At the corner of gladness and need

I've been thinking lately about vocation, and wondering why I told myself I could become a writer. A writer is, of course, someone who writes, and so when someone like me says: "I want to be a writer," what he means is that he wants to make a living from his writing. More than that, he probably means that he wants to make a considerable amount of money, and receive widespread accolades, all while creating what he believes constitutes true art. But for shorthand he says: "I want to be a writer."

One of the surest ways to determine if someone who wants to be a writer can, in fact, become a writer is to examine his output. I know more than a few people who want to be writers, but not so much that they actually write. They think about writing, and talk about it, and perhaps take classes, and occasionally begin a short story, or tap out a blog post. They devote more mental energy to the thought of being writers than to mastering the craft of writing.

But among aspiring writers who actually devote themselves to honing their craft, there is still the distinction between those who make a living at it, and those who do not. This is only tangentially related to talent; Flannery O'Connor noted that if "people can learn to write badly enough, they can make a great deal of money." It is connected, however, to one's ability to write in a manner that will attract a paying audience, be they high, low, or middle-brow. Add to this the necessity of attracting a publisher with some marketing muscle, and competing for the decreasing sliver of mental energy devoted to reading, and the would-be writer is by no means assured that his words will ever pay even the interest on his bills.

Why, I have thought more than once, did I think I could make a go at this? It's a purely selfish question, because I have a job. Insofar as I get paid to write, it's on freelance gigs. So most days I have more words to set down than minutes to sort them out into paragraphs and scenes and chapters. In my reflective moments I sometimes brood over this reality, and wonder whether I haven't let a hobby get too big for its britches. So I can turn a phrase every once in a while. Who am I to be a writer?

Perhaps you've had a similar period of self-doubt. Maybe you have some skill and passion that you want to pursue, but don't know if it's a pipe dream. It was with this in mind that I read the account in Exodus of the building of the tabernacle: "and in the hearts of all who are skillful I have put skill, that they may make all that I have commanded you." Other translations read: "in the hearts of all who are wise-hearted I have put wisdom."

What struck me is that God not only gives us skill, He gives us passion. He gives us the desires of our heart. The difficulty is in discerning the difference between our selfishness and His purpose, but these verses tell me not to discount passion. I write because I can't help it. I write because sometimes, in the midst of it, I feel like I am doing what I was crafted to do. That verse from Exodus, which I'd never noticed before, helps me make sense of that feeling.

The writer by whom I've been most inspired, Frederick Buechner, says: "The vocation for you is the one in which your deep gladness and the world's deep need meet." At the very least, I've got the first half covered. And most days, that's enough.