Unitarian Universalist Church of Palo Alto

The Biology of Vocation

Reverend Darcey Laine
November 6, 2005
Palo Alto, CA

“When did you start to embrace your ‘weird’?” my friend asked. Both of us had been kind of unusual, especially in Junior High School where ability to replicate a narrow median standard is a survival skill. He and I shared the same Homeroom all through Junior and Senior High, and so we had watched each other through those most difficult “weird” years, through the emergence of self in High School and college, and now saw one another as happy creative adults who had managed to integrate our “weirdness” into our cohesive lives.

Yes, I thought, that’s really the question. When did I stop my unsuccessful efforts to be like everyone else? When did I realize that the unfolding of my own authentic self was my best bet for inner happiness? When did I come to believe that this authentic self contained my special calling to serve the world?

I heard his question in another way at that same moment. I had recently been introduced to the Nordic idea of a “Wyrd” which is similar to that of fate or destiny. This word describes the flow by which past actions lead us to our present and by which we shape our future in the present. This was first explained to me with the metaphor of a stream, the way it tends to run in its bed in a certain way. So in the moment when he asked “when did you start to embrace your ‘weird’?”, I also thought about how by embracing the things that were weird about me, I had also begun to embrace the path which most organically unfolded in front of me, available to me because of my past actions and my particular biology. (Nature and nurture if you will.)

So let’s overlay this with evolutionary science, which tells us that evolution happens at 2 speeds. First are the kinds of adaptations that happen slowly over millennia. Then there are more rapid changes which happen through mutation. That is to say, mutation makes available a wider range of biological possibility which increases the likelihood of the survival of a species as conditions change.

For example, the very first living organism on earth, called Aries, produced offspring and descendants which were not identical to Aries. Through genetic mutation subtle changes manifest over time. At a time when the rapid growth of prokaryotes was creating a shortage in the kinds of compounds they had always used for food, one mutation formed Promethio, the first photosynthesizing life form. A mutation of the porphyry ring created a kind of net which could collect protons in motion and process the proton as food. Thus mutation saved early life on earth from extinction.

As the oxygen freed in photosynthesis proliferated and changed the chemical composition of the lithosphere, atmosphere and hydrosphere, another mutation snatched life from the edge of oblivion. Oxygen not only degraded the food supply, but also broke down the membranes of cells, causing the helplessness and even the combustion of these early cells. Prospero held a mutation which allowed respiration. Because oxygen was so plentiful, Prospero and its offspring thrived. The oxygen created a combustion which powered Prospero’s activities.

This leads me back to thinking about my own weirdness in a new way. What if the very qualities that made life tough for me in Junior High create a sustaining diversity for our species? I don’t claim my gifts are as special as the ability to make the sun’s light into food, but I would like to encourage this line of self understanding. What if there is some analogous connection between our wyrd (the unique path that each of us follow) our “weird”(the things that make us unique) and the biology of evolution (the way we participate at an unconscious level with the advancement of life on earth)?

The Hindu Tradition also has a sense of path that is unique to each being. They call this Dharma.

“It [dharma] is, so to speak, the essential nature of a being, comprising the sum of its particular qualities or characteristics, and determining, by virtue of the tendencies or dispositions it implies, the manner in which this being will conduct itself, either in a general way or in relation to each particular circumstance. The same idea may be applied, not only to a single being, but also to an organized collectivity, to a species, to all the beings included in a cosmic cycle or state of existence, or even to the whole order of the Universe; it then, at one level or another, signifies conformity with the essential nature of beings… ”¹

There’s a passage in the Bhagavad Gita, an important Hindu scripture, which puzzled me when I first read it. The verse advises: “It is better to strive in one’s own Dharma than to succeed in the dharma of another.”² Eventually it began to make sense when I related it to my own emerging sense of authentic self, and to biological uniqueness. If we all strive to feed ourselves with the limited supply of nutrients that sustain our species, extinction is the inevitable outcome. But each of us carries certain particularities, be they biological or habitual, which are the key to some puzzle. One way to approach life is to renounce these particularities, the other is to find the right puzzle, to find the new source of nutrients.

At the time when some cells were entering the world of photosynthesis, other cells, not blessed by the adaptations that had brought new food sources to their neighbors were sustained by a new strategy. A descendant of Vikengla, the symbiotic enmeshment of 2 cells each of whom fed off the other, Kronos was the first cell to eat other living organisms entirely.

When I was studying the history of the Universe on my sabbatical I brought to it this very question: “does the religious idea of calling have any grounding in our biology?” In considering the emergence of Kronos and what consciousness that being might have brought to its metamorphosis, scientists Swimme and Berry) write that “A primitive eukaryotic cell would, for instance, be able to detect a temperature gradient, turning itself toward warming regions. It would possess a limited ability to sense nutrient densities and orient itself to their thickest direction.”³ Even our most basic ancestors must have been driven by some life-sustaining drive. Surely more complex creatures have not lost that basic drive we share with our ancestors.

The language of “calling” comes from the idea that God is calling one toward a particular direction or a particular life. In contemporary usage we are more likely to say that one is called by ones sense of inner knowing or wisdom. If we this universe to be autopoietic (or “self creating, self producing”), then the calling of Kronos, or Prospero toward a new way of gaining nourishment and thereby make such forms of nourishment available to the various beings who followed is not unlike the calling of a human person to be drawn towards work that will nourish body and soul, and create the possibility of such nourishment for others.

The ability to notice the presence of warmth, and turn toward it, the ability to sense nutrient density and orient toward the greatest thickness of nutrients intuitively and logically seems similar to how I have experienced a sense of calling in my own life. Trying to make my way as a student of opera was increasingly cold and lacking in nutrients (metaphorically speaking). When I finally began to listen for that deep knowing about what direction would allow me to thrive, emotionally and physically, I understood myself to be listening for my calling. Following what I heard or perceived, I found that my progress was accelerated. By making the primal determination to seek a path where my way was not impeded and where I could be nourished, I found that I was increasingly unimpeded and nourished. Making the significant leap from musician to minister seemed like an organic response to this listening.

During my time in seminary and searching for work following graduation, it became clear that a resonance with ones own intuition, desire and longing is not sufficient. A professor advised that calling is not simply between a person and God, but exists only in the context of community. Swimme and Berry provide a useful analogy from the natural world in their discussion of niche as an evolutionary force. The eco-system (or community) provides a context which shapes the species. The species thrives in response to its context. Mutations (or unique gifts and talents if you will) provide new possibilities, but within even the most constraining context, the individuals have choice. The tendency to respond to certain impulses or desires can shape a species. For example, in the same habitat a common ancestor evolved into both the horse and the bison. When faced with predators, some inner something compelled part of their species to run, and others to charge. In considering the choice and evolution of the ancestor who became the horse Swimme and Berry write:

All the elements proclaimed; ‘You want to become a galloping energy? You may, but only if you include all of us and all of our concerns and realities in your life project. If you insist on becoming the animal who runs the plains, we will teach you what is required. Listen to us and you will gallop. Ignore us and you will starve and vanish.’ (p. 138)

It is not enough simply for the horse to follow a desire, a calling to run, she runs in intimate relationship with her community. If she continuously listens to the information her environment provides, she may thrive in the niche she has chosen.

I’d like to extend this metaphor from individual calling to our calling as a community. A lot of good thinking about church growth and health comes from the Alban Institute, who works mostly with theist congregations. These Alban publications say it is critical to ask: “what is God calling your church to do?” They believe that if you understand how God is calling you, and you understand your role in the community, growth will naturally occur in the amount necessary to fulfill that calling. But since about half of us in this congregation are atheists or agnostics, we need to find a different way to ask this question. Perhaps more grounded questions might be: “What conditions do we need to thrive? In what direction do we perceive those conditions to be available? What are our unique gifts? How can we respond to the particularity of this community?

The complexity of a community of humans trying to listen and respond as one organism is so much greater than that the eukaryotes moving towards warmth, moving towards food. And yet, even such a complex human community cannot begin to match the complexity of Promethio, hungry for food, creating with its body the technology necessary to eat the Sun’s energy. Perhaps if we look closely at the processes of biological growth and transformation, we will have some insight into the most elemental forces that compel our own personal and communal growth and transformation.

“The power shaping life is a wild energy; an inner urgency to pursue a particular path of life; and an immense bonding process that insists on intimate togetherness.”⁴ From the smallest and earliest living beings to the complexity of human community, the scientific language of biology struggles to explain the creative energy that compelled the immense transformation necessary to photosynthesize, to swallow another living being for food, to evolve a horse or a bison. To me it remains filled with mystery. Perhaps it is only anthropomorphic metaphor to compare this drive to the sense of calling I have experienced in my own life. But I do know that a force that basic must be part of who I am as well.

However we may describe the flow, the unfolding path that becomes the narrative of our lives, be it our Dharma, our Wyrd or our evolution, we understand this to be a balance between the raw material we are given at birth, the habits and patterns of a lifetime, the needs and requirements of our community (or eco-system) and our own free will. I believe we achieve this balance most successfully when we listen carefully to the call of our own inner voice, and to the call of the community. Such a calling comes not with a thunderclap, but like the melody of a running stream. It is the sound of your own Wyrd, a sound you must love. Our survival depends on it.

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