Yesterday, during our weekly group meeting, Jen, Robby and I talked a bit about our futures. This internship is, after all, about vocation, and trying to decipher and discover what ours might be.
After an exceptional experience as a FYSOP staff member in the Public Health Awareness issue area, I couldn’t help but feel that public health–global heath, even–is what I’ve wanted to do all along; I just didn’t know what it was called. I suppose I always thought that “public health” was a clinical, medical thing, and my academic strengths and passions have never been in any field that has the word “science” involved. However, FYSOP made me realize that public health is really about the community’s health, which has so many different aspects and influences. Suddenly, I felt called to go into public health.
And yet, I couldn’t forget how fascinated and stimulated I felt studying conflict resolution this summer in Geneva and London through a BU study abroad program. I’d even spent long hours after the program ended (I was missing it dearly) trolling the internet searching for the world’s strongest programs in peace and conflict studies. This summer made me want to work in a place affected by conflict, trying to help resolve or rebuild. Just what I thought I’d do there, however, I wasn’t quite sure.
Sometimes, things just click. Why not do public health work in an area affected by conflict? Say, northern Kenya or western Democratic Republic of the Congo? As these ideas were swirling around in my head, I sat down for our group meeting. Did you know, Jen asked, that you can do dual masters programs at many universities, including the one you’re studying at? I did not, I replied. We talked about the strength of BU’s School of Public Health and the university’s research on global health. Jen reminded me of a program in the School of Theology on conflict transformation that she and Soren had told me about several months ago. How interesting, I thought. And how well those two might go together.
Starting out on my junior year of college, I’ve started to develop a pretty good idea of the kind of thing I’d like to do with my life, and I look forward to seeing how this internship will help me continue that path of discerning my vocation in life.
One Comment
Mary Kay posted on September 24, 2012 at 5:17 pm
How awesome for you, Emma! We are excited for you, to be discovering where your passions, strengths and talents intersect with the great need of the world. And of course, I’m especially excited to see you express a desire not only to work for social justice through two causes close to my own heart–peace and conflict resolution AND seeking to provide better health care for the neediest! So proud of you!
I found this quotation from Parker Palmer, a well-known Quaker educator:
“Today I understand vocation quite differently–not as a
goal to be achieved but as a gift to be received. Discovering
vocation does not mean scrambling toward some prize just
beyond my reach but accepting the treasure of true self I
already possess. Vocation does not come from a voice “out
there” calling me to become something I am not. It comes
from a voice “in here” calling me to be the person I was born
to be, to fulfill the original selfhood given me at birth by God.
It is a strange gift, this birthright gift of self. Accepting it
turns out to be even more demanding than attempting to become someone else!…
Our deepest calling is to grow into our own authentic self-
hood, whether or not it conforms to some image of who we
ought to be. As we do so, we will not only find the joy that every human being seeks — we will also find our path of authentic service in the world. True vocation joins self and service, as Frederick Buechner asserts when he defines vocation as ‘the place where your deep gladness meets the world’s deep need.'”
Excerpt from
Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation
by Parker J. Palmer
http://www.explorefaith.org/palmer/chp2_9.html