Home » Academics » Prof's Office » Office Hours

Office Hours: Distractions

We had just finished an advising session. Peter stood to leave, then sat down heavily.

"One more thing," I deadpanned. "Get some exercise."

"It's not that."

"What then, arthritis? And at your tender age. Tsk."

This time he got the joke. He smiled wanly. "No. I'm just not ready for school to start up again."

"Oh? Why not?"

"I'm so sick of going to college."

"That doesn't quite answer the question," I observed.

"Why doesn't it?"

"You're not lazy. You're doing well. You've told me you like your major."

"Yeah."

"So why are you sick of college?"

"I don't know."

I leaned back, folded my arms, and smiled. "Not good enough."

"I sort of know."

I said nothing.

"It's just — it's just that —"

Wait for it, I thought.

"It's just that it isn't real life."

That wasn't much, but it was better than nothing. "I concede that university life is abnormal," I remarked. "Is that what you mean?"

"I don't know," he hedged. "How do you mean, abnormal?"

I answered, "You're thrown together in an isolation tank with thousands of people, all of them just passing through for a few years, almost all of them the same age, past puberty but unmarried, and physically separated from their parents yet financially dependent on them. Does that strike you as a normal situation for human beings?"

"I hadn't thought of that. I guess it is abnormal."

I laughed.

"But that's not it," he said. "Except maybe the part about just passing through."

"How so? Elaborate."

He produced another wan smile. "You sound like you're writing a comment on one of my essays."

I waved my hand. "You're stalling, my good man."

"I guess you want me to answer the question."

"There's a thought."

"It's just that what I do here isn't — how do I say this? — it isn't my real work."

"Not your real work."

"I think that's what I mean. Like, my life hasn't started yet."

"You don't have enough work to do?"

"I have plenty of work to do."

"But it's not —"

"Not my real work."

"What," I asked, "are you calling your real work?"

He seemed surprised. "What I'm here on earth to do."

"And what would that be?"

Peter seemed surprised that I should ask. "You know. My career — and stuff like that."

I resisted the temptation to put my next remark in declarative rather than interrogative voice. "Do you have a career?"

"No, but I will have one. What's your point?"

I tilted my head inquiringly. "That is my point."

"I don't get it."

"There's no rush about that," I said.

He gave me a funny look.

"What else do you call your real work?" I asked.

He spread his hands — surprised, I thought, by the question. But he merely said, "Serving God. Isn't that what it's all about?"

"It is. But aren't you serving Him now?"

"I try to, Professor T. I'm on the planning committee of the Student Christian Fellowship, and I do some other things too."

"I know you do, Peter, and I'm sure those things serve God. But they aren't what I meant. Is that all?"

"That's what I'm trying to tell you. That's what I'm complaining about. I'd do more, but coursework takes up most of my time."

"You mean it takes you away from your real work."

"Yes. Oh, I see where you're going. You mean that I ought to be patient with my coursework because it's preparing me for my real work some day. But I know that, Prof. It's just that I'm tired of preparing. I wish I was already doing my real work."

"Meaning your career and all those other future things."

"Right."

"How do you know that they are your real work?"

"Are you saying that maybe they're not?"

"Not at all. I've only asked how you know."

"Well," he said, "I've spent a lot of time in discernment, and I think that line of work is my vocation. I think I can best glorify God in the career that I've chosen." He gave me that funny look again. "Prof, I'm still getting the feeling that you disagree."

"No, I'm sure you can discern God's plan for you better than I can."

"Then what is it you're not saying?"

"Has it occurred to you, Peter, that in a certain sense God doesn't call anyone into his vocation?"

He wrinkled his nose. "You mean He wants us to be doing something else?"

I laughed again. "That's not what I mean. Think of it this way. Do you know for sure that you'll live until you begin your career?"

"Nobody knows that."

"Then if you die before beginning your career, will you have disobeyed God's call?"

He shook his head as though to clear it. "Of course not. What are you getting at?"

"Let's try again. If God calls you to do something, should you do it?"

"Of course."

"When? Right away, or after a while?"

"Right away. We're talking about God, aren't we? Hello!"

"I agree. But you say that God has called you to a particular career?"

"Right."

"And that whenever He gives us something to do, we should do it right away?"

"Right."

"But you haven't started your career right away. So by your own reasoning, you've disobeyed Him."

"Prof, I can't pursue my career yet; I'm still preparing for it. Are you feeling all right?"

"Couldn't be better, thank you. Are you saying that you're not in a state of disobedience to God?"

"That's right. To the best of my ability, I'm following my call."

"Again I agree. But Peter, please try to remember something of what I've taught you about logical reasoning these last few years. If you are doing what God called you to do, but you aren't yet working in your career, then in the strictest sense, working in your career couldn't be what He called you to do. So what did He call you to do?"

"Is this a riddle?"

"You could call it that."

He was silent for fully 20 seconds. Then, "I've got it. You mean that God isn't exactly calling me to work in my career, not just yet. What He's calling me to do at this moment is prepare to work in it."

"Correct. You remember something of what I've taught you after all. Now what further conclusion follows?"

"Huh?"

"Peter, don't 'huh' at me. It makes you sound like a sick puppy. A few minutes ago, you said that the reason you're sick of college is that it isn't your real life or real work, that life hasn't started yet. But if what you said just a moment ago is correct, then what follows?"

His eyes opened a little wider. "That this is my real life and I am doing my real work — my real work for now, anyway."

"Now you've got it. You see, you've been thinking of what you'll give to God some day. That's putting the cart before the horse."

"You mean it would be better to think of how to give all this to God right now."

"Exactly."

"There you go again, Professor T."

"There I go again what?"

"Grinning. The way you do sometimes."

"Am I?" I leaned back in my chair again and locked my hands behind my head. "It's just that you've reminded me of my younger self."

"Did you go through the same thing at my age?"

"Not exactly the same thing. But close. And not at your age. I was older."

"How much older?"

"I was already out of grad school. Long out, as a matter of fact. A professor. I was desperate to be doing what I called my real work, just like you are."

"So what kept you from it? You must have finished your graduate studies, or they wouldn't have let you be a professor."

"Oh, sure. I'd finished my doctorate years before. My problem wasn't that I was still in preparation for my real work. It was what I regarded as 'distractions' from my real work."

"To paraphrase a certain professor, what did you call your real work?"

"Research," I answered. "Trying to understand things. Writing up what I thought I understood. Turning out books and articles."

"And what did you consider the distractions?"

"Two things, I guess." I fell into reflection and forgot that Peter was present.

After the silence had continued for a little while, he jolted me back to awareness by asking, "Aren't you going to tell me what they were?"

"Sorry. One of them was teaching."

"What! Isn't that what the faculty are here for?"

"That's not how most faculty think at schools like this, Peter. They think that their research is their real work, and that teaching is merely a sideline, something to pay the bills."

"I can understand a nonbelieving professor having that attitude, but how could a Christian professor have it?"

"Why should that surprise you?"

"Wouldn't he care more about his students?"

"I see now. I just Christianized it. After all, seeking knowledge can glorify God too. Isn't that so? I simply told myself, 'That's what I'm doing.'"

"Was it really what you were doing?"

"I'm afraid not. A medieval Christian writer named Bernard of Clairvaux wrote, 'Some seek knowledge for the sake of knowledge: That is curiosity. Others seek knowledge that they may themselves be known: That is vanity. But there are still others who seek knowledge in order to serve and edify others, and that is charity.' I had plenty of curiosity and vanity. What I lacked was charity."

"So what happened then?"

"It took a while, but I rethought my calling. Eventually I realized that I'd had it all backward. All along, I'd thought research and writing were my vocation, and that teaching was merely a sideline. Now I saw that teaching was my vocation, and research and writing were merely parts of it. For someone else it might be different, but for me, writing turned out to be an extension of teaching, and research gave me something to teach."

"Wow. Figuring that out must have been a pretty big change in your life."

"Yes, it was a bit of a shock. The very thing that I'd considered a distraction from my real life and work turned out to be my real life and real work."

C O F F E E  S H O P

---

What are some ways you're fulfilling God's call on your life?

Join the discussion!

"Just like with me," Peter said. This time it was he who was thoughtful for a moment. Then he said, "Hey, I forgot."

"What?"

"You said that back then there were two things that you'd considered distractions from your real work. One was teaching. But what was the other?"

I shrugged, and gave him a lopsided smile. "Conversations like this."