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Christie Anderson on the Augustana College campus

Shuffling of Pants Legs

We are Called: A series on St. Paul people taking their faith to work

As a college student several years ago, Arizona native Christie Anderson was full of questions, big ones.

At a Lutheran Student Movement gathering in Phoenix, Christie was introduced to the spiritual practice of the labyrinth, a maze-like design for meditation. As participants walked the curves and twists of the labyrinth, they were to consider a specific question, and when they reached the center, to sit quietly in the presence of God.

So Christie posed the big question, the one that was constantly on her mind and heart those days: “What am I supposed to do with my life?” And she set off walking.

“I really expected an answer,” right there and then on the labyrinth walk, she recalls. “But all I could hear was the shuffling of pants legs. It was deafening. And then I heard an answer: ‘Listen to my people as they walk. Listen as they journey through life.’ I’d never had that sort of experience before. I went back to my room and I felt a profound peace.”

There on a labyrinthine footpath, in the complexity of life choices, Christie listened. “It wasn’t a very direct answer,” she says now. “It doesn’t say what I’m supposed to do. But it gave me the framework that really fits who I am, what I love to do, and what makes me feel alive.”

Listen to my people as they walk. Pay attention to the shuffling of pants legs.

And that is exactly what Christie Anderson finds herself doing now as program associate at Augustana College’s Center for Vocational Reflection. Here on the second floor of the campus library, she listens attentively to students who are asking the big question: “What am I supposed to do with my life?”

Christie listens by asking a lot of questions, especially the ones that define the mission of this place:

  • Who are you called to be?
  • What are your skills, gifts, and talents?
  • What are your passions and your values?
  • What are the needs of the community?
  • What is your story?

It’s at the intersection of these questions that vocation lies. “The kind of work God usually calls you to,” writes theologian Frederick Buechner, “is the kind of work that you need most to do and that the world most needs to have done.” Christie’s role is to help students identify their passions and gifts, and to practice staying alert to the world’s needs — so that “when the external expression of their vocation comes across their path, they’ll be aware.”

The Center for Vocational Reflection, funded by a grant from the Lilly Endowment, creates the times and spaces for students to recognize who they are called to be. The center’s website is rich with avenues for service learning and reflection through faculty programs and student-run initiatives — from varsity athletes engaged in service to Rockastana, connecting Augie students in mentoring relationships in the Rock Island schools.

Or glance at the whiteboard on Christie’s office wall, mounted above the six plastic bins that hold supplies for a summertime approach to community service. In blue marker, she has penned 19 percolating ideas under the scrawled title: “Things in the works.”

“I think about vocation all the time,” she laughs. “I can’t escape it.” So Christie is called to listen to God’s people as they walk. Right now, her vocation is expressing itself at Augustana College,

“How do I listen to people? I realize that life is a journey, that we are always moving and changing and growing. People need a place to reflect on that. I realize that I have gifts and this is why I am here, to help students question: “What does life mean? Who am I called to be? What does this mean for my relationship with God and with the world?”

The Rock Island campus on this day is a riot of blossom and intersecting footpaths. Again and again, Christie uses the phrase “growing and morphing” to describe lives alert to vocation. She acknowledges that her own pants legs are likely to eventually shuffle her to other expressions of this calling to listen and guide.

Says she, “Growing and morphing puts into words what we experience in life. It’s a huge part of who I am, what I see happening. I don’t think God wants us to stay stagnant. It’s spring and all the world is growing. I think of people as always growing in God’s eyes, and that’s beautiful.”

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"If the only prayer you said in your whole life was 'thank you,' that would suffice. " ~Meister Eckhart