The Irony of It

Anyone who has ever attended Northwestern College (at least in the past 10 years) is familiar with the term "vocare." As burgeoning little freshmen, we were told that God does indeed have a plan for our lives and that during the next four years we, through our liberal arts education, ICLA classes and required chapel activities would begin to discover what that plan was. Vocare, we were told, was not simply a career choice, but the place where our deep passions met the world's deep need. It was a way of life, a calling, a holistic approach to serving God and serving people (and, of course, loving both). We sat in chapels and listened to seniors speak about finding their vocares, about life-changing missions trips, study abroad experiences, and divine direction. We were excited, brimming with naiveté and hope.
And then we, or at least I, reached senior year. And when I did, I still had not found my vocare. There was no divine direction, no evident application for all I had learned in the classroom. I was a writing major with psychology and youth ministry minors and no idea of how I would use any of that after graduation. I had no deep passion. The world's deep needs were too numerous and insurmountable for me to meet. The millions of dollars that Eli Lilly and his foundation provided for NW's Vocare program were wasted on students like me.
Students like me graduate, have a few "life experiences" (I spent 4 months doing mission work/volunteering in England), and then sit at our computers and wonder what to do next. Students like me take jobs in bakeries and restaurants and meat markets. We go into retail and hate it, but we don't really know what else to do, and unfortunately "seeking your vocare" is not a paying occupation. It's sad really, that such an investment (over $2 million) would not have a return.
I want to have a conversation with Mr. Lilly; to apologize to him. I want to say "I'm sorry Eli, but your hard-earned millions have not moved me toward finding God's call on or in my life." I would knock at the door of his palatial home, walk into his sitting room (a room the exists exclusively for sitting), sit down on his overstuffed suede couch, take the cup of tea offered by his adoring wife and have a heart-to-heart over some chocolate chip cookies. "I'm ashamed to admit this," I would confess, "but I have a four-year degree in rhetorical studies and I spend my days reading through lab documents, reformatting amendments to protocols, inserting commas, deleting hyphens and ensuring that "postdose" is one word and "time point" is two.
And then I would take a look around Eli's house. I would see the desk erroneously placed in the room exclusively reserved for sitting, and on that desk I would notice a pen labeled Lilly. I would see notepads for Gemzar, Prozac and Cymbalta. And then I would see a mailing from a company called Chorus and I would start to connect the dots. Because Chorus is the company for whom I just finished reformatting a protocol so that they could begin to test CXV-2333D on the rats that were ordered from Charles Rivers Labs. You see, Eli Lilly is not only concerned with the vocations and futures of young liberal arts students, but also with the toxicity of the compound CXV-2333D and its effects on the reproductive capabilities of the Sprague Dawley rat. The fact is, if it weren't for the reports that were published stating the results of the tests that were run on the rats whose lives furthered the production and success of pharmaceuticals, the students at Northwestern College would not receive $2 million to further their quest for God's call on their lives.
I would turn to Eli, ready to bemoan my empty employment at the preclinical laboratory, but would shut my mouth before the words could escape my lips. We would instead, exchange a knowing look, and I would understand that in Mr. Lilly's eyes, this is my vocare. This is what I do to meet the world's great need.
Eli and I would finish our cookies and possibly sip on another cup of tea. I would thank him for his time as I rose from the couch. And as I moved toward the door he would head to the desk and pick up one of those pens that read "Lilly." He would hand it to me, thinking himself clever for understanding that I am a writer and as such would appreciate the gift of a pen. I would thank him with feigned gratefulness, walk down the drive and get into my '93 Pontiac Grand Am. I would drive back to Kansas City and my job at the testing facility, and as I did I would wonder if the freshmen at Northwestern still came to chapel with hope in their eyes.