Quit Lit - September 21

Today’s Readings: AM Psalm 78:1-39; PM Psalm 78:40-72; Isaiah 8:11-20; Romans 10:1-15; Matthew 13:44-52

Today’s Reflection

Through the seven years I was a grad student, the year in between degrees that I worked as an adjunct, and the twelve years I worked full-time as a university professor, I would keep up with reading the different e-mail lists, blogs, and later social media feeds geared toward academics. Of all the different things academics write about in their sub-culture, I was always fascinated by a genre of life writing dubbed Quit Lit, which are the different stories and statements of reasons that professors or aspiring professors give when they decide to leave academia behind them.

Many of these stories are tales of people who earned PhDs but could never secure that elusive unicorn that so many people with PhDs are striving toward: the tenure-track position. They get tired of the rat race of applying for positions and biding their time in contingent (semester to semester, year to year) teaching jobs. Or some Quit Lit is authored by those who found the unicorn but weren’t able to keep it in their grasp—the expectations were too high, or the colleagues were too cruel, or the university budgets were too tight.

Once in a while once will read Quit Lit by someone who had secured the elusive tenure-track job, done well in it, and then decided to walk away from academia any way. Personally, though I was in that last category, I never wrote my own Quit Lit narrative—at the time, living it seemed challenging enough. To walk away from a profession one has thrown themselves into and been immersed in for years or even, for some, decades is a decision not made lightly.

My observations of those who have composed their own Quit Lit, and my own experience of discerning a new vocation in midlife, leads me to have a special interest in the stories behind how each of the disciples came to leave behind what they did before to follow Jesus. Peter and others were fishermen. Luke is said to have been a physician.

On September 21, the church commemorates the life of Saint Matthew. Besides being the likely author of the Gospel according to Matthew, what else do we know about him? Before Matthew was called by Jesus to be one of the Twelve, he had a very different profession: tax collector. Here’s how the calling of Matthew by Jesus is told in his Gospel account:

As Jesus was walking along, he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax booth; and he said to him, “Follow me.” And he got up and followed him.

And as he sat at dinner in the house, many tax collectors and sinners came and were sitting with him and his disciples. When the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” But when he heard this, he said, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.” (Matthew 9: 9-13)

Matthew didn’t have the luxury, as I did, of ruminating and praying for a long period of time to discern whether he should leave his well-paying (though socially shunned) position as a tax collector. Jesus just approached him at his tax collection booth one day, said “Follow me,” and Matthew did. There’s no description of how the conversation may have unfolded—was there a dialogue before that in which Jesus gave a sort of elevator talk for what it meant to be a disciple before he made the big ask. All we know is that Jesus asked Matthew to follow him and Matthew said yes. What a great example of faithfulness we have set before us in Matthew’s own, very short, simple Quit Lit story!

—Becky+

Questions for Self-Reflection

What is a major life change you have made, when you decided to leave one pursuit behind so that you could try something new?

What is something you could leave behind in order to pick up something new that would encourage yourself and others in the faith?

Daily Challenge

Take a few minutes today to read some of the Gospel accounts of how Jesus called each of the disciples to come follow him. Reflect on what comes to mind for you as you carry these stories with you for the rest of the day.