Tag: social justice

Resting into Vocation

When we rest, we both resist the idols of the world that would deny our connection to the divine while also tapping into a power that belongs to us, that is given to us by God.

Over this last year of COVID-19, Christian Nationalist uprisings, the murder of Black and Brown people, and the general fatigue of living in so-called “historical moments,” like so many others, I have had difficulty with focus, feel uninspired, and live with a kind of perpetual brain fog. My body has also asked for a lot of sleep. 

Though I would claim the habit of occasional insomnia, this year feels like an exception. Rather than a second wind at night, there have been many occasions where I’ve settled down with my spouse to watch an episode of “Star Trek: Next Generation,” a nostalgic creature comfort from my adolescence, and I have fallen asleep, drool on my pillow, by 7:30 p.m. This year of isolation may be a time for exploring all that Netflix has to offer, but I am afraid I’m not going to stay awake for it, so I’d better not risk watching any new television shows that are more than half an hour in length. 

I serve as Chaplain at a small liberal arts college in southeastern Indiana and know that I am not alone in my exhaustion. We’ve been teaching hybrid courses. We’ve been contact tracing on top of the work that we usually do in a given semester. We’ve been trying our best to foster a sense of community in the thick of anxiety, uncertainty, and masked social distancing. By the time that the Winter term rolled around, it felt like we were simply extending the previous term, sleep crusted in our eyes as we roused from a holiday break. Faculty members asked if I would provide some kind of “opening worship” to begin the semester, and I turned to the Revised Common Lectionary to see what it had in store: the call of the prophet Samuel, roused from his slumber by the voice of God. I was immediately drawn to the text: here was a call to vocation while sleeping. Samuel didn’t carve out a time with God when he was feeling perky and entirely focused, but this didn’t matter. “Is it you, Eli? Why do you keep waking me up? What? You didn’t call me? Great, I’ll go back to sleep.” 

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Vocation Virtually: Telling Your Story

Understanding this dimension of vocation offers an invitation to become the author of your own story. To do that, students must first discover they have a story to tell. Authoring one’s own story creates agency.

Part 5 of a series describing an electronic “vPortfolio” (vocation portfolio) developed at Augsburg University and centered on five metaphors for vocation: place, path, perspective, people, and story.

A fifth metaphor of vocation is story, which underscores the sense that everyone has a story to tell. There is a narrative arc to each life, and that story has a beginning, middle, and end. This dimension of vocation invites students to author their own stories and, in the telling, claim agency. “In the beginning, I/we….” or “Once upon a time, I/we….”  

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Care in the Classroom

In a second post on the importance of care in the academy, Courtney Dorroll presents seven approaches to care, and offers concrete examples for how to infuse self-care into the classroom.

In this second post on Care in the Academy, I present common types of self-care with concrete approaches and how-to’s for infusing self-care into a daily routine or the classroom.

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Rethinking and Unlearning: Imagining New Ways of Being in Community

A conversation with Nimisha Barton, historian, educator, and diversity practitioner. Nimisha Barton will lead a workshop for NetVUE members on October 27th on Bias, Privilege and Educational Freedom (see below for more details). As we finalized the details about her workshop, Nimisha generously agreed to be interviewed about her work and career trajectory and how … Continue reading “Rethinking and Unlearning: Imagining New Ways of Being in Community”

A conversation with Nimisha Barton, historian, educator, and diversity practitioner.

Nimisha Barton will lead a workshop for NetVUE members on October 27th on Bias, Privilege and Educational Freedom (see below for more details). As we finalized the details about her workshop, Nimisha generously agreed to be interviewed about her work and career trajectory and how her experiences in graduate school have informed her approach to mentoring. At the end, Nimisha suggests texts and other resources for educators who are committed to supporting undergraduates and unlearning the damaging messages into which we have all been socialized.

Describe the work you do now and how you engage with students, either as a consultant, teacher, mentor, etc. 

I consult with colleges and universities helping faculty and staff around the country find ways to improve their relationships with their entire community. This may look like inclusive teaching workshops for faculty or inclusive leadership development trainings for students. At the end of the day, I seek to highlight existing norms and practices and suggest new ways of thinking that might enhance our relationships with one another. Often, this means thinking through how historical and sociopolitical realities have conditioned the ways we currently relate with one another and imagining new ways of being in community. 

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#PissedOffPastor in Kenosha

Kenosha, Wisconsin, the site of the recent police shooting of Jacob Blake, is now the site of regular protests regarding social injustice and systemic racism. An important voice from the NetVUE community addressing these issues is Rev. Kara Baylor, Campus Pastor and Director of the Center for Faith and Spirituality at Carthage College, in Kenosha. 

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Life Worth Living Series

A new series of videos available through Youtube offers a helpful resource for thinking about the question, “What Makes a Life Worth Living?”

One of the things the Living Well Center for Vocation and Purpose at Lenoir-Rhyne has done in response to Covid-19 is to re-create our most popular, in-person event as a virtual one. Two years ago we began a speaker series called “Lives Worth Living.” We invited four speakers a year to come to campus and respond to the question “What makes for a life worth living?” This event was held in our campus chapel and attracted not only students but a considerable number of community members. After the speaker’s lecture we had a Q&A or discussion time and on the following morning we offered students an opportunity to have coffee and follow-up conversation with the speaker. This quickly became a community-building, transformational “third space” for us, from which I have received numerous accounts of vocational “a-ha” moments.

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The Power of Proximity

Proximity—from the Latin proximus meaning the “nearest” or “close to the actual,” and similar to the Spanish noun prójimo, neighbor— brings down the barriers, burdens, and biases that separate us from others. Stevenson’s example of proximity invites us to reflect on the things that really matter to each of us and to our students in these urgent and uncertain times.

Learning from Bryan Stevenson’s Just Mercy

Last fall, on an overnight retreat with sophomore student participants in SOPHIA (Sophomore Initiative at Assumption), a year-long program on vocational exploration that I direct at my university, one of our first group activities was a conversation on community-building themes. With everyone sitting around a circle, I asked students to share their ideas on the meaning of belonging. Almost all the students shared their thoughts with the larger group. Some agreed that belonging is finding comfort within a group of people who share similar interests and values. Others emphasized the importance of feeling safe and welcomed in a particular place.

After some time, Hieu, the quietest student in the group, politely raised her hand and asked to speak. She said: “Belonging does not just mean to be welcomed into a group, it means to be listened to by others inside a group” (my emphasis). Hieu is a first-generation college student who grew up in Vietnam and immigrated to the United States seven years ago. Her wise interpretation of belonging has stuck with me, especially after the death of George Floyd in May.

SOPHIA Program Fall Retreat 2019. Canonicus Camp, Exeter, Rhode Island

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Fighting the Good Fight

Many students feel called to engage in ongoing struggles for social justice on our campuses, in their communities, and beyond. Recent events have led even more students to recognize that such activism may be part of their vocation. But even the most motivated and energetic student advocates experience frustration and exhaustion to an extent that threatens their well-being and sometimes even the continuation of their studies. How can we best support these students? How can those of us who are committed to helping our students discern and live out their vocations tend to their sometimes acute sense of being embattled? On Tuesday, July 14, NetVUE hosted a webinar with four speakers who addressed this intersection of social justice, activism, and vocation.

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“The Whispers of the Spirit”: Discerning Meaning in the Work of Justice

Drawing inspiration from John Lewis, Henri Nouwen, and Zenju Earthlyn Manuel, Kathy Talvacchia challenges us to consider why vocational discernment cannot be disconnected from the work of making the world more just for those who are marginalized. “This is the moral obligation of vocational discernment,” she urges.

As a disenfranchised citizen who yearned for a change, as a child born on the dark side of the American dream, I heard the whispers of the spirit calling to me to wrestle with the soul of a nation. – John Lewis

What is necessary for those persons who seek to create and live a life of commitment that works to develop the common good? A transformed heart and an active response that faces structural injustices and works to affect change is required. Listening to “the whispers of the spirit calling,” to borrow a phrase from John Lewis, grounds the energies of transformation and fuels commitments to work for social change. Discerning a calling dwells in the dynamic integration of inner reflection and critical social analysis.

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What an Unjust World Also Needs: Connecting Vocation and Activism

How can we better support the vocational discernment of students moving from advocacy to activism (described by Tim Clydesdale as the “rebels”)?

Soon after the murder of Trayvon Martin, the acquittal of George Zimmerman, and the rising prominence of Black Lives Matter in rallies and marches around the country, students from my institution planned their own protests. Dezi, a non-binary Black US American individual who graduated with Religion and Sociology majors five years ago, led the way. As they planned a “die in” to take place in Augustana’s campus coffee shop, Dezi wisely consulted with a number of faculty members. They conveyed their intention and their list of demands to Augustana, and asked us to help them refine their tactics and messaging. I was both honored and anxious to be among those informal consultants.

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