Answer/ing: A Podcast About Calling

In a city and region with more than its fair share of musicians and musical history, Martha Bassett is one of the best loved. Part of that is that she's so versatile that almost any listener can find a place to connect with her. The singer/songwriter/guitarist hosts The Martha Bassett Show at the Reeves Theater in Elkin, featuring national, regional, and local musicians, with a focus on female artists. She sings from the Great American Songbook each month with a trio at the Gas Hill Drinking Room at the Ramkat in Winston-Salem, and on Wednesday nights she leads Roots Revival, an Americana worship service at St. Paul's neighbor, Centenary United Methodist. To talk with Martha is to sense her generosity of spirit, her groundedness, and her conviction that she is doing exactly what she's supposed to be doing, and so I wanted us to have a chance to hear how she is Answering. Find Martha's music at https://www.marthabassett.com/ and learn more about the Martha Bassett Show at the Reeves Theater at https://marthabassettshow.com/.

The Rev. Dr. Jonathan Lee Walton was named Dean of Wake Forest University School of Divinity, Presidential Chair in Religion and Society, and Dean of Wait Chapel in 2019. Prior to joining Wake Forest University, he was the Plummer Professor of Christian Morals and the Pusey Minister in the Memorial Church at Harvard University. Dean Walton is a social ethicist and an outspoken advocate for social justice and civil rights. His work and insights have been featured in several national and international news outlets, including *The New York Times*, CNN, Time Magazine, and the BBC.

Bill Wells retired in June, 2020, after 22 years as director of financial aid at Wake Forest University. Bill's interest in spiritual direction has made him a particularly insightful partner when it comes to thinking about vocation, and through his work, he enabled thousands of students to figure out how to get the tools to follow their own vocations.

The Rev. James Franklin is the Young Adult Missioner for Winston-Salem and the Episcopal campus minister at Wake Forest University. His role gives him the opportunity to sit with young people who are actively discerning their place in the world. He is the co-editor of Belovedness: Finding God and Self on Campus and part of the team for the diocesan podcast, "And Also With Y'all." James mentioned one of the 39 Articles from the Book of Common Prayer, which you can find here under "Historical Documents of the Church."

Vocation is not about finding the one thing you're meant to do in the world, but finding the way you are meant to live in the world. For Kate Reece, that has meant starting her own business while using her skill and experience to help nonprofit organizations find their strategic paths too. At the beginning of this year, Kate founded Reece Bottling and Canning: a new business to support the growing craft beverage industry in North Carolina. She'll share about the unique aspect of vocation for an entrepreneur: not figuring out how to use your talents, but having faith that your talent will be enough.

We're trying something different today: a bilateral interview—that's the fanciest word for "conversation" that I could find—with one of my very best friends, the Rev. Nathan Kirkpatrick. Nathan and I went to college and divinity school together, and we have been part of each other's discernment about every kind of vocation over the past twenty-four years. Nathan is an episcopal priest in Durham, North Carolina, where he is a principal in Saison Consulting, working with churches, pastors, and denominational leaders on issues of change management, innovation, sustainability, vocation, and leadership.

One dimension of vocation is helping others to form and develop in their own vocations. Dr. Carol Geer is a practicing physician and associate professor of radiology and neurosurgery at Wake Forest School of Medicine, and she directs the radiology residency program at Wake Forest Baptist Health. That means she plays a critical role in helping medical students and brand-new doctors who are exploring their own vocations at the same time she is living into her own.

The first person we'll listen with is the Reverend Dixon Kinser, nineteenth Rector of St Paul's. We start this series with Dixon not because he's the rector, but because he's a kind of pastoral entrepreneur: a person who lives and leads with insatiable curiosity - the perfect way to start a project that's all about curiosity. Dixon's vocation looks really public, but we'll hear him talk about the aspects of vocation that are more personal and that have been more of a struggle. Dixon's story also underlines the difference between vocation and job: after all, he is equally at home playing in his rock band as in the gothic nave of St. Paul's.

Welcome to the Answer/ing podcast from St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. We know we're supposed to be listening for a calling, but what exactly does that sound like? Most people are called to work outside the church, so how can working out in the world be a spiritual response to God? We'll talk to people from a variety of backgrounds and learn how their ideas about calling and experiences of God can help us find and serve on our own paths.