Dear church, your political alignment can't save you

I tend to limit my thoughts on politics to the safety of philosophical discussions on the Saturday breakfast table with Jonathan. I do think a lot about it, about which policies I agree with or disagree with, what is the balance between justice and mercy, but it is not something I debate lengthily. This is why I am surprised to find myself writing about it publicly (although be warned this will not necessarily be done in a rational elaborately structured text, but perhaps more of an unloading of the heart). 

Over the past few weeks I have seen my facebook timeline shift from friendly small talk to a bloody battle ground, trenches dug deeply into each side of ideology and beliefs. Insults fly easily, although not more easily than lies (please, stop calling it fake news, that is simply a euphemism for lies); lies spread about people, political parties and presidential candidates. I have seen the same political figures portrayed as demons and as saviours, and I have seen friendships and relationships torn apart by passionate discourses, arguments and the continuous propagation of deception. This is the fuel on which the 2018 Brazilian presidential elections have run. 

We are a passionate culture, and we are not afraid to express emotions - we do this with a vast vocabulary to demonstrate these emotions to an extent that any English speaker wouldn't even imagine possible. But lately all of the passion - often directed at the FIFA worldcup, the local soccer teams or carnaval - has become an angry, hateful discourse of people actually insulting each other because of their political ideas. 

Our open approach to religion has also affected the debate a lot. Talking about religious beliefs is not a taboo, even in universities and highly intellectual institutions; often the myriad of religious beliefs that exist in Brazil are all followed in and believed in at the same time by the same person. Coexistence of different religions has been a consequence of the different groups of immigrants the country received, all of whom brought with themselves a different worldview and religions. Predominantly, though, the country is Christian (both catholic and protestant) and thus, shockingly, many, many horrors have been said during these presidential elections - from all sides - in the name of God. The church and self proclaimed Christians have been the cause of most of my grief as I see this divisiveness spread like wildfire. 

At the end of it all, I cannot feel anger towards any side - even if I do have an opinion on the matter. I can only feel a deep grief for my home country and its people, crumbling under widespread corruption, dishonesty, violence and, ultimately, fear. This is driving people to extreme desperation and to extreme views. Some older and wealthier generations that want to protect whatever comfort and property they have earned (often with hard work) are seeking the protection of extreme right wing, many younger and/or not so wealthy people are seeking the governmental support of the left wing policies. One does not trust the government, the other believes they need governmental interference to survive. Each believe their philosophy will save the country, each believe they are seeking the right candidate, policies and party. Each believe the other side is the enemy. 

For a country that is making many statements and decisions in the name of God, the recent elections have revealed a certain irony in how far this whole affair seems from God. People are not seeking justice, they are demanding blood. A sacrifice. The sacrifice of the other side, the other people that believe something different. They are seeking salvation through this sacrifice of another in the name of their ideology. Rather than targeting the anger to the moral issues that have caused this fear in the first place, they are turning on each other.  

The blood sacrifice that campaigners are pleading for in their messages of hatred is an extreme contrast to the one who - although one with God - gave up everything out of love for others. The one who was a sacrifice in life and in death for others.
One of the reasons I avoid discussing politics is because I do not think I have a clear alignment - I believe all views have good and bad aspects, but none is perfect and none can save a person, much less a country. What makes a country is not its ideology, but its people. They shape the culture, the life and by consequence the economics and politics. If people are corrupt, they will corrupt any system - whether right, left or anything in between. What needs to be transformed is not the ideology, but the people. Ultimately, my unpopular opinion boils down to the fact that as a Christian, I believe the only hope for salvation and redemption is through Christ*.

Put insightfully by a quote misattributed to C.S.Lewis' book "Screwtape letters"**, a fictional work in which Screwtape instructs his apprentice-temptor nephew Wormwood, it is eerie the resemblance to our current setting:

"My dear wormwood,
Be sure that the patient remains completely fixated on politics. Arguments, political gossip, and obsessing on the faults of people they have never met serves as an excellent distraction from advancing personal virtue, character and the things the patient can control. Make sure to keep the patient in a constant state of angst, frustration and general disdain towards the rest of the human race in order to avoid any kind of charity or inner peace from further developing. Ensure the patient continues to believe that the problem is “out there” in the “broken system” rather than recognising there is a problem with himself.
Keep up the good work,
Uncle Screwtape"
- Screwtape letters, C.S.Lewis

So my plea to my home country is that since so much is being said about God, then do look to him. Look to the Jesus you swear by and pray to. Look at his life and let it transform you, your message and your politics. Your politician is not your messiah, your ideology is not your salvation. 

To the Christians who are feeling they are failures because they could not influence the outcome in the first round, feeling powerless in light of a possibly very gloomy future, who have been seeking discernment quietly in prayer, to those who are disheartened and who have lost hope, also look to him. Look to him as you continue to seek justice for the oppressed and as you continue to lay down your weapons - as you give up the comfort of a protective crowd defending an ideology;  look to him for comfort as you long for the world to be as it should; look to him as as you love your enemy - perhaps in that very enemy you will come to see your brother. 

Take heart knowing that Jesus lived in a time of Roman dominion with an emperor in power, in a time when he was executed although there was no evidence against him, and yet this did not prevent him from loving those around him or keep him from his mission on earth. That doesn't mean his mission was easy or painless - but it was good, perfect and acceptable to God. Regardless of who wins or who loses in the second round of the elections, we know what our mission is and we know where our true hope lies. 

*A brief note: By this statement, I want to make it clear I do not think politics and the church should mix, history shows clearly how badly that can go. But I do believe that through Christ we can learn to love, be humble, gentle, kind, patient: this can better equip all of us - those who write the law, those who enforce the law, those who live under the law - and make a better society. Many good and successful law systems even if not openly Christian are based on the basic principles of Christian values, such as love, justice, mercy and charity.

**Edit: I thought this quote was C.S.Lewis' but it was pointed out to me that though widely used around the internet it is not actually from the book, though the ideas are similar to some in the book. Quite ironic that in the very text I criticise fake news I propagated a misattributed quote; apologies to all readers! 

When your heart isn't in it.

For a very long time I found it easier to spend time with God during difficult times. Due to many things happening growing up, my faith was a core value which kept me going and taught me how to be a christian in times of crisis. There is something about the depths of despair, loneliness, depression or pain that makes it necessary to remember constantly God's love, mercy and justice just to get by each day. My big problem right now is that this means that I never learnt what it means to follow Jesus in times of peace.

As things have in some ways gotten quieter, my time in prayer has not been an emotional experience anymore - there is no burden to be put down, there isn't a particular relief after prayer that makes me feel much better having done it. Life is good, and if I didn't have some deep question or request, where does prayer fit into life? My faith wavers sometimes and my attention is driven to other things. I have tried sitting and praying, waiting for something incredible and supernatural to happen - but  often nothing happens. I have tried forcing myself to be contemplative, trying to take grand conclusions about theology or God even from trivial phenomena. A friend, many years ago, even asked "why are you forcing your relationship with God to be contemplative?" - the reality is, I thought this was what it meant to be a Christian. It has only been recently that my views on this have finally been challenged: is the emotional experience I think I need to have every time I spend with God biblical or cultural? I remember particularly when talking to my friends the unanimous opinion that 'praying is very hard' set me to think: why does it feel so difficult? 

Christianity is not an emotional experience

In the Bible, many prayers come in moments of emotional extremes - either praise and celebration prayers or praying for help/deliverance. One look through the psalms and you'll find 150 examples of people either being completely enraptured with God himself or being completely desperate. So, yes, prayer does seem to have some connection to emotion. But we also have examples of the exchanges with God being more continuous, a daily, regular affair. For example, Daniel prayed three times a day (Dn. 6.10) and Jesus would take some time away from the crowds to pray and be in solitude (Luke 6.12-13, Mark 3.13, Mt. 13.14). Why do we find it so difficult to do so now? 

A few days ago I opened my Bible hoping for something exciting, uplifting and... instead had to read about Ezekiel's vision of a man who looked made of bronze measuring every single wall, gate and room in the new temple. The next day, more measurements. The next day, more measurements again. My quiet time really felt like a one way conversation, and after three days of this - when I was really hoping to hear God say something through his word - was, well, disappointing. 

I would not be surprised if, like me, more people thought that do be 'doing quiet time right' we need the big emotional revelation every time. Perhaps it is a way of seeking an instant reward for it: I took time to pray, therefore God will make me happy/give me insight into my future and decisions/fix this for me. If God did not give me my little golden star, then I have no immediate motivator to pray or it means I don't know how to do it - and therefore I don't try again. Or perhaps we even feel like it is a source of embarrassment - when people have piles of incredible stories of incredible answers to prayer and after years you still have 'nothing to show' the shame and possibly guilt (is there something wrong with me? am I worse than others?) might be disheartening. 

I think that this is an area where our current culture has made us lose the plot in our belief. Too often an emotional experience is raised far higher than an intellectual one, and while emotion can be a part of the Christian experience it would make for a very fragile belief system if it relied on how we feel. And this is where Christianity and the ample evidence for the events it affirms (for more on this I would recommend I don't have enough faith to be an atheist), the rational belief should continue to be sufficient to motivate us to live according to its values - even when you're reading about the number of cubits of the east wall of the new temple has. 

While very often we pray for God to change our emotions such as to help us to feel love towards others, to help us to love him more, seek his will and to act in a way that pleases him - all very good things - the Bible does not command us to feel a certain way. It commands us to live a certain way. It gives us very hands on advice: "train yourself to be godly" (1 Tim. 4.7), "This is why we labor and strive" (1 Tim. 4.10) , " [the Spirit of God] gives us power, love and self discipline". Making the right decision and acting on it may lead us to having the right feelings, but waiting around for the feelings to show up is failing to understand the importance and urgency to obey. 

I know it may sound like a massive cliché, but the fact that we have a relationship with God is the all transforming key concept in Christianity. We are not seeking enlightenment through contemplation, we are also not doing good things to get good things back: unlike many philosophies and belief systems, we are not the centre. 

Overwhelmingly the metaphor used for God in relation to his people is the one of God being the father (just to cite a few, Psalm 68.6, Malachi 2.10, 1 Corinthians 8.6, Ephesians 4.6), and having a relationship with him means taking the back seat and often obeying when we don't know why. 

If I think about God as father, daily time with him suddenly makes a lot more sense - I think of a family dinner table where the eight year old at the end of the day telling dad what happened that day: this happened in school, this made me sad, I had an exam, I made a new friend. Conversation is not big and emotional necessarily - although those times may come - but it is simple, honest and routinely. Importantly, the child also hears the father - perhaps even talking about something that it doesn't understand yet, but is still listening and learning. And one day in the future, many years from now, it may remember that conversation and respond appropriately because its dad said something about that (maybe one day the size of the eastern wall will make sense...). 

In my experience of someone with wobbly faith, being rationally convinced about Christianity and acting in spite of not feeling like it has kept me going through seasons of confusion or even plain apathy. In fact, if you have ever had a meaningful relationship - a parent, a sibling, a close friend, a spouse - you probably know how important acting in spite of how you feel can be for a relationship. Whether it is because of a fight or just something that made you sad, sulking or holding a grudge is the same as saying 'how I am feeling is more important than you are'. But, set aside those feelings and act like you feel like you love them and you are then far more likely to actually go back to feeling love for them again. 

In light of all of this theoretical discussion about spending time with God even when your heart isn't in it, I have compiled a few things that have helped me in those seasons. I know that many of the blog's readers are far more experienced and wise, so please feel free to leave in the comments any suggestions of things I haven't added to the list that have helped you, and hopefully we can help each other keep striving towards godliness together. 

•  Look at other people's written prayers: The Lord's prayer is an incredible place to start, it embraces everything from being grateful, seeing God for who he is up to asking for forgiveness, asking for help even in the most basic needs up to asking for help to live well. Other prayers from the Bible, or the book of common prayer or by other authors can sometimes be helpful. 
• Pray for others (people, nations, world). It helps to keep things in perspective. 
• Pray with other people - friends, spouse, family, you name it. One can encourage the other and it helps the mind not to wander so much. 

I once could see, but now am blind

When I first started doing research there was limited choice of biology projects in my university - that was how I ended up researching in molecular biology for about a year and a half. My mother found it incredibly entertaining that I ended up working with the tiniest units biology dabbles in, because apparently I had a tendency to like small things and particularly small toys when growing up. Small dolls that were around 5 mm tall, tiny houses and utensils, anything small that I could spend a very long time setting up (and then maybe play with for about 5 minutes) were the idea I had of a great time. Now as I set up experiments in tubes that can hold maybe 200 µl, pippeting incredibly small amounts as low as 0.2µl (for a reference of how small that is, the volume of a drop of water is of the order of 20-50 µl, so 100 - 250 times smaller than a drop of water), my skills developed in setting up tiny houses have come in very handy in the lab. 

The only frustrating part I have found with molecular biology is that things are so incredibly tiny that you can't really see what you are doing for a really long time - a lot of it is moving small amounts of colourless liquid to other tubes with small amounts of colourless liquid - and hoping for the best. You spend a long time setting up an experiment - preparing or ordering reagents, using online databases to design primers that will determine what chunk of DNA you want more copies of. You then carefully try to follow a little 'recipe' and put all those 'ingredients' that often don't look any different than water and then wait a few hours of different temperature cycles and see what the readings of the machine say. 

Sometimes, you find out that you forgot an ingredient and that all of it was a waste of time. Other times you find out that your preparation wasn't good enough. Far too often it doesn't work (or does work) and no one knows why - but hey, that's just the way biological sciences work. 

But then there are the incredibly rewarding times when it does work! Even though you weren't sure that you were doing the right thing, you followed the instructions that other scientists have discovered, you followed them, you put a little faith in the equipment you used and that its readings would be accurate and... voilá! It did work afterall! 

The journey can be incredibly challenging and requires huge amounts of resilience. After my first research project in molecular biology I almost left research entirely. Not being able to see what was happening in real time, depending on long and expensive procedures and gambling that maybe on the 36th attempt it would work... made me feel like I had no control over my work. 

Growing up as a student, researcher and person I have had to grow more acquainted with that feeling than I would have liked to. Naïvely I assumed that this was a feeling unique to research, but as the following sequences of failures, occasional successes and complete uncertainty about the future, I found that biology - ironically the greek for 'study of life' - was also preparing me for life outside of the lab. 

The same way that I liked setting up my little tiny toys, I also discovered I liked setting up my life - nice and neatly organised, building up towards a future I envisioned. 12 years ago, I set up my life to be an architect. 11 years ago I set it up to be a doctor, but I ended up starting studies in hope to become a biomedical engineer. I set it up next to go to study in the Netherlands, then England, and somehow ended up in Ireland. Forget biomedical engineering, I now wanted to do a PhD in Cork - but I ended up going to do a masters in neuroscience, and starting a PhD in Oxford. Not unlike research, I set up my experiments in one way, they worked a completely different way, and no one knows why. Well...no one?

"I know, O Lord, that a man's life is not his own; it is not for man to direct his steps."
- Jeremiah 10.11 

I did try very hard to direct my steps and set everything up, but things turned out completely different. Sometimes the outcome was far more challenging and difficult than what I had planned, some times it ended up being less prestigious and others more prestigious. Often the way God set things up was incredibly frustrating, stressful and there were many tears along the way - but I think I can put confidence in the 'read outs' that these are not isolated chaotic coincidences: they were events which prepared me for a future that I could not yet see or even imagine. 

Perhaps the reason why I like small things is that I am near sighted - as in, I physically have myopia. In several societies in the past, I probably would be considered blind and a useless member of society. If we go back far enough, I probably would have been eaten by a bear already. Perhaps in the metaphorical sense this is my issue too. My eyes form the image of things before the beams of light have hit my retina. This makes my eyesight for things that are close very good, but quite poor for anything further away. I form an image of what I want to aim for too soon. I focus on what is close because that is all I can see. My physical eyesight can be corrected by my glasses, but the metaphorical aspect is not quite as straight forward. There is no way that I can see into the future. 

Often I have found myself asking God to show me things, to open my eyes, to help me see where I am going when trying to make decisions. I have asked him to reveal things to me and correct my sight - which I thought was entirely consistent with a God that returned sight to the blind. But was it?

"I will lead the blind by ways they have not known, along unfamiliar paths I will guide them; I will turn the darkness into light before them and make the rough places smooth. These are the things I will do; I will not forsake them. But those who trust in idols, who say to images, 'you are our gods' will be turned back in utter shame.
Hear, you deaf; look you blind, and see! Who is blind but my servant, and deaf like the messenger I send? Who is blind like the one committed to me, blind like the servant of the Lord?"
- Isaiah 42.16-19

This passage really surprised me when I read it a couple of months ago. It suddenly put into question many prayers I had made when seeking guidance for the future. I always thought that as a Christian, seeking God's will we would have extra insights and that he would show me things clearly. In hindsight, this didn't often happen. My prayers were for me to be able to see what God was doing, not about trusting him in whatever he was doing. But a lot of my life and things that happened to me were less like having a carefully detailed map to get from A to B, but stumbling in the dark while trying to get to B and somehow ending up in Z instead. 

A few details that I find interesting about this passage are: 

• "along unfamiliar paths" - being in an unfamiliar path without seeing sounds, well, a lot like being lost.
• "I will turn the darkness into light before them" - for things to 'turn into light before them' they need to be dark in the first place
• "make the rough places smooth" - for him to be the one making things smooth they need to be rough in the first place

All in all, this sounds like frightfully awful business - being blind, lost, in the dark and in rocky terrain. It definitely does not sound like the sea of roses some people try to sell Christianity to be. And yet... those who are called to this frightful situation, God's servant who does not trust his own sight, his own step and his own knowledge of the terrain - the potential idols in this metaphor - those are the ones God says "I will not forsake them". So... the choice is between your own perception and steadiness vs. the help of the creator of the universe that can flatten mountains, create light, and knows everything. Rationally, with these two choices, it sounds like there shouldn't even be up for debate. But anyone that has experienced suffering is not inclined to walk voluntarily into circumstances such as these. Often life is not clear cut and the 'decision according to God's will' does not have flashing neon signs pointing in a particular direction. He is not yelling with a megaphone where is the dark place he will be with us in. In fact, our prayers are often met with eerie silence. 

Therefore, I will not even try to over rationalise this with theoretical answers that are no good. I am currently in one of those places of doubt and silence, and if I had a clear and obvious answer I wouldn't be here in the first place. The best I can do is talk from where I am.

There are a few things I have found comfort in. Obviously, prayer and God's word rank highly. But often the past - ours and of others - can bring a comfort absent in the present. Seeing other times in which God has broken through darkness can reinforce trust in him in spite of our blindness. What are things that God has done in the past in your life? There have also been other brave and wise Christians that have come ahead of us and have trod paths of uncertainty and pain - what do they have to say? 

"We commented to Corrie [Ten Boom] about the practicalness of the things she recalled, how her memories seemed to throw a spotlight on problems and decisions we faced here and now. "But," she said "this is what the past is for! Every experience God gives us, every person He puts in our lives is the perfect preparation for a future that only He can see.""
- Elizabeth Sherrill in preface to The Hiding Place, by Corrie Ten Boom

And as a prayer for someone in one of those situations, I recently found Psalm 143. Where comfortingly we find even David in a very human situation crying out to God for guidance, which could be a helpful guide to prayer. 

"Lord, hear my prayer,
listen to my cry for mercy;
in your faithfulness and righteousness
come to my relief. (...)

Let the morning bring me word of your unfailing love,
for I have put my trust in you.
Show me the way I should go,
for to you I entrust my life.
Rescue me from my enemies, Lord,
for I hide myself in you.
Teach me to do your will,
for you are my God;
may your good Spirit
lead me on level ground."

- Psalm 143.1, 8-10 

The God of the present tense

Since my last post life has gotten very interesting and has been completely turned upside down in relation to what it was. I have gotten married to my best friend and I have started my DPhil in the University of Oxford. 

For a long time I had liked the idea of studying in Oxford or Cambridge. I remember upon finishing school investigating to find out which universities had degrees in biological anthropology and finding that the university of Oxford had the course - but being incredibly disappointed to find that merely the application cost 50 pounds - a fortune for an unemployed 17 year old in Brazil. In spite of Granny mentioning her musings that I perhaps should apply for a university in the UK, the dreams died out fast with the notion of overseas fees. Now, 8 years later I found myself in the very university I had dreamed about - and with full funding and a stipend. 

But more than that, my days outside of working hours have been completely changed - after moving around and doing life solo I now have someone I love deeply to come home to, to listen to, to have interesting discussions over breakfast or at night when the lights are out. The dreadful feeling of loneliness that haunted me has suddenly been extinguished by constant friendship and companionship. 

The strange thing I have found in the sequence of unlikely events that has brought me to the place in life that I am currently in, is the realisation that I have crossed the finish line I was aiming for. The dream has become day to day life. The hope of having a family, doing life with Jonathan is now every waking moment spent at home. An ancient university is not a vague notion of a 17 year old in Brazil, but where I spend a good part of my day. I have found that the strangest aspect of a dream is that sometimes it can in fact become reality, and that is almost as - if not more - terrifying than a dream being lost. 

I found that for the first time I was not aiming at the next holiday in camp Sol da vida, nor to get into university, or to get a masters, or to get a DPhil, or to plan a wedding. I crossed the finish lines I had been progressively setting up for myself, and I suddenly found myself confused.

The change was not only in my psyche, but it was even in my relationship with God. For so long so much of my time spent in prayer was about if we should get married, if I should go back to Ireland, if I should apply to come to England (in the form of work or a PhD)... and suddenly, when all the cards of the game were played I realised how much of my relationship with him had been less about getting to know him and more about what I should do. My 'special calling' in life became so important to be uncovered, like a lost secret or a locked room that I forgot all about the Caller. 

Perhaps it is because of a very strange and scientifically inexplicable sequence of events bringing me into life in this world that I had some narcissistic notions of grandeur - surely I was put here to do something extraordinary. Surely I had to work hard to do memorable things. But, at the end of the day, even though the ideas I had were ambitious the reality is that Oxford University is a university like any other - with good things and bad things (plus a lot of latin and some funny clothes that make us look like penguins). Where I have to wake up, read, study and work on a day to day basis. There have been no supernatural occurrences that have made me especially smart or capable. If anything, it has been an experience where I did very well in things I thought I was terrible at and terribly at things I thought I was good at. 

Where is God in all of this? What is his next great act? When is the big reveal of the next incredible thing I can do? 

As I worked through all this, Christmas came in perfect timing. Even though not accurate in date as to when Jesus was actually born, it still celebrates a pretty remarkable event in the world. One of the largest events of cosmic significance. An event that people had been waiting for and prophesying about for centuries, something that many believed to be a dream, came crashing into the world we know very unexpectedly. God himself would come, whom many expected would come as a strong military and/or political figure to free his people! And instead of crashing thunder and him coming into scene strong and larger than life with the sound of trumpets, sound effects, light effects, a Gandalf-like picture riding in white to save them all... in comes a baby? Possibly one of the weakest most vulnerable creatures possible? Born not even in an inn or a house but to a poor teenage girl in a stable? God himself would come through the pain of labour, with messy blood in a smelly stable to a likely very scared couple of newlyweds? Talk about a cosmic anticlimax. 

But this was the thing that hit me about how I was trying to understand my 'calling' and meaning in the world. I had this vague idea I had constructed of grandeur, when in fact my dream is a day-to-day job like any other. But this does not make it less important. Similarly, in spite of angels coming to speak to Mary and Joseph, perhaps in that moment of birth, with pain and effort or even as Jesus was growing up they didn't necessarily think about how significant this was in history. In fact, if we look at the Bible there are some extraordinary events - like the parting of a sea, a virgin birth, blind men being healed to see. But an awful lot of the Bible has all the nitty gritty messy things of every day human life: marriage, birth, good decisions and bad decisions. The kings and the peasants all have roles, the prophets had families and children, political events take place and economic negotiations are made. God is not only present in the larger than life events. He was as much the God of David when they have to go to battle as he is the God of Ruth and Naomi when in a patriarchal society God gives them food and a family. 

I thought the main point of my relationship with God was figuring out what calling he had for me in this vague thing called 'the future', but he is not a distant God like a dream. He is the God of the present tense, of the simplest most ordinary human events. Many people are remembered in human history for doing big and important things - either for good reasons or bad reasons. And I confused having a calling that gave my life significance with having a calling that might be memorable. But importance and remembrance of an event are very, very different things. It is possible that the most important thing I may ever do in my life is to in one moment in time smile to a stranger that is having a very bad day. It may not be memorable to me, to the person or anyone else for that matter but God makes extraordinary events come from the fabric of day-to-day existence. 

In fact, I daresay that it is possible that the most commendable actions for our society - perhaps being a war hero in a particular battle, someone having one moment of bravery (or foolishness) seems very dim compared to how remarkable it is for someone to sacrifice their own life and dreams every single day to care for a sick child or parent. 

The Bible may have many impressive characters - people who served in the Persian, Egyptian and Babylonian court with important roles. But what made them remarkable people was not their position, but their daily life where they sought to know, love and please God. They just happened to reflect this in the work they did. The man that Christians are supposed to follow and imitate, Jesus himself was known because of how he did life every day, with the people that followed him, with the outcasts of society, with the lonely and the wounded. He made even the most mundane interactions - like having a meal or talking to someone - extraordinary because of his daily decisions. 

It has taken me a quarter of a century to realise that what defines me is not what I am building myself towards in my career or what I hope to be. Waiting to hear a supernatural calling I neglected the calling I already had before me: 

“If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul?"

I am called to follow him every day of my life, not on Sundays, weekends or bank holidays. Not only when I am happy, not hungry, not tired and the stars align in a particular way. I am not only called when there are flashing neon signs of where to go, or when I have received funding in a particular university. God is calling every day. Finding a calling or vocation is not about sitting and waiting for answers, but living daily calling to live and love in spite of questions.

"You are so young, so before all beginning, and I want to beg you, as much as I can, to be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves - like locked rooms and like books that are written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. The point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer."
- Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a young poet