It’s never too late to find your vocation

The best way to positively influence the lives of others is to be true to our own calling.

Lately, I’ve been thinking about our approach to work at any given time in our lives. More specifically, I’ve been wondering how many of us consider the idea of vocation. Over time we’ve come to understand the word simply as meaning work we do and are good at doing. The online Cambridge Dictionary defines it as “a type of work that you feel you are suited to doing and to which you should give all your time and energy, or the feeling that a type of work suits you in this way”. Whereas Merriam-Webster’s primary definition alludes to an older interpretation of the word: “a summons or strong inclination to a particular state or course of action, especially: a divine call to the religious life.”

I’ve been musing about the idea of vocation in a different way, as being more about the way the work of our lives bears witness (or doesn’t) to the things that we are passionate about, and how we make use of those passions for the benefit of others. That kind of work is not necessarily the means of earning a living — though if we are fortunate enough, it can be. The etymology of “vocation” can be traced to the Latin verb vocare meaning “to call”. In essence, we discern our vocation by what we recognise as the calling for our lives.

I have always loved the abstract paintings of American artist Alma Woodsey Thomas. “Autumn Leaves Fluttering in the Breeze”, painted in 1973 when she was 82, is representative of the kind of vibrant, almost playful, but very detailed abstract work she made in later life. It is composed of a pattern of repeated short brushstrokes of orange paint behind which we catch sight of a background of blue, green and yellow. The effect is like peeking through the leaves of a tree blowing in the autumn wind.

Thomas, born in Columbus, Georgia, in 1891, was in 1924 the first student to graduate with a fine arts degree from Howard University. She spent the next 35 years working as a high school art teacher, before retiring in 1960 around the age of 69. It was only then, in the autumn of her own life, that Thomas was able to commit fully to making her art and began creating the abstract paintings for which she is now celebrated. In 1972, she became the first Black woman to have a solo show at the Whitney Museum in New York. The majority of her work is now held at the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

Learning to honour the way our vocation plays out throughout our lives is about being brave enough and open enough to respond to our gifts

What I love about Thomas’s story is that although she was born and raised during a time when society made it nearly impossible for her, as a Black woman, to pursue her vocation, she was committed to sharing her love of the arts in whatever way she could, to remind others about what is beautiful in the world and how beauty can restore. There is something both moving and powerful about her ability, in her late sixties, to tap more deeply into that sense of personal vocation.

Thomas once said: “I’ve never bothered painting the ugly things in life. People struggling, having difficulty. You meet that when you go out, and then you have to come back and see the same thing hanging on the wall. No. I wanted something beautiful that you could sit down and look at. And then, the paintings change you.”

Her late paintings spur me to consider how the way we live into our vocation can change throughout the different seasons of our lives. Though she did make some art work before retirement, her passion was largely channelled into teaching, which included involvement with many organisations and events that helped people experience art, before it was directed towards her own creative work.

On a recent visit to the National Portrait Gallery in London, I was stopped in my tracks by a picture of the renowned chemist and crystallographer Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin, who in 1964 was awarded the Nobel Prize for her research into the structures of penicillin and vitamin B12.

The portrait, by Maggi Hambling, was painted in 1985 when Hodgkin was 75 years old, and it shows her sitting at a large desk at her home office in Warwickshire. She is wearing a bright sea-green cardigan and dark-rimmed glasses, and is surrounded by stacks of papers. Hambling painted Hodgkin with two pairs of hands, each one engaged in a different task. This doubling has been interpreted as both representing Hodgkin’s arthritis, which began when she was in her twenties, and reflecting how busy and actively committed she remained, even into old age. In the forefront of the painting stands a large structural model of insulin, one of her most significant research findings.

In 1934 she took a passionate interest in the insulin crystal, but a lack of adequate research technology prevented deep analysis. Over the course of the next 35 years, Hodgkin helped develop techniques towards analysis and in 1969 she identified the structure of insulin. Her findings helped make it possible to produce insulin at scale and to treat diabetes better.

I was struck by the artist’s ability to convey Hodgkin’s sense of passion for her work. The painting felt alive with energy and activity. From the bright colours of the books on the shelves to the light-filled room and its view to the outside world, the entire work seemed to invite me into the room with Hodgkin.

Her fascination began in childhood — she is quoted as saying she was “captured for life by chemistry and by crystals” — and with the support of her mother and many mentors along the way she was able to fully realise her vocation. But I have chosen this painting because it’s an example of how, when we are true to our vocation, we are likely to positively influence the lives of other people. And how our passionate commitment to something can also inspire others to consider their own sense of purpose and vocation.

In the 1928 painting “Woman in Thought II” by German expressionist artist Gabriele Münter, a woman sits on a chair with her left leg crossed on her right leg. Her hands are placed on either side of her head. It is a posture that immediately brings to mind “The Thinker” by Auguste Rodin, that famous sculpture emblematic of deep philosophical contemplation.

The woman in Münter’s painting is dressed in a smart, professional outfit: mustard pencil skirt, rose-coloured blouse and sensible black shoes. This suggests to me that although we see her alone in a room, she is a woman out in the world, so to speak. Her gaze is directed at the viewer but she seems to be reflecting on something interior to her own experience. Münter was one of the leading founders of Der Blaue Reiter (the Blue Rider) art movement, which began in Munich at the turn of the 20th century and emphasised a spiritual and emotional dimension of art and a freedom with colour and form.

This work makes me think about how we learn to discern what our vocation is by listening to what is happening in and around our lives. I suspect we glean certain truths about who we are and what we really desire when we cultivate a practice of paying attention to both our interior and exterior lives. It is one way of listening not just with our ears but also with our hearts — including learning to quiet all the voices that try to tell us what our life should look like, and recognising where our gifts and, very importantly, our desires, can meet the needs of the community or the world.

Parker J Palmer, the American author, educator, activist and practising Quaker, once said something about vocation and it’s a quote that I’ve come to cherish over the years: “Before you tell your life what you intend to do with it, listen for what it intends to do with you.” It is from his 1999 book Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation. I read it in my late twenties and it transformed the way I thought about my own life and what it means to try to live with some sense of purpose and authenticity. Like any book that alters me, I ended up recommending it for years. I still do.

I do not believe a vocation needs to lead to public recognition or once-in-a-lifetime accomplishments. Nor do I think we will always get to experience our vocation as the main way we make a living. I think learning to honour the way our vocation plays out throughout our lives is more about being brave enough, patient enough and open enough to respond to our gifts and passions, and to find ways of nourishing those we encounter in our lives, whether within our households and community, our workplaces or larger public arenas. I love this sense that vocation calls on us to use not just our skills and capabilities but also our joy in contributing to the world.