One Sunday in the 1950s, when I was in my teens, my uncle and aunt had joined my parents for refreshments after our Sunday evening church service. Before the delicacies were ready, my dad guided my uncle downstairs to my basement aviary and aquarium room to see my nesting parakeets and tropical fish. As they conversed about my caring for and learning from these birds and fish, I overheard my uncle ask my dad, “Shouldn’t you help Cal do something more important than this—something that will help him get a job?” To which my dad had softly replied, saying that I was doing just fine.
Suspecting I had overheard them, he told me a few days later that I should not become a painter and decorator as he was, but keep doing what I loved to do. He believed that if I did, then I would do it very well- which meant that I would eventually be paid for it. In this, my dad expressed what for me is the heart and meaning of vocation, and it proved to be ever so right. For more than six decades I have made a living doing what I love to do.
It is this fatherly wisdom that undergirds my vocational journey and inspires me to discover and develop my gifts for enjoying the beauty and wonder of this remarkable world. It encourages me to continue learning the joyful practice of beholding its living fabric and to continuously seek knowledge through my study and description of its architecture and workings. In so doing, I invite my university students and people from town and country—from garden to globe—to care for and keep the Earth as Our Common Home.
Long before I knew dictionary definitions of scholarship and vocation, I came to know their meaning in practice: scholarship from our church, and vocation from my dad and mom. In church, it was from scholarly theologians. Their 40-minute Sunday morning sermons were passionate expositions that plumbed the meaning of Hebrew and Greek biblical texts and treatises by theologians and philosophers. Shorter evening sermons applied these expositions to practical living. Their practice of scholarship, and its content, shaped the development of our “world-and-life-view” that was augmented by learning in weekly church Sunday school for children and youth after the morning worship service, catechism classes on Monday afternoons after school, and Christian grade school and high school.
My father was a model for the practice of living life as vocation. His example set the direction and grounding of my life and work. My mother lovingly expressed “the fruits of the Spirit” as taught in the Book, always putting these into joyful practice. Because our church was near Calvin College and Seminary, sermons were not only by our pastor, but periodically by scholarly and passionate seminary professors. Sermons were enlivened by inspiring speech and echoed in reverberating psalms and hymns sung from our Psalter Hymnal. I also found a great resonance in mind and body as our artistic and scholarly organist, John Hammersma, supported our singing on a wondrous Muller pipe organ—treating us with the works of passionate composers like J. S. Bach, Dietrich Buxtehude, G. F. Handel, and Heinrich Schütz.
From early childhood on, our church services began with a grand creation-affirming question: “From whence cometh our help?”—entoned by our pastor. To which all of us replied, “Our help cometh from the Lord God Almighty, Maker of Heaven and Earth.” Our services concluded with a doxology of praise to God—a doxology joined by “all creatures here below.” In all of this there was a deep resonance between The Book and the Biosphere. Immersed we were in a comprehensive, integrative, world-and-life-view that defined our life and practice.
Important for my understanding and assimilating sermons was my high school teacher, Rev. Leonard Greenway—a scholarly and passionate pastor of LaGrave Avenue church in downtown Grand Rapids. Every Monday morning, he had each of us in his tenth grade class recite our sermon reports from one of the two sermons (morning or evening) we heard on Sunday in our various churches across the city. Surprising to us was how he identified things we had missed, explained things we did not understand, taught us how to listen intently, and coached us on how to write accurate sermon notes. And most important was his helping us to take all of this into our hearts and minds.
Before entering graduate school at age 21, I had heard about 2,000 expository scholarly sermons—in concert with resonating congregational singing and organ preludes, postludes, and offertories. Sermons were by John Weidenaar in my early childhood, then during most of my growing-up by Lubbertus Oostendorp, and later, Henry DeMots. As our family rode home in our Ford motorcar, sermons by pastors and professors often brought my mother to say, “that was a deep sermon,” meaning “not superficial.” And, while I attended Calvin College, our professors— whether scientists, theologians, philosophers, musicians, or the college president—professed a worldview that respected The Book and the Biosphere with academic grounding, awesome wonder, and inspiration to live gratefully, fruitfully, and joyfully in our marvelous living world.
To make sure that we children were not unattended in all of this, every morning service was followed by Sunday School in which we had weekly Bible lessons, sang hymns and spiritual songs together. We were led by a lively song-leader—sometimes accompanied by a trumpeter—and with special music on instruments including marimbas and even a carpenter’s saw played with a violin bow. Often included were missionaries from China and Africa with intriguing stories and artifacts. All of which was followed by Sunday school classes held in groups across the church sanctuary, according to how old we were, where we heard Bible stories and recited memory verses. Beyond this, there were weekly catechism classes that later included teaching by an elder of our church who was a Calvin College professor and publishing research scientist of physical chemistry, Thedford P. Dirkse.
Yes, my father had told me that I should not become a painter and decorator as he was and had expressed what for me is the heart and meaning of vocation: his rendition of Matthew’s Gospel: “But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well” (6:33). This expresses what is at the heart of vocation and proved for me to be ever so right. For more than seven decades I’ve been making a living doing and enjoying what I love to do. My vocation—my profession—is enjoying and caring for God’s creation and helping others to do the same. It is an outflowing vocation I continue to profess. I am a herpetologist.
I discovered the meaning of this vocational word from a book, The Herpetology of Michigan by Ruthven, Thompson, and Gaige. Shelved in the library’s Science and Technology Room, it did not circulate. And seeking to know, I took many bike trips downtown to read and re-read this book on what I was caring for in my backyard zoo. It gave me the idea of being recognized as a herpetologist, but I knew that I would be more than that. At age 13, I received my first library card, allowing me to check out other books on the subject. Seeing that my bright new card would expire four years later, in 1952, I thought: Wow! “that date will never come!”
But this calling took more than my own initiative. Along with my father’s profound advice, nearly every evening after the rest of the family had gone to bed, he would pour us both a glass of Vernor’s Ginger Ale and have me describe and explain discoveries I had made that day—delighting in what we discussed. This went on year after year, rooted in his deeply expressed interest. Our conversations continued for a half-hour and more, with his follow-up questions helping me to formulate responses that increased in detail and clarity. I wrote many of my findings as journal entries, of which a few remain. What they show is that I was developing into a critical observer and investigator. The need to explain, particularly about topics not generally known, like the life and workings of reptiles, amphibians and birds, provided for me the conditions for discovering how to teach and learn. My earthly father modeled God’s heart for my vocation.
