Reviews & Readings...
I have put together a collection of helpful book reviews with accompanying guides, as well as vocational readings. The questions I ask spotlight specific themes or something that stood out to me. I hope you enjoy this compilation, and something within you causes you to pause for thought and reflection.
"To Be Told: God Invites You to Coauthor Your Future."
Dan B. Allender
“We are not inanimate entities that merely reveal glory but living stories that are meant to create glory” (pg 11)
Dan Allender, counselor, therapist, and professor has developed an approach to therapy based on story-telling. His theory has been tested in the real world of his classrooms, research, retreats, and counseling office. It is founded on the premise that when we engage with the good and bad of our personal narratives, we develop the capacity to know who we are and to what we have been called. This book unpacks this lens, guiding us through a series of reflective questions at the end of each chapter to help us recognize the power our stories carry to transform us and our relationships to others and our world.
"The Next Right Thing: A Simple, Soulful Practice For Making Life Decisions."
Emily P. Freeman
“I'm convinced God is less interested in where we end up than he is in who we are becoming.”
The title of Emily Freeman's book tells you that this is not your usual “top-ten decision-making tips manual.” Certainly, those are helpful and have their place. This book, however, gives us something different. It provides gentle counsel that helps us to slow down, quieten the voices, and step back so we can discern how to respond to whatever is before us. This book is part storytelling, captivating us with illustrations from Freeman’s real-life examples and part contemplative guide with easy-to-follow practices at the end of every short chapter. www.emilypfreeman.com
"Visions Of Vocation: Common Grace For The Common Good."
Steven Garber
“Our vocations are bound up with the ordinary work that ordinary people do...we are hints of hope.”
In an interview, Garber reflected on his work at Regent College in Vancouver, “I've long taught and written that vocation is a big word, a complex word. It isn't the same as our work. Our work is an expression of our vocation.” (Read the full interview here). His book, “Visions of Vocation,” unpacks those words. Garber invites us to think deeply and critically about the ways in which who we are, what we do, and how we do those things intersect with and serves the world in which we live. So many of his chapters challenged me to broaden my understandings of vocation. The book is brought to life with the stories of people known personally by Garber who work everywhere from the marketplaces of politics to the living rooms of homes and invites us to locate vocation in the context of our whole lives.
"The Way of Discernment: Spiritual Practices for Decision Making."
Elizabeth Liebert
“Discernment…is the process of intentionally becoming aware of how God is present, active, and calling us as individuals and communities so that we can respond with increasingly greater faithfulness.”
What’s the difference between discernment and making a choice? How do we make good decisions? Elizabeth Liebert, a professor of Spiritual Life at San Francisco Theological Seminary, has put together a practical “how-to” book that is saturated with the wisdom of the Christian tradition. She explores the various ways in which we can arrive at making decisions, including the Ignatian use of our imagination, the Quakers process of convening clearness committees and the place of reason and awareness of our bodies reactions.
“Becoming Who You Are.”
James Martin, SJ
“In the quest for the true self, one…begins to appreciate and accept one’s personality and one’s life as an essential way that God calls us to be ourselves.” (pg 23)
James Martin, a Jesuit Priest, packs a lot into this slim book that explores the nature of the true and the false self. He shares his own search for authentic identity, tracing his pilgrimage through his first career in finance and accounting and his subsequent life as a priest. As he reflects on the lives of fellow priests, Thomas Merton and Henri Nouwen, we are invited to consider who we are and who we are becoming. We are invited to honesty.
"A Life at Work: The Joy of Discovering What You Were Born To Do."
Thomas Moore
“A calling is a sensation or intuition that life wants something from you. It can give meaning to the smallest acts and helps create a strong identity”
This book by former Catholic monk turned psychotherapist Thomas Moore, draws on the intricate and ancient science of alchemy as a “model for finding your life work,” stating that it “teaches that the search is not just about the product but also the process.” (Preface xv). Moore covers ground from the nature of calling itself to the importance of living a seamless life that is in tune with our guiding ethics and values. His focus on finding our life’s work may span our interests and hobbies, various jobs, or voluntary activities.
“Let Your Life Speak: Listening For The Voice Of Vocation."
Parker J. Palmer
“What I learned about vocation is how one’s values can do battle with one’s heart. I felt morally compelled to work on the urban crisis but doing so went against my growing sense that teaching might be my vocation.”
In this autobiographical account, Palmer takes us through his striving to find his calling. He wrestles with the understanding of vocation within the religious community of his upbringing. He shares stories of his academic failure at seminary and his noble but ultimately doomed foray into community work. He writes with penetrating honesty of his clinical depression, borne partly from his struggles to understand his core identity. In summary, this book is a treasure trove of insights and full of the kind of wisdom that only comes through struggle.
"Crossing the Unknown Sea: Work as a Pilgrimage of Identity."
David Whyte
“Seen in the light of a pilgrim’s journey, work takes on a greater significance than merely paying the bills and keeping the ever-present wolf from the door.”
David Whyte, using the expansive and beautiful prose of the poet that he is, writes lyrically about the ways in which the work we do shapes us for good and bad. Using the metaphor of a sea journey, Whyte explores topics such as powerlessness, ambition, authenticity, busyness, and freedom. His book challenges us to consider our relationship to the workplace as a means of understanding our relationship with self and others.
Other Reading Material...
“She is...”
Biblical Reflections on Vocation.
The Fuller De Pree Center has a number of excellent resources on vocation including this one. It is a beautifully illustrated and accessible workbook which is, in their words, "designed to help people engage questions of vocation through the stories of various biblical women."
Each contributor, women, and men who are theologians working at the sharp edge of their fields of expertise, weave their own stories of calling into their reflections as they examine the texts through the lens of vocation.
The free workbook can be downloaded from their online store.
Blog Series
Richard Rohr
Franciscan Priest Richard Rohr (Center for Contemplation and Action in New Mexico, USA), devoted a week in the Spring of 2018 to the topic of vocation. His posts succinctly cover many of the themes that the above books tackle. The first article in the series was a summary of Parker J. Palmer's "Let Your Life Speak."
Includes the titles;
Let Your Life Speak
Who Am I?
Finding Our Charism
Swallowed By A Whale (You must be intrigued!)
Discernment vs. Decision Making
Solidarity With The World
This post is aimed at those who work with young adults but there is much here to mull over, regardless of age. Whether or not you care about church stuff or if you are yourself a young adult, the "Four Points of Purpose" found around halfway through are worth a read. The authors speak about kingdom-oriented vocation under four headings:
Communion. Community. Character. Cultivation.
The authors write:
"By fleshing out these four vocational domains we can discover how thousands of careers fit beautifully within the kingdom vision of God for our future and the future of God’s world. Moreover, this framework allows us to understand our career in light of a whole life mission."
The full post can be found at the V3 Church Planting Blog.
“Called To Be Who We Are”
David Vryhof
This reflection comes from the Society of St. John The Evangelist, a monastic order within the Anglican Church. Delivered as an address in 2003, it unpacks ideas around calling as relating to being as much as doing.
Read the address...
What are the two different ways that Rowan Williams gives in thinking about vocation?
Which are you more familiar with?
Whose shadow have you been living in?
What do you think God’s “call within a call” might be to you?
How can you begin to discern this?