The Call

On his way to becoming the barber at Port William, Jayber Crow went as an orphan boy to a church orphanage called The Good Shepherd where he received what he figured to be the Call.  The Call was to preach so the next stop was a seminary where Jayber realized he had received a call, but maybe not to preach.  (Jasyber Crow by Wendell Berry)  He is not the first one to have some confusion about being called to preach.  Church pulpits today are often inhabited by people who still are unsure if they were actually called, or if they found their way to such a place another way.   

Back long ago when I was about to graduate from high school, the call to preach came to me one night in my bedroom.  Now it is not proper to talk about it being a call to preach when there are so many other ministry options.   The call to ministry suits most better than the call to preach.  Of course, then was then and not now and it was a simpler time.  Apparently God called people to preach because that was generally the way such a moment was described.   When I heard this call to preach, it was not with the ears of birth, but what I would refer to now as the ears of the spirit.  

Sometimes we know things without the message going through our ears and the night I heard God calling me to preach was one such occasion.  It was something I did not want to hear. It was not what I wanted to choose for my life, but it was an unshakeable Voice and so after some months of trying to get out from under what I knew to be true, I said "Yes" to a call which gave direction to my spiritual journey and my whole life.  Here toward the end of the journey, I cannot imagine having chosen any other calling.   Here when there is more memory now than than there ever has been, I am grateful that God took a chance on a shy introvert boy who could hardly talk himself out of a paper sack and called him to preach.