I’m continually bugged by the assumption that God only “calls” those who’s mission in life is the ministry, as in this article on seminarians.
Like many who enter the priesthood, Keating said, he didn’t choose to become a priest. “My experience was: I’ve been grabbed to be a priest. Priesthood chose me. “It’s not like you say, ‘Let’s see — doctor maybe, teacher, priest? Hey, I like priest.’ You’re living your life and you get tackled,” he said. “It really is God calling me to serve Him in this specific way.”
Well, sure, but that’s not really any different than any other line of work that can be characterized as one’s “purpose in life.” My wife and I went shopping for flowers and shrubs over the weekend and visited a nursery started a few short years ago by a guy who’d painted houses for a living for 30 years. When I asked him how life as a nursery owner compared, he smiled broadly and deeply. “I’m in hog heaven.” He’d never say “God called me” but his calling is no different than a seminarian’s.