Since the inception of higher education, American colleges and universities have always claimed to be focused on the development of the whole student. The contribution by Quincy Brown in collection At This Time and In This Place: Vocation and Higher Education focuses on student activity outside the classroom—particularly advising, athletics, residential life, Greek life, and campus ministry—as places where vocational discernment should and does occur. The nature and quality of these encounters are shaped by such diverse themes such as ritual (including rituals that are not specifically ecclesial), contest (athletic, artistic, or academic), and image (the outward signs of membership in a particular campus community or culture). These themes that are not always addressed and “unpacked” in a classroom setting. He also draws on John Wesley’s conversion (and the Wesleyan understanding of transforming the world through a disciplined life) as a source for understanding the importance of co-curricular experiences for shaping our students’ vocational discernment experiences. Other sources for reflection on this theme include James Fowler, Sharon Parks, Victor Turner, Kathleen Manning, and Larry Braskamp.
Suffering and vocation: a matter of perspective
John Neafsey explores the relationship between suffering and vocation in A Sacred Voice is Calling: Personal Vocation and Social Conscience. He speaks to the notion of “redemptive suffering,” meaning that painful life experiences have the potential to make us wiser and more mature. What turns this possibility into promise depends on our attitude toward suffering.
I can attest to the reality of redemptive suffering based on my own life experience. Personal losses have served as powerful avenues of growth and maturity. Experiencing a significant cancer diagnosis at the age of 22, my eyes were opened Continue reading “Suffering and vocation: a matter of perspective”
Vocation enmeshed
“Malcolm, you ought to be thinking about a career. Have you been giving it thought?” …
“Well, yes, sir, I’ve been thinking I’d like to be a lawyer.” Lansing certainly had no Negro lawyers – or doctors either – in those days, to hold up an image I might have aspired to. …
Mr. Ostrowski looked surprised, I remember, and leaned back in his chair and clasped his hands behind his head. He kind of half-smiled and said, “Malcolm, one of life’s first needs is for us to be realistic. Don’t misunderstand me, now. We all here like you, you know that. But you’ve got to be realistic about being a n—-. A lawyer – that’s no realistic goal for a n—-.” …
It was then that I began to change – inside.
~ The Autobiography of Malcolm X
The exchange between young Malcolm and his teacher, Mr. Ostrowski, encapsulates the tremendous influence of social and political systems on our daily and mundane interactions with each other. What a young person thinks that she or he can become is overwhelmingly shaped by Continue reading “Vocation enmeshed”
Smartphones and vocational reflection
Do smartphones help or hinder reflection upon vocation? It depends. Medieval Christians distinguished between curiositas—a vice—and studiositas—a virtue. Curiositas is inconsistent with vocational reflection; studiositas undergirds real reflection upon calling. Although I enjoy my iPhone, I know it encourages shallow curiosity rather than contemplative wonder.
Smartphones constitute ideal technology for cultivating and satisfying curiositas. These pocket-sized gadgets provide easy access to new knowledge on demand, so that a hunger for novelty finds endless fodder, inadequate though it is for real intellectual sustenance. Smartphones also present Continue reading “Smartphones and vocational reflection”