THE CALLING VOICE

The voice we should listen to most as we choose
a vocation is the voice that we might think we
should listen to least, and that's the voice
of our own gladness.
What can we do that makes us the gladdest, what
can we do that leaves us with the strongest sense
of sailing true north and of peace, which is
much of what gladness is?
Is it making things with our hands out of wood
or stone or paint or canvas?
Or is it making something we hope like truth
out of words? Or is it making people laugh
or weep
in a way that cleanses their spirit?
I believe that if it is a thing that makes us
truly glad, then it is a good thing and it is
our thing and it is the calling voice that we
were made to answer
with our lives.

- Fredrick Buechner-