Vocation

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Vocation

• Does it matter what you do with your life?

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A bit of history

• From the Latin, vocare,to call
• Bible call of Abraham, prophets
• Then in Reformation, broadened to include the
  work we do, as a response of faithfulness to God.

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Several Uses of the term

• Vocational education
• Religious vocation
• In Saints and Villains, Fred says a call is a
  terrible thing.

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Which brings us to the final essay

• Do you have an obligation to use your life for
  the benefit of the world?
• You can say no.
• For example, if you believe that you have an
  obligation not to harm others, but no positive
  obligation for their betterment
• Or you can say yes

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Vocation and Naturalist Ethics

• Belief that certain traits or character are
  embedded in human life, and that part of the
  purpose of human life is to find and live out
  that character.

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Aristotle

• Aristotle Spoke of the telos or end (purpose)
  of life in general to reason and live
  virtuously. Fairly close to the concept of each
  individual life having a purpose. Highest virtue
  was to contemplate the good.

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Christian thinkers and Aristotle

• Identify the telos with God
• Augustine Love for God is the inclusive,
  unifying, virtue that brings life into proper
  balance and harmony. The other virtues are
  functions of love.
• So highest purpose of human life was to love God.

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But more than just loving God, according to
Aquinas

• But as this divine Master inculcates two
  precepts - the love of God and the love of our
  neighbor - and as in these precepts a man finds
  three things he has to love - God, himself, and
  his neighbor - and that he who loves God loves
  himself thereby, it follows that he must endeavor
  to get his neighbor to love God, since he is
  ordered to love his neighbor as himself.
• So humans, to fulfill their calling, were to
  love God, self and neighbor.

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The Reformation

• Work in the world as also a calling.
• Emphasis on love of neighbor, especially.
• Luther Work we do is to express gratitude to
  God relationships in the world are for showing
  love.

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Which can be wonderful, or problematic.

• Led to productivity, Protestant work ethic.
• Can lead to stern emphasis on work, striving
  after salvation through work.
• Can lead to keeping people in their place.
• Can also lead to sense of the holiness of all of
  life.

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Some current voices about vocation

• Parker Palmer
• Vocation is discovered by listening to your life.
  Vocation is uncovered, not decided.

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Frederick Buechner

• The kind of work God usually calls you to is the
  kind of work (a) that you need most to do and (b)
  that the world most needs to have done. The
  place God calls you to is the place where your
  deep gladness and the worlds deep hunger meet.

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The balance between private and public life

• Aristotle taught that human excellence
  and happiness require a contemplative/theoretical
  private life, as well as a public life through
  which one transcends selfish desires and promotes
  the overall good. Miriam Cameron

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Some examples from films Goodwill Hunting

• Do we have an obligation to develop our talents?
  
• What allows us to break free?
• What is worth pursuing?

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The Matrix

• Would you rather be wise, or happy?
• What does it mean to be The One?

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Barbershop

• What good does your work do for your community?
• Who do you listen to?
• What does it mean to be rich?

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Or, the failure of vocation

• Groopman article the story of one who died
  empty.
• Like the cartoon, of a man dying, saying to his
  wife at the bedside, You know, I really wish Id
  collected more stuff.

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Its all in the relationshipsand in the life,
well lived the life of reason and virtue,
caring and justice.