschwitz, in spite of the amount of despair that was part of it.  And, of course, many Christians would remember that Jesus felt forsaken on the Cross. And Christian and Jewish theology are filled with images of the “Suffering Servant”, etc.

Martin Luther said something about despair that I liked… something like “one can’t be blamed for falling into despair”… but I would add, “woe to him who takes away our hope!” The sin of the Nazis is not simply the killing and dehumanization here, but the taking away of Hope – hope for a future, hope for salvation, hope for some meaning to come out of this. It is understandable that one might lose faith, but not everyone did at Auschwitz and it’s not a given.

I think the second area then is “where is the Hand of God in the midst of this horror?” There are so many ways to define God that this might depend somewhat on one’s definition. I see God as more personal than some.  But even if somebody sees God as The Good, that which is Loving and Kind, that which brings people together, then wherever the Forces of Good combat the forces of Evil – God is there. Just stepping back from Auschwitz and looking at what was happening during World War II, there were huge Forces of Good that never gave  up, even when they seemed to be defeated. And, ultimately, Good (in one form or another) prevailed. Hitler didn’t get his 1000 year reign. Whether one looks at individual moments of people sharing bread, or the great Resistance all over the world to these Evil Powers, clearly there were both communal and individual forces. I believe that one has to serve The Good – to nurture it, follow it, listen to it, value it, and become increasingly more sensitized to it. I draw great inspiration from the Confessing Church in Germany (one of my favorite theologians, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, was part of this church which stood against Hitler. He was imprisoned and executed shortly before the liberation of the prison.) I’m inspired, as a Christian, of the many stories of Christians (and others) who hid Jews and helped them.  Many books about this – such as The Hiding Place, Pierre Sauvage’s documentary film about the entire village in France which helped Jews – I think it was titled The Triumph of the Spirit.)  So whatever was serving the Good can be seen as the Hand of God.

Thirdly, I think there’s the question of how one experiences the Presence of God in the midst of horrors. When one is weak, and exhausted, and sick, and victimized, and persecuted… well, the dark side can cloud over that sense of God. And, again, that depends on how one defines God. As the Still Small Voice? As the sense of conscience? As the push and shove and nudge toward something that is Good? Or as the personal Guide?  And it would depend if someone was somewhat mystical, and therefore used to tuning in go God, or had a more communal, more intellectual faith. If God is found in community, it can be more difficult to find God when the community has been divided. If God is found in rituals, it might be more difficult to find God when rituals can no longer be practiced. If God is found mainly in the Bible, it can be more difficult when you’re not allowed a Bible and forget the Bible verses. I would think it would be more difficult to find God and continue to sense God’s presence if one didn’t have an active prayer life, and hadn’t felt, at least at times, that mysterious Presence that loves us.

I did see evidence of this Presence of God. First, I saw it in the whole area of conscience. I knew, of course, that Hitler had committed suicide and often wondered why.  Suicide usually comes from shame or despair. I don’t know if any of this was applicable to Hitler, since he probably killed himself because he didn’t want others to have control over him. But, I was surprised by the evidence that shows how clearly the Nazis knew they were wrong, and that showed evidence of shame and despair and conscience. The Nazis blew up the crematoriums at Birkenau to cover up what they had done. Then, I read that many of the Nazis who had executed Jews committed suicide, and clearly had bouts of conscience. If they were doing something they were so proud of, why all this cover-up? So, in the conscience of these people God  still got through to them – in that absence of God that had pervaded their lives, there still was that spark of shame, perhaps also of despair. I saw that as a good thing.

There are two stories I know about and that intrigued me about people that clearly were able to keep a sense of God’s presence alive in spite of everything. Both are Christians.  One is The Hiding Place, a book about Corrie Ten-Boom, who hid Jews, got sent to a camp, led Bible studies in the camp, (not sure if she had a Bible but knew she knew the Bible). She and her sister were in the camps, and her sister died, but Corrie went on to a very good life. A movie was made about her some years ago.

The other was about Father Maximiliam Kolbe who sacrified his life at Auschwitz. We saw the cell where he had been.  A group of about 10 (probably Jews) were going to be starved to death in a cell, and Father Kolbe substituted himself for one of the people. After 2 weeks, everyone had died but him. The Nazis couldn’t believe he was still alive, but word got out that he was still alive which was a huge inspiration to others. He was then killed by lethal injection – again, to make sure his survival wasn’t an inspiration to others.  I would presume that the cell was not without prayer, and kindness, and care. I also know that mystics, yogis, etc. are able often to subsist on very little food, because of their prayer life.  At any rate, clearly these two people did not lose the sense of God’s presence in the midst of this horror.

Peter (my husband) said that God is also in the Witness that we have and give, so that this is not repeated. Of course, it keeps being repeated, but sometimes with more consciousness from more of the world.

It is also possible to look at so much of what happened as a result of many many people not listening to that Still Small Voice that warned them, and called them to respond all along. I hope it tunes us all in to be more aware of catastrophes about to happen.
Of course, I’ve done a lot of theological reading about this, and remain fascinated by so many Biblical stories and ideas that relate to the problem of Evil. I find a rich theology inspirational in itself, but I know, for me, it isn’t just the theology that gets me through tough times.

I’d love to have some time to research a few other questions relating to Auschwitz, I.e., to learn more about Father Kolbe, to find out more about the escapes from Auschwitz (have no idea how that could happen – about 100 people did escape), to learn more about the Resistance Forces and to what extent religion motivated some of these forces, etc. And God is certainly present in the volumes of material that has come out about this horror, and the many reflections about its meanings.

Thank you for visiting my new blog inspired by my book, “Spiritual Steps on the Road to Success”. I hope you’ll come back often as we further explore your spiritual journey!

Warm regards,

Linda Seger, Author

Dr. Linda Seger is the granddaughter of a Lutheran minister, and a member of the Society of Friends (Quakers). She holds an M.A. in Religion and the Arts from Pacific School of Religion, Berkeley, California, a ThD in Drama and Theology from The Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, California, and an M.A. in Feminist Theology from Immaculate Heart College Center, Los Angeles, California.

Dr. Seger has given keynote speeches on theology and spirituality including:

“Spirituality and the Creative Process” Act One Christian Writers Conference – 1999

“Sexuality in the Media” Act One Christian Writers Conference, 2000

“Spiritual Transformations and the Transformation of Character” Act One Christian Writers Conference, 2001

“Being Nudged by God” – Speech given on being Presented with the Candlelight Award by Regents University, 2000

“Spiritual Tests on the Road to Success” Blue Ridge Christian Writers Conference, 2003

“Genesis 1 and the Creative Process” – Blue Ridge Christian Writers Conference, 2004

“Dining with Sinners” Blue Ridge Christian Writers Conference, 2005

Dr. Seger has also given a number of speeches and seminars on the subject of how to convey theological values through drama.

She is also the recipient of the Candlelight Award from Regents University, given to a Christian in the film industry, for “being a light to the entertainment industry.”

Dr. Linda Seger received the Distinguished Alumni Award from Pacific School of Religion in 2002.

In 2001, she received the Living Legacy Award from the Moondance International Women’s Film Festival for her support and work toward equality of women in the film industry.