Write Answers Only: On Words & Vocation

an introduction to a new series

Photo by Joanna Kosinska on Unsplash

Last week I asked for feedback—and I really appreciate the thoughtful reflections that were shared with me. It’s consoling to know that my words have offered something useful to you. It’s humbling to know you’re even reading them.

And so, as promised, this week I’m starting something new: a limited series devoted to exploring hinge moments in my writing life and the spiritual insights they’ve revealed.

Now hang on—I know what you’re saying, “Eric! Nobody asked for that. Aren’t there enough places on Substack where we can read about the writing life?”

Yes. Yes, there are.

My goal here isn’t to offer you tips and tricks on how to write, how to cultivate a life of writing or how to use your writing to springboard you into a new professional horizon. I’m not sure I have those kinds of insights to share, to be quite honest.

Rather, I simply want to return to key moments in my life as a writer. And I want to do so for two reasons. The first is this: God-at-work in my vocation as a writer has come up again and again in my prayer, and so I believe there is a richness there that needs mining.

In the Ignatian tradition, we talk about “graced histories;” that is, an approach to our personal history that seeks to find God at work in our life stories. I’m struck—and guided—by this insight from one of my favorite Jesuit writers, John English, SJ: “In order to pray with our history we must approach it in the same way that we approach Scripture; that is, as revelation of God’s message to us.”[i]

This is important. It means that our mundane, nitty-gritty, ordinary days are pulsing with God. More so, these humdrum moments can teach us something of God that is worthwhile not just for us individually but for all people.

Which brings me to the second reason I’m writing this series. You may be interested in my writing life; you may not be. It’s fine either way. But what I believe to be true is that regardless, the exploration of a vocation—this deep dive into graced history in search of God’s message—can help us better understand our own vocation, God at work in our own history.

You might not care about my vocation. But I bet you care about your own. Perhaps mine, then, can be used as a mirror, a way to more clearly see your vocational path.

And so, that’s my plan for the next several weeks. There are some themes I’m determined to explore; there are others I imagine will emerge quite unexpectedly. I hope you’ll stick with me.

In the meantime, I invite you to consider that quote from Fr. English. Have you taken the time to “read” your own life? Have you contemplated the scenes and the people therein in the same way you might meditate upon the words of a holy text? If not, why not?

And another thing: I wrote about the spiritual lessons to be learned from vacuuming dead pine needles in your house. Oh—you thought there were no spiritual lessons to be taken from dead pine needles? Challenge accepted.

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[i] p 271, Spiritual Freedom: From an Experience of the Ignatian Exercises to the Art of Spiritual Guidance