THERE IS A story I often heard in Saskatchewan about a farmer who had to make his way to the barn in the middle of a blizzard.
To find his way back to the house, he tied a rope to the back door.
When he was finished tending the animals in the barn, he followed the rope to get back to the house.
If the truth be told, I’ve never met a farmer who did that, but I’ve heard the story often.
It may not have been historical truth but it contained truth all the same.
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Part of the story’s appeal is that it is archetypal. There are many versions of it in different cultures.
For example, in Greek legend, Theseus, son of the King of Athens, volunteers to enter the maze on the island of Crete to kill the dreaded minotaur, a monster who was half man and half bull.
Theseus’ lover, Ariadne, gives him a ball of thread that he unrolls as he travels deeper into the confusing cave.
This allows him to find his way out after the minotaur is dead.
We can relate to the story of the farmer in winter in many ways. The farmer journeys from home to workplace.
The winter blizzard is beyond his control. Success is represented only by survival.
The blizzard is dangerous and ultimately disorienting.
In the middle of this life-threatening confusion, how do we find our way back home?
The current economic recession is like the blizzard. It may be caused by humans but from the perspective of any one person, it is dangerous, confusing and beyond my control.
The best I can hope for is survival.
The storm is causing all kinds of damage to the workplaces of our lives.
For some of us, our workplace has disappeared.
For others, it will be a long time before it is fully functional.
What is the rope we cling to? What thread can we follow to guide our way home?
In the myth of the minotaur, we learn that the thread comes from the desire of our heart.
It is Ariadne’s thread. It links the head and the hands and the feet but it is governed by the heart.
We sometimes call it vocation.
Over the years I have found that farmers are equally divided between those who see farming as one business among others, and those who see it as a calling, a vocation.
The American writer Fredrick Buechner says that vocation “is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.”
In this time of economic recession, confusion and disorientation, many people will be searching for a way home.
Now is the time to test your and my fundamental values and ask if we have organized our lives in a way that connects our deep gladness with the world’s deep hunger.
Now is the time for each of us to build a moral economy of the heart.
Christopher Lind has published widely in the area of ethics and economics. He is a Senior Fellow at Massey College, University of Toronto.
