All Who Wander Are Not Lost (the induced meandering of calling)

Yesterday, while driving, I found myself listening to an audiobook by Michael Singer on the topic of mindfulness at work. Although I haven't held a "job" in the traditional sense for a long time, the dynamics of "work" remain a central fascination for me. As I listened, I realized that my understanding of work is still deeply entangled with a shadow side.

In the conservative evangelical church world I grew up in, there was a subtle but powerful hierarchy of calling. To be truly serious about your spirituality—to be a religious "over-achiever"—the gold standard was "full-time ministry." It was the spiritual equivalent of getting straight A’s. While a secular career wasn't "wrong," it was viewed as slightly less equal in God’s book. Like the phrase I heard at UC Berkeley: all the schools are equal, but Cal is just a bit more equal.

This mindset shadowed me when I took a corporate job in computers shortly after graduation. I stayed in that world for six years, but from the very first day, I knew I wouldn't stay. I knew it wasn't my path. It felt like a placeholder, a period of treading water while waiting for the "real" life to start. Eventually, that internal friction became too much, and I left to pursue what I thought was the only "all in" option: seminary. I didn't think I wanted to become a pastor of a church (I thought I’d probably become a missionary living in another country doing something to ‘help people’); I just figured that after three years of study, the "real" plan would finally be revealed.

Three years came and went, followed by a fellowship in Scotland, and I found myself back in California still lacking a "traditional" direction. I began where I was, picking up the breadcrumbs of website development, photography, and writing. Over the next twenty years, my work became a kaleidoscope of experiences: traveling the world, rainwater harvesting, starting and running a business in a second language, raising animals, learning investing, and becoming a horsewoman.

But as I pursued these "other" callings, there was a quiet, persistent sense—a concern that in following these diverse interests, I was somehow moving in the opposite direction of my original path. In the Presbyterian world, there is a literal category for this: "renouncing one's ordination." It is the official label for those who are no longer following their designated calling. I wasn’t trying to run from God like Jonah when he got swallowed up by the whale—I was simply following the next step in front of me, the next piece that unfolded before me.

The surprise came when I realized that these seemingly "secular" pursuits were actually loops leading me back to the same spiritual center. When I dove into horsemanship, my teachers spoke of being centered and mindful. When I studied investing—a field I assumed was the antithesis of spirituality—I found that the most successful practitioners considered a quiet, non-reactive mind to be the foundational skill.

Michael Singer’s words hit me with the force of a revelation: “It’s not about finding spiritual work—it’s about making your work spiritual.”

I realized that my work has been leading me on a journey, much like my horse, Fortuna, leads me to new understandings. I thought I was perhaps neglecting my "calling" by focusing on horses or finance, but like Jonah being spit up on the shores of Nineveh, every path I have taken eventually has deposited me back at the feet of the spiritual life. The calling itself seems to have refused to let me go in the opposite direction. It wasn't that I was running away; it was that the breadcrumbs themselves were leading me back to the shore.

There is a final, beautiful irony in this. In my younger years, I imagined my "all in" spiritual path as perhaps ‘becoming a missionary in another country, doing something to help people.’ Later, I even founded and led "Not Church," a gathering for the spiritual-but-not-religious that I headed for a decade.

After I left that and began to focus on the horse business whenever I ran into "church people" and they asked how "Not Church" was going, I had to tell them I had stepped away and was now leading horseback riding tours. In those moments, I felt that familiar twinge—the sense that I was "shirking" my calling, falling short of the "real" work.

Yet, looking at it now, the irony is that this turn led me right where I thought I was ‘called to be’ those many years ago. I find myself in Mexico, running a horseback riding business that gives work to local young men—work that they love and that allows them to support themselves and their families. So, in that sense, you might say that I have, in fact, become that ‘missionary’ and continued that ‘church’—just in a way that doesn't fit into any traditional box.

In rainwater harvesting, there is a technique called “induced meandering.” Instead of allowing runoff to rush straight down a channel—fast, furious, and erosive—you create a winding flow. This meandering gives the water time to slow down, spread out, and sink into the soil. It turns a flash flood into a life-giving soak.

In my life I have had a tendency to want to be that fast-moving rainwater, rushing toward a straight-line destination that would satisfy my desire to ‘arrive’ and accomplish and would meet that spiritual "over-achiever" status. But without me really realizing it, this calling has actually led me into an induced meandering. All those years of freelance life, the time with the animals, and all of the technical projects weren't a desertion of the calling; they were the meandering flow required for the spirit to finally sink in. It wasn’t being lost. It wasn’t ‘renouncing’ anything. It was just being given the time to soak.