Ash Wednesday

A couple months ago, I suddenly realized that I am older than Jesus. Christian tradition teaches that Jesus was about 30 when he began his ministry, which means he was somewhere around 33 when he was crucified. At 44, I’ve got more than a decade on Jesus, which means that my children may be right when they say that I am “older than God.”

Of course, 44 hardly means I have one foot in the grave, whatever my kids think. Since Americans are living longer and I have two great-aunts who lived to be 99, I may not even realistically be middle-aged. Still, I’m also very aware that I no longer qualify as an up-and-comer. When magazines publish lists of people who are going to change the world, they choose “30 under 30” or maybe occasionally “40 under 40,” but once you get past those milestones, you’re assumed to be either prominent in your field or… well, not going to be.

Jesus would have made a list like that, I’m sure. And there was a time when I might have too -- at least in the jewelry industry where I worked. In the first six years of my career, I was promoted every year or two, going from editorial assistant to associate publisher by the time I was 27. It was heady stuff. I started working on an MBA, and began eyeing the corner office. I loved my job.

And then I left it. I got pregnant, and after much soul-searching, I decided at 29 to stay at home with my newborn son and launch a freelance writing career instead.

At the time, I didn’t think I was giving up my ambition. If anything, I figured I was delaying my trip to the corner office by a couple years. But now, 15 years later, when some of the people I graduated with are being promoted to prominent positions, I find myself on a very different path.

Sometimes I wonder what I’d be doing if I hadn’t quit my job. Maybe I’d be CEO of some non-profit in Washington or New York -- I think that’s what I would have pursued if I hadn’t gone to seminary instead. And some days, I regret the life I gave up. I can’t help but wonder if I’m wasting the gifts God gave me. I wonder if on the day I was baptized, God was hoping that by this stage of my life, I’d be bringing together international organizations for a major new initiative on Haiti, or leading the charge against gun violence as head of a national association, or something equally important.

But when I look back, I’m also astounded at the ways each step in the path prepared me for what I am doing today. I’m amazed at the way each opportunity led me to develop gifts that I use daily as a parish priest, even though most of them never appear on priestly lists of essential skills. I feel gratitude for what I learned, and the ways in which I use all that knowledge and all those gifts in my current ministry. When I was 27, I would never have imagined that managing a magazine was excellent preparation for being a priest -- but every time I draw on what I learned from that experience in my ministry at St. Mark’s, I realize that I am, indeed, using all the gifts God has given me.

And then I also think, maybe God had plenty of candidates for the kinds of jobs that land you on the cover of TIME. God is a generous giver, after all, and the gifts needed to bring together international organizations to solve big problems do seem to be surprisingly abundant -- witness all those lists of talented young professionals. And surely, God has every bit as much need for the ministries we do without fanfare or fame, the gifts we use in small but important ways. Maybe God didn’t need me to change the whole world; maybe my gifts were always intended to be used simply to make my corner of it a more compassionate, more loving place. Maybe that’s not a small thing after all. And maybe the contentment I feel in living into that calling is a sign of having listened to God’s voice.

On Ash Wednesday, we kneel to receive ashes with the words, “Thou art dust, and to dust thou shalt return.” It’s a reminder of our mortality, and an invitation to reflect on the ways we have fallen short of God’s gifts in our lives. But falling short is not the same thing as unfulfilled ambition. The question to ask is really, “How am I using my gifts in God’s service -- or failing to?” not, “Have I achieved what God wanted me to achieve?” Because on the day of our deaths, what will matter is how we have loved and served God and how we lived generously into the use of our gifts, not whether or not our obituaries appear in the New York Times. By that measure, perhaps I am living up to my potential.