a career in crap

I sometimes wonder if I have set myself in the wrong direction. If getting this Master in Public Health and hoping to go overseas again is just a daydream and I will wake up to reality soon. Having lived in Vancouver for three years now (!), I have had fleeting thoughts of saving for a condo, trying to get a second date (never get past the first!), carving out a space for myself here, seeing my family more, getting more involved in life in Canada. It is getting harder to remind myself what the end goal is as memories of what has been are fading. But then I'll hear something inspiring or have a vivid recollection of an important moment and it all comes back to me.

The weekend started with class - I spend one full weekend per month at the university being overloaded with enough information to cause brain damage. In "Social Determinants of Health", I introduced myself - "My name is Alida and I love sanitation. I will probably use every and any opportunity to talk about crap. Just to warn you." The professor looked slightly uncomfortable but amused and dryly said, "I can't wait to read your final paper." Over the course of the weekend my conversations inevitably make some reference to sanitation and I secretly question whether I like the attention of the shock value that it brings or that I still actually have a love for sanitation.

And when I start to harbour those secret doubts and the gnawing feeling of "but life could be so uncomplicated if you stay in Vancouver", i am delightfully reminded that my passion for all things sanitation is indeed genuine and not a fabrication to generate some laughs. I listened to Shane Claibourne speak this evening and he reminded of one of my favourite author's writings on vocation. Frederick Buechner wrote "Vocation is where our greatest passion meets the world’s greatest need." It was such an affirmation that I am not only called, but blessed, to have discovered a passion for what is truly the world's greatest need. We take our porcelain thrones for granted, but sanitation is the single greatest successful public health intervention known to mankind. Adequate disposal of crap is the biggest life saver on the face of the planet. And yet 2.6 billion people still have no toilet, latrine, outhouse, crapper, or even a hole in the ground. It's the world's greatest need.

I have to ask in wonderment, Who am I that I should be so blessed to pursue a vocation and a passion for the world's greatest need!!

Yes, professors raise their eyebrows at me, people politely laugh at me, classmates likely tire of me (and my crap stories), but I count myself so amazingly fortunate to be one of the few who can disregard (most of the time), "the great blaring, boring, banal voice of our mass culture, which threatens to deafen us by blasting forth that the only thing that really matters is.... salary and status" but instead listen to "the voice that we might think we should listen to least, and that is the voice of our own gladness." (Frederick Buechner, The Hungering Dark)

I am glad when I talk about crap.
I look forward to making a career out of crap.