Called to Be Available
Several years ago, I had a conversation with a somewhat-retired Baptist minister in his eighties. He shared his call story with me.
As a high school student, he attended a Christian boys' camp in North Carolina—Ridgecrest. At the end of the week, it was tradition to have an altar call for boys who felt called into full-time ministry. Jay felt compelled to step forward, knowing there were typically two "acceptable" responses to the question: What are you called to do? The first was to become a pastor, and the second, a full-time missionary.
Jay knew he was called—just not to either of those roles. So, when asked, he simply said, “I am called to be available.”
His response continues to capture my imagination, especially as I navigate the liminal seasons of life. Maybe it’s my age, the shifting state of the church, or the uncertainty in our nation, but lately, every season seems liminal.
Living in the Neutral Zone
Yesterday, I revisited an episode of At the Table, Patrick Lencioni’s podcast, where he discusses The Neutral Zone, a concept from William Bridges’ work on transitions. The neutral zone is the space between an ending and a new beginning—a season of uncertainty, of waiting.
Lencioni suggests using the Four P’s to navigate liminal space:
Purpose – If we don’t understand the transition we’re in, we can reconnect with our own why. Why do I get up in the morning?
Picture – Envision yourself six months from now and allow that picture to draw you forward.
Plan – Identify a few concrete steps to move ahead.
Part – Clarify your role. What is mine to do?
For the purpose of this blog, I’d suggest that having a plan in liminal seasons isn’t about crafting a step-by-step roadmap for what’s next. Instead, it’s about holistic self-management—tending to our spiritual, physical, and relational well-being so that we are ready—so that we can be available—for whatever emerges.
Holistic wellbeing builds our capacity to respond in real time. It cultivates resilience.
I invite you to reflect on this poem by A.R. Ammons, which I first discovered in the book A Simpler Way.
Poetics by A.R. Ammons
I look for the way
things will turn
out spiraling from a center,
the shape
things will take to come forth in,
so that the birch tree white
touched black at branches
will stand out
wind-glittering
totally its apparent self:
I look for the forms
things want to come as
from what black wells of possibility,
how a thing will unfold:
not the shape on paper—though
that, too—but the
uninterfering means on paper:
not so much looking for the shape
as being available
to any shape that may be
summoning itself
through me
from the self not mine but ours.
Reflection
How can I prepare myself to be ready to respond to the unexpected?
What do I need to relinquish to be open to “any shape that may be summoning itself through me”?
Where am I being called to be available—to give, to grow—in a world of disruption and uncertainty?
May we lean into these questions as we navigate the in-between spaces of our lives, staying open and available for what’s to come.
Walking with you,
Vicki