NetVUE’s podcast Callings has released its first episode of the new year, featuring New York Times best-selling author Barbara Brown Taylor. In addition to the many award-winning books that she has written—including Holy Envy, Learning to Walk in the Dark, and An Altar in the World—Barbara has served as an Episcopal priest, a teacher, and a public theologian. For many years, she held an endowed chair in religion and philosophy at Piedmont University, a NetVUE member institution, and she has served on several seminary faculties as well as the theological studies certificate program at Arrendale State Prison for women. Barbara has been recognized as one of the most effective preachers in the English-speaking world by Baylor University, and in 2014, Time magazine included her on its list of “The 100 Most Influential People.” She has been named the Georgia Woman of the Year and recently elected to the Georgia Writer’s Hall of Fame. And beyond all these accolades, she continues to write and speak and serve as the caretaker of a farm in rural Georgia.
In this episode, Barbara consistently circles back to the meaningfulness of what she refers to as “the small,” or what we might think of as the local, the embodied, or the immediately present. Barbara challenges us to listen to callings from within ourselves as well as those callings from outside, paying especial attention to our neighbors, including our non-human ones. She encourages us to notice callings toward, as well as away from, certain actions or contexts and to find vocational guidance even in our missteps. In all this, she also shares her love for undergraduates and encourages vocational openness, flexibility, and attention. Ultimately, she counsels us to prioritize the life-affirming parts of our callings and steward them mindfully. “Pay attention to what gives you life,” she says, “and do whatever you have to to protect it, because there will be many people eager for your time and energy, and you must know what gives you life and protect it.”
Click hereto listen to the episode featuring Barbara Brown Taylor, “A Call to the Small.”
Geoffrey W. Bateman is the editor of Vocation Matters.