Vocational Awe is not my idea, but comes from an article by the librarian Fobazi Ettarh written in 2018. She was writing as a librarian for librarians, and she describes what she means thus:
Vocational awe describes the set of ideas, values, and assumptions librarians have about themselves and the profession that result in notions that libraries as institutions are inherently good, sacred notions, and therefore beyond critique. I argue that the concept of vocational awe directly correlates to problems within librarianship like burnout and low salary.
https://www.inthelibrarywiththeleadpipe.org/2018/vocational-awe/
Ettarh’s idea is taken up in a post in the blog All About Work by Dr Fiona McQuarrie.1 This was where I stumbled across the idea. McQuarrie recognises how much this idea is not only relevant to librarianship, but also to wide range of other professions. And what vocational awe describes is the way that the inherent value of the profession itself, teaching, say, or nursing, or medicine is used as a way of putting practitioners under pressure. She cites Ettarh, “She says that vocational awe leads to work-related issues such as burnout, under-compensation, job creep, and marginalization of those outside the status quo.”
Reading her this morning I was struck by how relevant this is to how so many clergy say they feel, with, I fear, a lot of justification. For all the talk of clergy wellbeing, those inside the profession have never been under such pressure to perform and to produce results. In the diocese in which I live all job descriptions come with a contractual obligation to grow their church community by a stated amount in a given time frame. I have to confess that I could not believe this when I heard of it – it seemed to me to be extraordinarily inappropriate and stress-inducing. And of course, being the church, vocational language abounds. Celebrating stories of growth in some places can lead to unhelful self-comparisons if you appear to have a less responsive charge. And pressure will only build as time moves on towards the review point.
The first thing to say is that Christians understand the idea of vocation as calling. We believe that God calls, and God equips. But, as many writers have emphasised over the centuries, Christian vocation is not simply or even primarily about licensed lay ministers, clergy and bishops. The primal vocation is that of being called to follow Christ. Baptism is the foundational sacrament of vocation.
The authors describing vocational awe and its impacts suggest that a process of desacralization needs to take place around work. On the other hand, rather than desacralizing vocation I would like to see it, in the common understanding of Christians, resacralized and extended. Vocation is for every Christian, and every sort of work. As George Herbert wrote:
Teach me, my God and King,
In all things there to see.
That what I do in anything
to do it as for thee.
There is an inherent dignity in work, which Christians regard as God-given, that invites us to value and esteem every person’s labour. Watching Partygate on Channel 4 recently, with its acted scenes intercut with news footage of what went on in No 10 during the pandemic, there was such a striking contrast between the arrogance and entitlement of the office staffers, and the diligence and quiet reliability of the porters, the cleaners, and the security staff, all of whom seemed almost invisible to political partymakers. What made it even more shocking was the sense that it was black people who cleaned while white people partied.
Esteeming work is one thing. But Jesus reminds us that “The labourer deserves to be paid”2 Perhaps we would be less exploitative of people whose work we consistently undervalue ifs we had not a less exalted idea of vocation, but a more exalted one. Responding vocationally to working is no excuse for the ills of vocational awe. The religious roots of trades unionism tell us that faithful responses to a calling can lead to organising for better conditions and justice.
In truth, the problem with vocational awe is that the awe is misplaced. We should not expect any group to accept poor terms and conditions simply because those who want to oppress them tell them to focus on the specialness of the work. That’s just sleight of hand. Vocation is about calling. Who calls? From my perspective, only God. Where should my awe be directed? Towards the divine, who helps me respond to that call, whatever it may be. We talk about ‘caring professions’ in this country – but the implication is that everyone else is in a ‘don’t care’ profession. How patronising and insulting to the people who are cleaners, or empty our bins, or serve in cafes, or are porters in hospitals. Done well, those employments are caring professions from which we all benefit.
From The Quire 