People called to some task when they were not expecting it have changed the world: Moses discovering the burning bush as he leads sheep in a desert; disciples of Jesus who don’t even recognize him when he meets them on the road to Emmaus; Paul meeting Jesus on the way to Damascus even while he is intending to arrest Jesus’ followers.

Some may at first resist the calling and the changes it requires. Commenting on Jean Valjean in Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables, Caitrin Keiper notes the time it took for Valjean to change from thief to benefactor of those in need. In the beginning, after Valjean is caught stealing and brought before the bishop, the bishop not only pardons the man but even gives him more silver. Valjean, however, leaves only to steal again—but then he realizes what he has done, and the redeeming process begins. (“Masterpieces of Impossibility,” Plough, Autumn 2022)

At some point, a calling is answered or a debt is forgiven or a gift is bestowed and accepted. The results, Keiper writes, are a “contract with grace.” The contract stretches “to infinity as it is passed on from one person to the next.”

Somewhere today, even among political hatreds or attacks on defenseless civilians or misery caused by selfish oligarchs, those usually small but called ones are working. They are the ones we search for, to join our callings with theirs.