Virtues & Vocations, Part 30: Finding Your Vocation

Episode Topic: Finding Your Vocation 

Listen in to a conversation with Karen Swallow Prior, author of You Have a Calling: Finding Your Vocation in the Good, True, and Beautiful, about the difference between passion and calling, and how to find meaning in your work.

 Featured Speakers:

• Karen Swallow Prior, Bethel Seminary

Read this episode's recap over on the University of Notre Dame's open online learning community platform, ThinkND: https://go.nd.edu/8a3d3c.

This podcast is a part of the ThinkND Series titled Virtues & Vocations. 

Thanks for listening! The ThinkND Podcast is brought to you by ThinkND, the University of Notre Dame's online learning community. We connect you with videos, podcasts, articles, courses, and other resources to inspire minds and spark conversations on topics that matter to you — everything from faith and politics, to science, technology, and your career.

• Learn more about ThinkND and register for upcoming live events at think.nd.edu.
• Join our LinkedIn community for updates, episode clips, and more.

Transcript

Welcome and Series Intro

1 0:06

Hi, everyone. Happy December. Happy Advent. Welcome to our webinar Virtues and Vocations, conversations on Character and the Common Good. In this series, we share conversations about how education and work can promote human flourishing. This is our final webinar of 2025. This series is part of Virtues Invocations, a National Forum housed at the Institute for Social Concerns. At the University of Notre Dame and supported by the Kern Family Foundation, virtues in vocations seeks to foster a community of practice amongst scholars and practitioners across disciplines who are keen to understand how best to cultivate character and moral purpose in higher education and professions themselves. This webinar series is one way we facilitate these conversations. I'm Suzanne Shanahan and I direct the institute. Social concern, and I'm host of this series today. We are thrilled to welcome Karen Pryor Swallow on finding your vocation. Karen is the 20 25 20 26 Carlson Scholar at the Bethel Seminary. She's also a popular writer and speaker, a contributing writer for the dispatch and a columnist for religion news service. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times, the Atlantic Vox, the Washington Post, Christianity Today, and many other places. Today we will have a conversation about her recently released book. You have a calling, finding Your Vocation in the True, good and beautiful. Welcome, Karen.

Speaker 2 1:54

Hi Suzanne. Thank you for having me.

1 1:57

So let's jump right in and I would love to get a bit of your background. Um, so we might get a sense of how you came to this work, how you would describe this work to someone who was unfamiliar with the work you do. Maybe share a little bit about the influences, whether scholarly or personal.

Speaker 2 2:15

Yeah. So, um, I have a PhD in English and spent about 25 years. As a full-time professor in the academic classroom teaching literature to undergrads and graduate students, and along the way began to write more, several books and so forth. And then when I left academia a few years ago. I had already started this book, at least in sort of a, a workshop and presentation form. but because I was going through my own sort of, dramatic transition in, in vocation and calling and work, a lot of the things that I had been thinking about and speaking about came, uh, together. In writing this book, I am really drawing on not only my own experience personally, but even just in counseling and mentoring, countless number of undergraduate students who are facing these questions and. We're facing them in a particular cultural moment, uh, in which a lot of the questions we're asking about vocation and calling and passion are a little bit different than they have been for previous generations. And so that's how I landed on this book. I still continue to, write, uh, about my first love, which is literature. but literary criticism and cultural criticism really can be very similar. So I do write about a range of topics.

1 3:36

Great. So, Did you go to college to study English or was that a change in pathway for you? And where did you grow up? I know you're in Virginia now, but is Virginia your long time home?

Speaker 2 3:51

Well, it's long time now. Uh, I've lived in Virginia for 26 years, but I actually grew up in Maine and then, uh, in, in Buffalo, New York. So I am, a northeasterner. and I actually that the answer to that question is part of my own journey on calling and vocation because I started undergraduate college as a social work major. For a lot of reasons, and I did not come from an academic family. I had always loved English reading and writing and literature in school, but I didn't even know that it was something that you could study seriously and academically. And so when I got to college as a social work major. And had to take my first required English classes. I, number one, discovered that I didn't like the study of social work and probably wouldn't like the application. And number two, I discovered that one can study English in a serious academic way. And so I switched my major, uh, without even really having, knowing what I was doing or what I expected to do. And did not discover my true calling as a, as a teacher, as a college professor until I was in my PhD program.

1 5:05

Wonderful. so I'm excited to talk about this most recent book in part because there seems to be quite a bit of conversation out there currently. Around work around vocation or calling notions of purpose. And I'm thinking about a spate of very recent books that I think are addressing something somewhat similar, but not precisely on topic. And so it would be Bonnie Miller Macklemore's recent book, follow Your Bliss And Other Lies. Anna Morlan and Tom Smith's, the Young Adult Playbook, or Chris Higgins Undeclared. Even something like Daniel Porterfield's Mindset Matters, or something like Mela Vols, cost of Ambition. And so I would love for you to talk about why this book and why now in particular does this seem to be such an important topic for so many people?

Speaker 2 6:03

Hmm. So I think the, sort of the core of, of the book that I wrote. Began in those discussions that I was having over the years with undergraduates and the thing that they were facing that was very different from my own growing up and even, you know, generations previous, is that they were being given this message that they should pursue their passion for follow their bliss. If they did that, then that that would naturally lead to their paid work and to the fulfillment, not only of their, of their work lives, but really all of their lives and things were built up in such a way that I was seeing so much angst and disappointment and disillusionment because young people leaving college were not, were increasingly not finding jobs that were doing those things, and oftentimes they were jobs that were not fulfilling at all. And so I felt like a lot of the despair that younger people have been feeling, uh, and continue to feel is because of these unrealistic expectations and definitions of work and vocation and calling, but it's not just the young people. The more and more I go out and speak, to all kinds of audiences, I find that people of middle age or even older are also infected by these myths and these distortions. And they too, especially I think of, of, of moms who stayed home, uh, during their thirties and forties and they get this message about. Success and, and following their dreams and, and so forth. And they feel like they, they missed their calling. And so I just said, we have a wrong definition of calling. We have a no distinction between calling and passion. And so that really was the core of what I sat down to write and, and sort of unpacked it from there.

1 7:54

Great. So, if we could pick up a little bit on this, sort of message that we're sending young people about passion. sort of about a third into the book, you have this beautiful quote. It says, passion is inside, a calling comes from the outside. Could you talk a little bit about the difference between passion and calling?

Purpose and Life Changes

Speaker 2 8:15

Hmm. Yeah. I actually, I think that's probably. The main argument of my book is that making that distinction, that that passions, passions are good. Passions are, are things that motivate us and, and propel us and give us direction. but they do come from inside. Calling very, very distinctly comes from outside. If we just think about the, what the word calling means, and, and I use the word vocation, similarly, even though sometimes we use them in distinctly in different contexts, but vocation and calling literally mean being a, a vocalization, something that comes from outside and. And what ideally will happen is that our passions completely align with the invitation that comes from outside or the calling that comes from outside. And sometimes that does happen. It happens probably more often and in the modern world, than it does has at any time throughout history. But it's still not automatic. It's still not something that we can assume will happen. And even when it does happen, we can't assume that it will always be that way. So that distinction between passions, which are internal and calling, which is external, is really where my argument begins and ultimately ends, I think.

1 9:34

Great. So you also, a little bit before that, you talk about the relationship between passion and purpose, and I wonder if we could talk a little bit about passion, purpose, and then calling, so, mm-hmm. you, you again have this wonderful line about purpose is the why and passion is the how are purpose and calling the same thing.

Speaker 2 9:56

I think purpose actually is a, is a larger category within which calling and passion fit. And, and again, because I'm writing particularly in, in this moment and in a time where we, especially as. 21st century Americans, this is a tendency that we have, is to, to attach money and income to all of these categories, which is where we greatly go astray. because we can have passions and callings that fulfill our purpose that are things that we don't get paid for. and that's a big, big part of what I'm trying to show. And, and if we do get paid for it, wonderful. it's just again, that, that expectation that it'll be that way that I think is the, is the root of all kinds of evil. So passion, if we, if I can invoke a meta metaphor is really like the gas or the fuel, the source of energy, the thing that drives us. and purpose is how that gets directed. How that energy or fuel gets directed or driven. Uh, and, and within that it can be evocation, it can be calling, but our overall purpose is sort of the largest category within which all of these terms fit.

1 11:08

Um. Is it, is it possible to give an example of, of that, um, right. I'm thinking about how easily these can get confused and so is the right if, how is the purpose a bigger category? Maybe it, do you have an example?

Speaker 2 11:27

Yeah. So I think for me, again, drawing on my own story. I think that I was created to teach. and that's not just in the classroom and, and not just literature, but it's just kind of, you know, the way that I'm wired and the gift that I was given, uh, in the way that I was made to offer to the world. So my, that might be an overall purpose that I have, and I might have and did have a, a calling as a, as a. Classroom professor for many years. and I had, uh, and that helped. That was how I fulfilled that purpose. and I don't have that particular job anymore, but I'm still fulfilling the purpose of teaching. And I still am called, to teach literature. And I just do it in a different, a different format. I do it in lectures and in books and on my substack. Newsletter. And so, but my overall purpose, of being someone who teaches and, and delights in, delights in what I learn and want to share with others can just take so many forms and so many iterations, in, in my life and has.

1 12:35

So, if we think about, right, I love this notion of passion as the fuel for calling. Um, and we think about the broader category of purpose, and then calling is the more specific activity within that. do you think Right, sort of clearly for you, the calling change, so the, the way you, teach or the way you manifest being an educator has changed over time. do, do you think we find a purpose and that's more fixed? Or can both purpose and calling change and change together.

Speaker 2 13:13

Mm-hmm. No, I, I think again, this is, this is, we, we think that there's some sort of magical solution or pathway and, and that's part of what my book is doing is saying, really there isn't, I think these are things that, that we discover along the way. and it's part of our, our life journey, part of being human. I mean, certainly some people, you know, come out of the gate. Knowing what their purpose in calling is, and they follow that and there's no deviation. Um, but many of us sort of follow. We just pursue one thing after another, go through the doors that are open, pursue our passions, all all of these things. And along the way we discover. Our calling, which again, comes from outside. And in fulfilling that calling, I think we can discover our purpose. But I don't, and, and oftentimes, and I, I've seen this in, in with people I know in my own life, we look back and realize that something that we were doing all along or something, the way that we were engaged in, in our work or our families. That, that was our calling. and so it's, there's no formula. it's something that we can stumble along, uh, and discover along the way, or some people can just go right into it. but part of what I'm trying to do is, is ease some of the pressure because it is a journey and it is discovery. And the same way that we discover who we are, we also discover what we're called to and what our purpose is.

1 14:42

So, I, I very much appreciate this notion that, your purpose and your calling may be ever evolving and you're sort of stumbling toward it and working toward that. I, although I do, I do question the notion that this eases the stress of young people, right? So people love, um, the work designing your life because there's. A sense of agency and authorship and you can plot it out and end up somewhere. how do you address the kind of existential worry that emerges when I, you know, I can see myself having this conversation with current students or even my own children, who were in their early twenties, who are desperately trying to find something and want someone to say. If you do A, B, and C, you'll get to D and all will be well.

Speaker 2 15:38

Hmm. No, that's a very fair question. And, you know, and, and just to share a little bit more of my own context, I, am, am and, and and was teaching in a broadly evangelical context. And so I'm teaching over the years evangelical young people who are growing up with a message that comes from the church, but also the surrounding culture in its own forms about doing big things for God, or, you know, changing the world. and there's nothing wrong with doing big things, and there's nothing wrong with changing the world, but there is something wrong with that being the expectation that our work and our calling always are going to be dramatic and world changing. And if they aren't, we are somehow a failure. So what I would say to someone who is saying, looking for, well, if you do A, B, C, and D, you'll end up. Now I lost track of the letters A, B, and C. You'll end up at D. I want to say, you know what? Sometimes you can do an X, Y, and Z and you'll still end up at D. Like you know, because of how you know. We do have passions, we do have gifts. The world does have needs and the purpose of our callings. you know, in, in the long Christian tradition, it that I come from teaches that the purpose of having a vocation, having a calling is. To serve our neighbors, just because of the way that God made the world. So calling and vocation about are about serving our neighbors, and sometimes that can be the thing that we get paid to do. We, we have a job that serves our neighbors and we get paid to do it. Sometimes it can be by. You know, caring for family members and we don't get paid to do it. Sometimes it can be in, in ministry or volunteering or, or pursuing our passions. We can actually, you know, if, if, if we love dogs and we, uh, you know, we take care of dogs because we, that we have a passion about them, we're actually serving the world and stewarding creation. And so all of these things can help us find our purpose. And the, the ease that I wanna offer is that you can get there in a number of different ways and there aren't really. That many fatal errors because it can all be used. You're all, you're learning more about yourself in the world. You're learning more about your strengths and your, your, your weaknesses and what the world needs. And if you hold all those steps along the way with sort of an open hand, that's a mixed metaphor. But if you have an open hand, you will find yourself eventually, I think at some, in some range of d where you find your purpose and hear your calling and fulfill it.

1 18:19

Great. Thank you for that. I, I wanna talk about two dimensions of the book. The first one is about your conversation about work, and then this conversation about the Trent and Dentals, which I just found so Rich. we recently at Virtues and Vocations, we have a twice a yearly magazine, and the most recent one was on meaningful work. can you talk a little bit about how you've conceptualized work in this, really separate from calling, separate from purpose, and, and why that's an important dimension of your argument.

Speaker 2 18:54

Hmm. Yeah. So one of the other myths I was kind trying to counter in the book is the one we've all heard variations of it that, you know, do what you love and you'll never work a day in your life. Mm-hmm. Things like that given negative connotation on work. And of course, you know, we don't want to have more difficulty in life than, than we need to. but I, I just wanted to start out with a positive vision of work. And again, I'm not talking about just paid work, I'm talking about work in general and. I draw because I draw heavily throughout the book on works of literature, and so I draw on John Milton's Paradise Loss in this section to describe the way that Milton. Depicts Adam and Eve working in the garden before the fall because they were created to work, they were created to, to be God's co-reg and co-partners, co-workers in caring for creation. And so work was not a result of the fall. The obstacles and difficulties in work were obstacles were, were, uh, the result of the fall. And again, we can understand this, I think literally or metaphorically or both. But either way, we understand that work itself is good. We were made to work. and, but things shifted. We, we do work at now in with obstacles, with thorns, with thistles, with, with, barrenness and famine rather than the abundance that was in the Garden of Eden. But work is still good. And if we have that attitude, then I think. It helps us to understand the nature of calling better. It involves work. it not always be pleasant, but work itself is good and that is something we were made to do. That's part of our purpose as well.

1 20:38

You know, as we think about, calling, one of the things that I think you do very well is make clear that at work doesn't have to be your calling or your job doesn't have to be your calling. Right. And I think you're also very good at distinguishing work from, from job, right? So, uh, most people need a job, but it doesn't have to be your calling. How do you, how do we have a conversation with young people? that says, right, it the thing that sustains you because most people do need a job, doesn't have to be the thing that animates you, that gives you life, that is the source of truth, goodness, and beauty, as you would say it. Right. How do we enable them to see that distinction?

Privilege and Inequality

Speaker 2 21:23

Hmm. It's an important distinction and it's harder to make now because, you know, as we all know, the past couple of generations. Have received a distorted message about what, for example, college education is supposed to do for them. Um, we have a couple of generations who were told, you know, to, to basically to go deeply in debt in order to find a, a, a, their calling, and that that calling will. Not only pay all their current bills, but pay their, their past tuition bills. that's a, a structural, a systemic sort of injustice that has been done to them. And, and, you know, we're reaping the effects of that edifice, crumbling in the current moment. I think everyone in higher education recognizes this. And so there's an additional pressure on these young people because they were given this message, about calling and about work and about the money that would come along. That is simply a false message, and so we almost have to step, step back several steps or several generations, which I try to do briefly in the book and, you know, talking about work, but also talking about how throughout history. All of human history, most people, the vast majority of people have had to do work that was not fulfilling, that was backbreaking and difficult, and yet they still had callings to their families, to their communities that they were fulfilling at the same time that their jobs or their work, whatever it might be, was fulfilling. The needs that they had to provide for themselves we're actually, most of us are not. In, in America anyway, are not in that really difficult situation. Thankfully, and we can be, be thankful for that, but we, but the nature of work and the nature of calling have still not changed. We have to look at our own particular cultural moment and see what we've gotten wrong about it, but also see how it is actually a, a great blessing to have so many choices and opportunities. Yet at the same time, the nature of these things haven't changed and we have to kind of strip away the myths and the distortions. So we can see what it is that's good about work, how we can find our calling, and how, how even our work is not supposed to fulfill all of our, all of our needs, all of our, our passions and our joys. That's not its purpose.

1 23:46

Sometimes when I, think about work, and then the relationship to calling, I, I worry about the inequality of it, and I think you're referring a little bit to this. there's this wonderful passage where you talk about God, God calls us to a life of abundance, not scarcity. God's economy is about platitude. If we believe that, accept it, see it, own it, how different our decisions would be. is, is that a space where. It requires a certain level of privilege to be in a situation where you can imagine a job potentially being a calling. Whereas for others, there's, they live in much more choice constrained environments. And work is really about the toil. It's, and that vocation has to really, by necessity, is often something else. Do you think there's any inequality to our conversations about calling or is there a way to get around that inequality?

Speaker 2 24:52

No, no, absolutely. There is, we, we, and I don't quite put it this way in the book, but I maybe was dancing around it, but we are living, again, anyone who's reading this book and asking these questions in this particular moment is living in an extremely privileged position. And so I'm try, so what I'm trying to do is broaden out the focus to say, look at, look at what work and calling looked like. Look, look at what it looks like even just a few generations ago. And I give the examples of, you know, of, of in early in the 20th century, I mean most of our, our grandparents and great grandparents were grateful just to have a job that brought home a regular salary. And they turned to their communities and their families and their, and their churches and their, and their civic organizations for the kind of purpose and meaning that could bring them them better, greater joy. That's not that long ago. So we can just, we can look back just a few generations to see how different things were, and the kind of platitude that I'm talking about is, is in this moment so relative to what so many other people have gone through. And I don't even mean material or economic platitude. And that actually kind of moves to where I, I talk about truth, goodness, and beauty because there is so much beauty. To be had and seen in the everyday ordinary world around us that we don't see. I think because we're looking for this, these overblown ideas of what it means to, to do great things for God or to change the world, when in fact the simple ordinary world around us is filled with astonishing opportunities to, to see beauty, to serve others, to find joy in community. and, and so the distortions prevent us from seeing that.

1 26:43

So, um, right, this, this was just a really lovely section of the book and, you talk about to find and live within your calling is to find and live in truth, goodness, and beauty. So can you flesh this out a bit more? How do we live in truth, goodness, and beauty? How do we find that? certainly I would agree that it's all around us, but, you know, again, imagine, your young person or an older person still seeking. Mm-hmm. How do you find that?

Speaker 2 27:19

Yeah, no, thank you for asking that. Um, this is the kind of the point where I transition in the book. I don't, you know, I say that I don't have a formula and I don't have a six step plan, but in a way, I guess I'm suggesting that the pursuit of truth, goodness, and beauty in. Our work and in our everyday lives will help us to find and fulfill our callings because we are called to pursue those things. And so I try to break down these, you know, granted these very trans, they are transcendentals, they're very ethereal ideas. But so for example, in talking about truth, I say, you know, this isn't just like moral truth or philosophical truth. This is the tr the truth I'm talking about pursuing. Is first of all, knowing ourselves, knowing our own, again, going back to our passions, knowing our passions, knowing our gifts, knowing our strengths, knowing our weaknesses, and then knowing the world, knowing the moment that we live in the place we live in. Knowing the realities of the world, you know, what the world needs right now, as opposed to what we, you know, wish that we could offer the world if it, we were living 200 years earlier. And then knowing also the reality of the work. the simple example that I give is when I did become an English major in college and had no idea what I was going to do, I was trying to be practical. I didn't know what else to do. And so I had an internship working at a marketing agency, and that is where I discovered I hated everything about that work and work and that work environment. And so it was very valuable because it wasn't what. I thought it would be, I don't, I'm not sure what I did, but I discovered the nature of the work and so I decided to pursue something else. and so just facing reality about ourselves and the world and the work is a way of actually pursuing truth, and that's how one way we can begin to find and fulfill our calling. In goodness, I, I draw heavily on Dorothy Sayers. I mean, just go read Dorothy Sayers if you really want to know about, the goodness of Work. And she talks about, you know, about how in, in order the first requirement of good work is that we do the work well. That, you know, a good carpenter has to make good tables. and so again, that has to do with knowing the truth about the nature of the work and the object. But also just doing good work. What, no matter what it's, is what we're called to do when we're doing that work. and again, in my own sort of evangelical environment, um, that's just something that's often abandoned in pursuit of more, you know, fantastical dreams and, and visions of what it means to, to do something in, in service to the world and to God. And beauty is where I really do try to, you know, because I, I love talking about aesthetics as part of the way I approach literary criticism. And so I just kind of try to apply, um, sort of objective qualities of beauty, to work. And I draw on Aquinas who famously identifies the objective qualities of beauty is integrity, proportion and luminosity. And again, they sound maybe perhaps a little abstract and ethereal, but if you think about just one of those, if you think about, luminosity or clarity and how when we do true good work, well we're actually shedding light into the world. A whether you are doing it through a well organized spreadsheet, uh, or a well written essay or bagging groceries in a very. Orderly way that won't crush the bananas. Um, something I, you know, I, no matter what we're doing, if we're doing it in with proportion, integrity and clarity, we're actually doing good work well, and that the whole purpose of, of our callings and our vocations is to serve our neighbors. And so we're creating beauty, by pursuing those qualities in our work.

1 31:26

So as I think about this, the transcendental dimension of this, it, it seems that it requires a focus and a deliberative engagement with what one is doing. And is this something, that in, in your thinking is constant or. are, does that sense of calling, is it ever present? Does it ebb, does it flow, but does it wane? because it's I, I would argue it's pretty hard to to be deliberative every day, all day.

Speaker 2 32:03

No, I, I would absolutely agree. And I mean, this is, and, and I'm not even saying we have to do be this deliberative every day, but when we're asking these questions, I think we can think about these things. And I do draw in the book on, on some of the most ordinary examples. I mean, most of us watching this are probably academics of, of some sort or have been in academia. I live in a world in a place that is, that in which that is really the minority. I mean, in my professional life, obviously it is. I live in a rural area. I shop at a very small, dingy food lion. I encounter people every day who, who probably don't necessarily think about these things deliberately, and yet when I see them taking joy in the work that they do and pleasure in doing it well, that gives me inspiration. So they may not be thinking about it, but I'm learning from them to think about it. On the other hand, I have had. Worked on this book for two years, worked on getting it and publishing it out there and talking about it. And it even in, I will tell you, in literally in the past two weeks, I have had to listen to myself about what I wrote because I am doing things in my life and caring for loved ones that I do not. Pleasure in. It's not what I planned. It's not what I wanted. And yet what I said in this book, I believe, and that is again, calling comes from outside ourselves. It's not something that we necessarily choose. It is something that we, that helps to serve our neighbors and when we accept the call, we can do it with truth and goodness and beauty. Find joy in it. And I, I have had to remind myself of that when I'm, when I'm cooking meals, nearly every day, and I hate to cook and I'm not good at it, but I'm still serving my family, and my, you know, my elderly family member. And, and so I've had to remind myself of the things that I wrote in this book. So it's a habit, it's a practice. Uh, it requires intentionality and deliberation. But once we, when the more we do that, the less we have to think about it. Um, I, I'm with Aristotle when it comes, when he, when he talks about virtues being the things that we, that we practice to the point that they become habits and then become second nature. and for some blessed people out there, these things are first nature, and, and, and we can learn from them. And I try to.

1 34:37

For many years I taught at Duke University. And frequently, in conversations like this, students would ask if, if removing God from the equation, does it still work? So to what extent does the way you framed calling rely on right on your clear Christian faith or can we. Make a similar set of arguments without it, or is that not possible?

Speaker 2 35:07

No, that's a really fair question. And of course I'm writing this book as a Christian, uh, for primarily Christian readers, and yet I think it still works. In fact, in my short chapter on definitions. I draw upon heavily in sight, definitions given by Elizabeth Gilbert, uh, who in a 10 minute video she does that I think is just brilliant. Uh, where she parses out the differences between job, career and vocation. Mm-hmm. and then another definition I use that kind of distills calling into a divine invitation. And again, we don't even have to believe in the divine, but it's still calling if calling comes from outside of ourselves again. If we're Christian, we think it ultimately comes from God. But you know, it's not like he calls us on the phone. He uses people and circumstances. and the, the reality of the world that we're living in is time and place. And so those still hold true. we still have to look at what the world needs in this moment that we can offer. and those needs are the call. and so we can, we need to look outside of ourselves. In order to find how, how we fit into the world at who we are. And, and that actually is the, the note that I close on in my, in my last chapter on beauty is this idea of fittedness. Which is, you know, we talk about, I've talked about the objective qualities of beauty, but they're also subjective ones. There's really a phenomenology that's going on there, like I'm made in a certain way and the world is made in a certain way. And what we're really trying to do when we find our, our calling and fulfill it, is to find the way we fit. Into the world as we are, as we can become and as the world is right now. it's really a lot like finding the, the right fit of clothing. everything doesn't fit everyone and everything doesn't look good on everyone, but so we just keep trying to find our fit. And when we do, we know,

1 37:10

I love the metaphor of the clothing and this notion of fit, because. Right. Things don't look good on the same person.

Speaker 2 37:18

Right.

1 37:18

Um, and it really varies and yeah, the, when you find that fit, there's, you see a person sort of glow from the inside, which I think is important. are there parts of this book that you're thinking to yourself, right? You spent two years on it, you've been talking lots and lots about it, that you're like. Geez. You know, if I were to do this again, I would add this or I would change that.

Speaker 2 37:47

Yeah. This has actually already come up. Um, I, I think I, even though I think that what I say in the book can apply to every life stage, I was drawing from my heavier experience talking with younger people and then eventually more middle life people. I would, I really wish that I had spoken more directly to, later life years to retirement, and or post-retirement because I do think that that the idea of calling everything that I say still applies in, in that lifetime. And so that's one area that I would. I would have, leaned into a little more. Maybe I'll have to do a follow up book. You know, you still have a calling because I think that is true. And we're all living, you know, most of us are living longer. Our lifespans are longer, and the questions may maybe take different forms, but I think the same principles apply.

Catholic Vocation Lens

1 38:39

Yeah. I wonder too if, you know, sort of you talk about the needs, creating a calling. Maybe it's also as, as individuals change over their life course, but as the context within which they find themselves changes. Right, exactly. You've talked about extraordinary changes in our lifetimes, in, in terms of what the needs are and how we can all be differential, respon, differentially responsive over time to those needs and how best to serve. So, okay, so questions are queuing up, so I wanna introduce a couple if you don't mind.

Speaker 2 39:13

Sure.

1 39:14

Okay, so this one, is how do you see these concepts of passion, purpose calling and vocation intersecting with the Catholic understanding of vocation, whether particular vocation, marriage, priesthood, religious life and more, or the general vocation to holiness? Mm. And I realize you're not Catholic. If, if possible to address that.

Speaker 2 39:38

Right. No, I, again, I'm coming from a Protestant, evangelical perspective, but I actually think the Catholic notions of vocation are extremely helpful because the ones that you just listed and described are examples of everything that I was talking about. And in terms of there is a call that comes from outside and there is an answer to the call and there is an offering of of one's own passions and gifts. These are not necessarily things that you get paid for, especially we think of, and I didn't talk about this during our conversation much, but in the book I talk about our relationships, you know, in families or in communities and neighborhoods as being callings. And so the idea of marriage being a calling, is, is one of the best examples because. because it requires, it's more than just your own individual passions. It's a partnership. and, and not everyone gets the calling. I talk also in the book about parenthood being a calling, and how I never was able to have children even though I wanted them. And so to understand, being a parent as a calling that sometimes and perhaps more often than not, comes, but sometimes doesn't. Is a way of understanding it as something that's beyond my own desire and beyond, just my own passion, but it is something that truly is a calling. I think those are very helpful categories.

1 41:02

Great. Next one. The advancement of technologies like AI that's sometimes explicitly aimed to replace work, has dropped a bomb of sorts on my generation of recent graduates. Not only in terms of, trouble finding jobs, but also raising greater questions about whether our society will proceed, will protect the inherent goodness of work. How might this understanding of calling and work provide a way forward?

Speaker 2 41:34

Yeah, this, we, we have to, we have to talk about this, don't we? Um, I mean, we, you know, I, the, I I have very dark, um, thoughts about ai, that I probably don't even need to, to, to share. Most of us may, may share them, some don't, but. I think I turn for my own solace and broader understanding to the way the world shifted with the invention of the printing press half a millennium ago. which was very radical. It transformed the world and the people who were living in that moment I think were very disoriented and confused and, and for, for some, for good reasons. now on the other side, we can be mostly thankful for the printing press. I'm very thankful. AI is giving us, probably an even more dramatic moment in, in human history. and in some senses, those of us who are facing this in the first generation and struggling with it, we can see that as a calling. We are actually called to try to figure out and navigate this moment, and do it in such a way where we do retain what is human, and we do retain what is good, true, and beautiful, and we help those. As much as we can to navigate forward who are losing jobs, who are seeing the wor, the ground shift underneath them. I mean, I think we will always need human beings to do work. The nature of the work may change and we may not see what's ahead. but we're called into this moment and we're called to steward it as well as we can, not just for ourselves, but for the future. and those especially. Who have the expertise and knowledge to know what this is and, and what's happening, have a particular calling to, to help those of us who are, you know, are, are, are disoriented and confused about it. Mm-hmm. Um, to navigate it better. And I don't know what it looks like in the future, but I know that we're called to this moment and, and we're called to steward, especially our students. to find the kind of work, uh, turn to the kind of work and another sort of personal anecdote. My husband, teaches vocations and trades, very different from academic work. Um. There is an incredible need for people who can make things and do things with their hands and do them well. and that may, it may not be the thing that's on most, uh, college students bingo cards, but it certainly is something that, that the world needs and that we can perhaps shepherd those who have those gifts and have those abilities to think about different kinds of work that they can do, that they might not have imagined before.

1 44:12

Great. Thank you. Here's one, is calling necessarily retrospective. In other words, can I decide that X is my calling or can I only know this after some time has passed?

Speaker 2 44:26

Hmm.

1 44:27

Like a post-OC recognition?

Speaker 2 44:30

Yeah. Yeah. You know, I think again, if, if, if we think about the metaphor and we think about the call, let, because it, it, I think it's helpful to think about it in sort of literal terms. If we get a call, which might be a job offer or you know, a, a marriage proposal or whatever the call or call to adopt the trial, all these things. We might answer the call and fulfill it, and, and, and yet we aren't really going to understand its nature as a calling until some time comes. Mm-hmm. So I do think it's a process. It's not necessarily always retrospective. I mean, when I, at the point when I, in my PhD program where. Taught my first English comp class and discovered that. I love that. From that point on, I made that my, my goal to, to become a, a college professor. but of course I, it didn't until I got that first call, got the first job offer. And so, you know, again, I'll just say as a Christian that the verse that's sort of been my life guide, comes from Proverbs and it's the mind of, of man. the, my demand plans his ways, but the Lord directs his steps. I think that picture is a beautiful image of the sort of dynamic tension. Like, we can make our plans, we can, we can pursue our goals and then be directed by, by God, by the universe, by the world in a way that is kind of a dance. and so it's, again, it's not clear cut. An interplay of objective and subjective and, and our own agency and the realities of the world. but I think that's again, how we find our fit. And it does. Sometimes we can, we might know sooner rather than later, but oftentimes it is in retrospect.

1 46:13

Great. what role does suffering or setbacks play in shaping or refining one sense of purpose?

Books That Shaped Me

Speaker 2 46:21

Hmm. I love that question because I actually do, I have a whole chapter. On passion, which I mentioned in the talk, but passion literally means suffering. And so that, you know, again, when we talk about work and you know, try, if we see it as a bad thing, then we're actually not embracing the suffering and sacrifice that is almost always required to, to do something, to do it well. to. To achieve something over the long term. So I do think that suffering is going to be, it's part of this life. It, it's going to be part of, of pursuing and finding our calling. but in another book, I, I write about the virtue of, of patients, which is the virtue of suffering well. And so we have to be careful, and I do say this in in the book, we have to be careful to not let suffering. Become a form of manipulation to use us, to abuse us, to ex exact slave labor from us, or, or undue loyalty and so forth, which again, in the church context is something that happens too often. So there is suffering, but there also is the virtue of patience, which is suffering well, meaning that we don't suffer symptoms. You know, suffering well doesn't include tolerating injustice or abuse. there's a suffering that is inherent in some things, but to suffer well, we need to, not cause others to suffer, unnecessarily.

1 47:56

Great. which authors or works have most profoundly shaped your thinking about literature's, moral and spiritual dimensions?

Speaker 2 48:07

Hmm. Well. My top answer to that is Jane Eyy by Charlotte Bronte. you know if, if, if you've read it, uh, you don't, I don't need to explain, but if you haven't read it, you must know that it absolutely is not Chi litt. It is sort of an an allegory of the modern soul in search of herself in a world that wants her to be anything but herself. It happens to be a, a Christian book, but it's also a book that just describes that journey for anyone who is trying to find herself, and to find her calling. And so that's, that's an important one. beyond that, I would say, you know, certainly a lot of 17th century poets like George Herbert, 19th century poet, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Novels are, are my, are my main thing. All the things about by Dickens, uh, are delightful, uh, entertaining stories that also, uh, not only reveal the human, human foibles, but also point us, I think, to more transcendent spiritual answers. so those are just a few of the works.

1 49:09

Great. how do you balance, ambition and contentment with your understanding of calling passion and.

Speaker 2 49:19

Well, the, the, the answer is in the question. It is about the balance. and so that's not always easy to navigate. But I think, again, understanding the context, and this is something that I do talk about in the book when I talk about proportion. you know, life is ever shifting in, the world is shifting, so it's not going to be a static stable line. There will be times when we really have to, have to. Lean into our ambition and, and, and sacrifice in order to do the work that's, that's necessary for us to fulfill our calling. And then there are times we have to look at the rest of our life and say, no, you know, this is out of balance and I need to be here for my family more, or I need to serve my, neighbors better or, or can invest in my community more. so it really is about the balance and it's also about knowing that these things will shift in different, different seasons of our life. but. That proportion is, and finding the balance in those proportions is what gives us the integrity that is also part of, um, of bringing beauty into our, into our world through our work.

1 50:23

Right. So I think this next question is, is somewhat similar and I think it's about, Sort of the notion that we can have multiple and competing, if you will, colleagues. So

Speaker 2 50:33

yeah.

1 50:34

What practices or disciplines help you stay aligned with your sense of calling?

Speaker 2 50:41

That's a good question. and, and yes. And just to, to, to make sure we're, we're on the same page there. I, this is something that is important to understand about callings is that there, we don't have just one calling. We have multiple callings over the course of our lives. Um, and they. Mainly exists simultaneously. Um, and, and that includes the callings in our family and so forth. So disciplines and practices. Um, uh, uh, again, I think, I think for, for, I'm just answer for myself. I don't have any, you know, any formulas or, or, or one size fits all answers, but. For myself, I, I have to check in with my own sort of spiritual condition. Um, Suzanne and I were talking a little bit before this conversation started, just to give an example. I used to be very interested in, in politics and sort of cultural issues that are going on and, have. Have, uh, very, strong opinions about a lot of things, uh, and, and, and have written a lot, uh, a lot in that area. But in this particular moment, um, the world is in and that I'm in for my own spiritual health. I've needed to draw back from that a bit and put my focus in other places. So one of the first places that I check in is with myself, with my own spiritual health and, and my own, um, sense of wellbeing in the world because again, we're all wired differently, but I also have to check in with the people in, in my life, with my, with my husband and, and my family, and my church and my community. And so, Because those are callings as well, and so I don't necessarily have daily practices or habits, but again, it does go back to that first principle that comes from the ancients, which is know yourself. I, I really love the metaphor of, of the relying on an airplane. If, you know, if the, if the oxygen masks fall down, you're supposed to put it on yourself first before you help anyone else. And I do think we have to, be healthy ourselves, in order to fulfill the callings, the various callings that we have. And so. That that's important and, um, to talk with the people around us and, and listen to them. Even I didn't get to this in the conversation, but even finding your calling if you don't know. What it is, having trusted community, friends, family who can tell you things about yourself that maybe you don't see, like the things that you're really good at, the things that, that really, you see bringing a spark to your, that they see bringing a spark to your life and a spark to others' life. When we seek that kind of counsel and insight from others who know us and who know the needs of our communities that can help us find our callings. And it can also be a way to help us know we're finding that important balance.

1 53:31

Great. Uh, this is probably close to our final question. how can universities better prepare students to engage thoughtfully with complex questions around calling? While meeting student parent desires to find a career that will provide a return on investment.

Speaker 2 53:53

Yeah. We, we've made this mess, haven't we? When, um, we have almost made it impossible for to get a college education without going deeply in debt. I. Make sure that students aren't going into that much debt. I do, I do share in the book, the council that I would give parents, when I was teaching undergraduate students and that, that is really, most undergraduate degrees are equal today. I mean, because it's, especially if it's a liberal arts degree. you know, it, it, it, it's really just a stepping stone to whatever the next thing might be, which is increasingly as another degree or, or sort of an opening, level job. And so I actually believe that the four year degree, if, if someone is there, if they're already there, they have that privilege, then that is a place to pursue one's passion, to, to figure out. What you're good at, what you're interested in, and that being practical is probably, actually in the end, not that practical. Uh, because it, it's such a formative time of life and it, it, it, it, it really is where one should discover who they are, what they love, what they're good at. Um, that's really the most practical thing a student can do in those four years.

1 55:13

That's lovely. I appreciate that. okay. One final question from me. Um, and that would be, it's the holiday season. If you were gonna give someone a book, not your own, what would it be?

Speaker 2 55:27

Oh, that's so hard. it would have to be a book that fits. All right. This is the book that I would give everyone. Small things like these by Claire Keegan. Which

1 55:36

is, oh,

Closing Thanks

Speaker 2 55:38

it's a Christmas story. In some senses, it's a novella, it's short, it's fiction, it's beautiful. And even people who perhaps aren't into reading a lot of fiction, uh, would love this book. And it's just a beautiful, beautiful story, uh, with a lot of truth in it. That's, that's important. I think that's the book I would give everyone. And it's small enough to fit in a stalking perhaps.

1 55:59

It is indeed. Yeah. It's a beautiful, beautiful book, so I love that. Well, Karen, thank you. I, yeah, this has just been a delightful conversation. I so appreciate you taking time with us. Also, appreciate everybody who joined us, so thank

Speaker 2 56:13

you

1 56:13

and hope to see folks back in January when we restart the series.