The Voice- Poem

by Frederick Buechner. 

The voice we should listen to most

as we choose a vocation

is the voice that we might think

we should listen to least,

and that is the voice of our own gladness.

What can we do that makes us the gladdest,

what can we do that leaves us

with the strongest sense of sailing true north and of peace,

which is much of what gladness is?

Is it making things with our hands out of wood

or stone or paint or canvas?

Or is it making something we hope like truth out of words?

Or is it making people laugh or weep

in a way that cleanses their spirit?

I believe that if it is a thing that makes us truly glad,

then it is a good thing and it is our thing

and it is the calling voice that

we were made to answer with our lives.