Bernhard Christensen Center for Vocation
Memorial Hall 233612-330-1202ccv@augsburg.edu
Uncovering Vocation is a partnership between Campus Ministry and the Christensen Center for Vocation at Augsburg University. Every 2nd and 4th Tuesday of the month, a member of the Augsburg community is invited to share a component of their vocation story. It has become a way of building community, becoming reacquainted with one another, and celebrating the diversity of people and vocations that make Augsburg University the beautiful place it is.
Uncovering Vocation is a partnership between Campus Ministry and the Christensen Center for Vocation at Augsburg University. Every 2nd and 4th Tuesday of the month, a member of the Augsburg community is invited to share a component of their vocation story. It has become a way of building community, becoming reacquainted with one another, and celebrating the diversity of people and vocations that make Augsburg University the beautiful place it is.
One morning about a month ago, as I was running around the house, getting everyone ready for school, when my 3.5 year old son drew an almost perfect circle on a leather stool with a bright red, permanent marker. When I came in the room he pointed to it with the marker and said, “I did not do this.” I frantically told him: We only draw on paper. And asked him repeatedly, “why did you do that?” He responded with tears, apologies, and a smirky 3 year old smile that told me he was both sorry and not sorry. I don’t think I will ever know “why” he did it but I imagine he got the idea and he couldn’t NOT draw the bright red circle while no one was looking. It was a little bit brave and I think he knew it. He definitely took a risk with his selection of media. But he went for it.
After scrubbing the chair with nail polish remover, I crouched down next to him and said, “That was a very beautiful circle. Next time, please draw it on paper”.
I tell this story because I believe in the idea that everyone and everything is a teacher. The story of the red circle is funny and playful (in hindsight of course) and it is also a statement about how I try to understand what each moment is teaching me. And what I am teaching others through my life and work. Continue reading “Give Your Gifts Freely by Dr. Jennifer Diaz (Education)”
Uncovering Vocation is a partnership between Campus Ministry and the Christensen Center for Vocation at Augsburg University. Every 2nd and 4th Tuesday of the month, a member of the Augsburg community is invited to share a component of their vocation story. It has become a way of building community, becoming reacquainted with one another, and celebrating the diversity of people and vocations that make Augsburg University the beautiful place it is.
I’m going to start by reading a few quotes that I find fit well in the story I’m about to share.
The last quote by MLK really resonates with me because as a teenager, I came to the United States on a foreign student visa albeit not on a ship but I am indeed in the same boat now.
On that note, let me introduce myself, my story and why I chose to speak about harmony through Unity. I hope to show through some of my stories why I feel my calling is that of a unifying person.
I was born in the “République de Côte d’Ivoire” in West Africa known in English as the Ivory Coast, to Lebanese parents in a mostly French speaking household. I grew up exposed to Ivorian, Lebanese and French cultures and foods. Continue reading “Together in Harmony by Jad Habib”
Uncovering Vocation is a partnership between Campus Ministry and the Christensen Center for Vocation at Augsburg University. Every 2nd and 4th Tuesday of the month, a member of the Augsburg community is invited to share a component of their vocation story. It has become a way of building community, becoming reacquainted with one another, and celebrating the diversity of people and vocations that make Augsburg University the beautiful place it is.
In this heartfelt conversation, we will explore the path of discovering and pursuing a calling inspired by a desire to serve and a belief in the goodness of humanity. We will discuss the ups and downs of this journey with empathy and honesty. Moreover, we will highlight the strengths and weaknesses of each step and guide individuals toward resources within the community that can facilitate profound realizations.
The first human I ever loved and respected was a teacher. The first human who ever broke my heart was also a teacher. Consequently, I’ve always wanted to be a teacher, and I never wanted to be a teacher. Although I understand this idea is contradictory, for me, it was as natural as breathing.
While growing up in rural and forgotten Mexico, I always looked up to my father. He was a respected man and a cherished leader in his community. The farmers, artisans, and elder leaders of this rural landscape always asked for his opinions. They trusted him with their children’s education. Yet, at the same time, this caring social leader, excellent teacher, and public intellectual would open a bottle and become distant and careless to his family. Continue reading “I shouldn’t be here, and yet, here I am tracking a calling By Dr. Sergio Madrid, Education”
Uncovering Vocation is a partnership between Campus Ministry and the Christensen Center for Vocation at Augsburg University. Every 2nd and 4th Tuesday of the month, a member of the Augsburg community is invited to share a component of their vocation story. It has become a way of building community, becoming reacquainted with one another, and celebrating the diversity of people and vocations that make Augsburg University the beautiful place it is.
On September 12, 2023 Dr. Jennifer Bankers-Fulbright from Augsburg’s biology department shared her story, “Vocation Favors the Prepared Mind (or ‘How I Got to Augsburg’)”. Enjoy a video of her talk and the transcript below.
If you ask any scientist how they became a scientist or any university professor how they became a university professor, the vast majority will say they don’t remember ever wanting to do anything else. That is not my origin story. When people asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up when I was little, I gave them a whole list: singer, dancer, actress, mother, (and when my mom told me I could check boy careers too) fireman, doctor, police man – I checked all the boxes ☺ Except scientist. Or teacher.
And this continued, though not with much thought, throughout my childhood until …at the end of 9th grade, I knew exactly what my ultimate goal was – my vocation. It was time to register for HS classes, and my future was spelled out in all the electives that were now available to me, a high schooler!! Finally!! The next 3 years were going to be amazing, because I was going to register for every elective that would prepare me for my chosen career: THEATER!
I giddily gave my 10th grade registration form to my parents to sign, and family lore recreates this moment like this:
Me: “Here’s what I’m taking in high school next year! Isn’t it great?!”
Parents: “Hahaha! No.” Continue reading “Uncovering Vocation – Vocation Favors the Prepared Mind (or “How I Got to Augsburg”) Dr. Jennifer Bankers-Fulbright”
Dr. Christina Erickson, Social Work on January 24th, 2023
Reading: By Anne LaMott
My coming to this vocation did not start with a leap but rather a series of staggers from what seemed like one safe place to another. Like lily pads, round and green, these places summoned and then held me up while I grew. Each prepared me for the next leaf on which I would land, and in this way I moved. I can see how flimsy and indirect a path they made. Yet each step brought me closer to the verdant pad on which I stay afloat today.
Good morning – I have been a social worker for 30 years and I felt like that gave me an easy out on this vocation stuff –easy, it was my work – which I described as making the world a better place. Becoming a social work professor was a natural evolution of that original vocational path. I was set. No more discoveries to be made. What I never expected, was a mid-life vocation that would grip me for more than 10 years. Like Ann Lamott describes, I can look back and see how I leapt from lily pad to lily pad through the course of my life, never knowing that those experiences would become so important to a mid-life vocation I couldn’t have imagined.
Lily pad 1…..My mother’s spanking – so futile, so “not into it”, her swings and misses. My own wriggling away. My father’s spanking – so scary, so shaming, having to stop himself because he was big and strong. My 3 older brothers spankings, – so harsh, so much anger in both directions.
My family of origin, the family I grew up in, was happy, I felt loved, we were loud, we laughed, 5 children and 2 parents who were high school sweethearts, pregnant before they were married despite strict Catholic upbringings, we were fine and good and my parents spanked us. My parents hit us. They never hit each other, they never hit the dog, but spanking a child on the butt….that was acceptable, anytime, parental decision alone, no child input needed. In spanking, the perpetrator is always right and the victim is always wrong.
Lily pad 2….my high school boyfriend. We met in the tennis module of gym class. We were separated by gender (this was 1984) through the whole unit until the end when the ranked boys played the ranked girls. He was ranked first in his gender and I in mine. We had to battle it out, and while I lost handily, it was love, love. We started dating. 2 years into our high school romance I punched him in the stomach in my parent’s basement family room. I have no memory of why, but I remember the event vividly. My anger, my punching, the look on his face.
Lily pad 3 – I go to graduate school in social work and begin my field experience at The Initial Intervention Unit in child and family services. We were the first social workers to visit a home or school with a child abuse investigation. I see the effects of hitting on little bodies. I see the pain and shame of parents who have to talk to us. I feel their struggle, I see their love for their children.
Lily pad 4 – I’ll read a section from my book – I suddenly saw that if I hit my kids, it was the same as hitting my high school boyfriend, back in 1986 (the other parent of my children by the way). If I hit them too, I would be the face of modern domestic violence. Continue reading “Uncovering Vocation – “Spanked: The Sanctioned Violence””
Saturday, December 17th
Advent Vespers Reflection by Kristina Frugé
Isaiah 7:13-15
Then Isaiah said: ‘Hear then, O house of David! Is it too little for you to weary mortals, that you weary my God also? Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Look, the young woman is with child and shall bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel. He shall eat curds and honey by the time he knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good.
Isaiah’s words are to King Ahaz in Jerusalem. Ahaz is a ruler who neglects God and makes idolatrous choices that gravely endanger his people. Isaiah utters these words to him from within the context of an unstable time – the powerful take as they desire, the poor become pawns of the wealthy, threats of violence persist from outside nations, there is a loss of faith in God and distrust of one another, injustice rules the day. Sound familiar?
Despite the dire circumstances…the seed of God’s promise is given. In our Christian story this seed is fulfilled in the birth of Jesus. Immanuel. God With Us. It is a bold promise to speak into corrupt and oppressive realities. Jesus’ time, like Isaiah’s, and like ours, was deeply troubled. Yet none of this deters the promise of God from entering the world. Not in Isaiah’s time, not in Jesus’ time, and not in ours either.
The promise is for Immanuel. God with us. All of us.
May this seed take root in our bodies, our neighborhoods and all of creation.
May we embrace and participate in the new life this promise offers.
Romans 15:3-6 [MSG]
Jesus didn’t make it easy for himself by avoiding people’s troubles, but waded right in and helped out. “I took on the troubles of the troubled,” is the way Scripture puts it. Even if it was written in Scripture long ago, you can be sure it’s written for us. God wants the combination of his steady, constant calling and warm, personal counsel in Scripture to come to characterize us, keeping us alert for whatever he will do next. May our dependably steady and warmly personal God develop maturity in you so that you get along with each other as well as Jesus gets along with us all. Then we’ll be a choir—not our voices only, but our very lives singing in harmony in a stunning anthem to the God and Father of our Master Jesus!
This translation of Romans comes from the Message bible. I love how it dives into a deeper explanation of this text. It prompted me to reflect on things in my life that correspond with this verse.
First – the therapeutic nature of music. I am a third year music therapy major which means that I am building my life around the virtue of placing myself near the troubles of others. My profession is built around caring for others more than myself, in a healthy manner. With that being said I will “take on the troubles of the troubled.”
Second – the calling and the waiting. We never know what God is going to do next, but all we can do is have hope. Hope has always had a very special meaning to me. Whenever I hear that word, it reminds me of something I once read: “H.O.P.E. Hold On, Pain Ends.” No matter how long we wait, everything will be okay in the end.
Regardless of what God calls us to do, we will sing in harmony with not only our voices but our lives as well. Our song can be one of hope because God promises to be with us in our professions, our joys and our troubles.
Wednesday, December 14
Advent Vespers Reflection by Adrienne Eldridge
Isaiah 35:5-7
Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; then the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy. For waters shall break forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert; the burning sand shall become a pool, and the thirsty ground springs of water; the haunt of jackals shall become a swamp, the grass shall become reeds and rushes.
In God there is hope.
Isaiah 35:5-7 My favorite season is spring. Why? Because so much has happened in the wintertime; under the ground life is hibernating, transitioning, and getting ready to spring forward. Even before signs of spring are all around, there is a sense of excitement, possibility, hope. Soon there will be little signs of life popping up through the dark and wet ground, reaching for the sky and new life.
The book of Isaiah is full of both caution and promise. In Isaiah 35:5-7 the prophet foretells the possibility of what happens when the promises of God are revealed. As humans, we forget and do not always believe it, we are caught up in the hurt and pain that keeps our eyes covered and our ears closed. Yet – there is a breakthrough from winter to spring, a possibility that brings hope to the dry deserts and sight to those who have lost their way. We are reminded of the miracles of God, and there are so many metaphors for our lives in the present day. In God there is hope.
Adrienne Eldridge
Isaiah 35:3-4
Strengthen the weak hands,
and make firm the feeble knees.
Say to those who are of a fearful heart,
‘Be strong, do not fear! Here is your God.
God will come with vengeance, with terrible recompense.
God will come and save you.’
A few years ago, when I was playing defense during my soccer game, I twisted and heard something in my knee. I knew something was wrong and I hobbled off the field. Luckily it wasn’t a tear and was a cyst, but I did need to take time off. With that time off of soccer, I learned more about how to strengthen my knee and the muscles around it, how to listen to my body about what I could do or what needed to wait. I found a new connection with my body that was deeply embodied.
God has given us this beautiful, holy body that so many of us are fearful of. We are taught to be fearful of our own body or certain kinds of bodies or ways to be in our bodies. Advent is a time to notice and listen to our own bodies as God chose to show up with us and among us in a human body through Jesus. By connecting with our bodies we can be reminded who we are and whose we are. With that reminder, we can show up for each other in ways that are rooted and with open hands and hearts for each other. Ellen Weber