It was Dr. Parker Palmer in his seminal writing, LET YOUR LIFE SPEAK: LISTENING FOR THE VOICE OF VOCATION wherein he speaks of a pivotal turning point in his life when he ran across a Quaker who advised him to “let your life speak, to let your highest truths and values guide you. Live up to those demanding standards in everything you do.”
This is the work before us as educators, administrators, and Higher education professional. Realizing and recognizing that we let our lives speak when we understand our work as vocation. And that In a real sense, we live out our vocation faithfully by learning to listen. It is through this important text that we learn that the word “vocation” is rooted in the Latin for voice. Vocation, he offers does not mean a goal that I pursue. It means a calling that I hear. Before we can tell our lives what we want it to do, we must listen for what our lives are telling us who we are. We must listen for the truths and values at the heart of our identity, not the standards by which we must live but the standards by which we cannot help but live if we are living our own life.
While Dr. Parker is speaking to our search for meaning and purpose in our lives, I believe the same can be applied to this work in which we are now actively involved. I believe that we are all here and engaged in this great undertaking of educating future generations. Future Doctors, lawyers, engineers, teachers and school administrators. This is more than an occupation for us, this is our vocation. Our calling. Our mission. Our mandate. Our superpower, if you will. And our shared vocation provides us the opportunity to show those we serve that their lives are imbued by their creator with both meaning and purpose. And in so doing, in the walking out of this vocational mandate our very lives find meaning and purpose.
Ours is a unique vocation shouldered by too few who are privileged to serve as catalyst of limitless futures and unrestricted opportunities for so many who have been told by a dominant society and culture that their lives don’t matter. That they are not good enough. That they are defined by where they come from and confined by that reality. Ours, yours and mine, is a shared vocation to those for who too long have been left out, left behind, looked over, and languishing on the periphery of society. That is the vocation to which we have been called. A vocation that when taken seriously and approached soberly can be both redemptive and transformative. Every class, sub-term, semester we are afforded an opportunity to shape the minds and lives of this generation knowing that are work is not in vain. Knowing that we have changed someone’s trajectory in life and redirected them toward their GOD ordained destinies. Knowing that we are on an unrelenting march toward best in future. Knowing that we are afforded the opportunity to embody and model and actively and relentlessly pursue excellence.
It was Victor Frankl who reminded us that “the meaning of life differs from man to man, from day to day and from hour to hour. But what ultimately matters “is not the meaning of life in general but rather the specific meaning of a person’s life at a given moment.” And in this given moment, we have the privilege to serve this present age. In this given moment, we can pave the way to a limitless future. In this moment, we can relentlessly pursue excellence. In this given moment we, as educators, are privileged to help somebody…some first generation college student, some single mother or father, someone recently retired and returning to college.
And in this given moment we can let our lives speak in that poetic parlance of the songwriter who captures this sentiment lyrically by reminding us that if we can help somebody, as we travel along, if we can help somebody, with a word or song. If we can help somebody, from doing wrong, then our living shall not be in vain.
And so I want to encourage us today to continue to listen to the voice of our vocation. Continue to respond to the clarion call. Continue to let your life speak because I believe like Nelson Mandela that “we can change the world and make it a better place, its in our hands to make the difference.” Let your life speak because I believe as Malcolm X believed that “education is the passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to those who prepare for it today. Let your life speak because as King reminded us “intelligence and character is the goal of true education.” Let your life speak because as our esteemed University President, Dr. Hakim Lucas has already declared, it is in our power and under our purview to “remove the stain of inferiority.”
So let your life speak until we as a communiversity are “best in class.” Let our lives speak and embody and exude the relentless pursuit of excellence. Let your life speak until families are restored, communities are reformed, and lives are transformed. Let your life speak until our students faith is restored, their hope is realized, their gifts are actualized, and their talent is maximized.
Paul D. Flowers, Sr. 