Tuesday, July 10, 2007

A quotation

Walter Brueggeman, in a book on the prophets entitled Hopeful Imagination , suggests that "a sense of call in our time is profoundly countercultural," and notes that "the ideology of our time is thatwe can live an 'uncalled life,' one not referred to any purpose beyond one's self." I suspect that this idol of the autonomous, uncalled life has a shadow side that demands that resist the notion that another might be different, might indeed experience a call. Our idol of the autonomous individual is a sham; the truth is we expect everyone to be the same, and dismiss as elitist those who are woriking through a call to any genuine vocation. It may be that our culture feats the necessary other that it has grown unable to identify and name real differences without becoming defensive about them.
-- Kathleen Norris, The Cloister Walk