Rising To The Call and Let Your Life Speak Chapter 3 Summary.

Rising To The Call
by Os Guinness
Chapter 3, Do What You Are?

     Os Guinness opens his chapter with a short story of violinist Yehudi Menuhin He uses the famed musician's story to illustrate the principle that, "God normally calls us along the lines of our giftedness, but the purpose of giftedness is stewardship and service, not selfishness."  (pg45) The idea is that God creates humanity. Then He equips individuals with certain abilities so that they can share those abilities with others. Therefore a calling is not limited to how one generates an income. Calling has to do with discerning who God created you to be and living into those perimeters. "Instead of, 'you are what you do,' calling says: 'Do what you are."' (pg. 47) Who we are has to do with what God created us to be which brings us back to the gifts God gives us. "In the biblical understanding of giftedness, gifts are never really ours or for ourselves. We have nothing that was not given us. Our gifts are ultimately God's and we are only "stewards." (pg48)  Vocation then, can never be properly understand unless it's thought about in terms of those around us. Essentially, to understand vocation, one must ask, how does my calling equip me to love my neighbor?
     The chapter concludes with four distinctions that ought to be kept in mind when considering vocation. First, a distinction exists between individual calling (examples: teaching, moving to ohio, play guitar ect.) and corporate calling (examples: make disciples, love my neighbor, confess my sins ect..)  What I do as an individual ought to compliment what I do as a member of the human species and the Church of Jesus Christ. The second distinction is similar to the first. It is the distinction between special calling, which only some people receive, that is a direct supernatural revelation to an individual to do or be a certain thing, as distinguished from ordinary calling. The ordinary calling is the universal mandates God places on all people, to follow Christ. Third is a reminder to keep first things first and secondary things second. Understanding central calling compared to peripheral calling is this distinction. This is a problem when pastors elevate writing books over shepherding their flock. This is a problem when workers elevate earning a living over living a life worth working for. They've sacrificed what they were meant to do for something that's supposed to support doing what they were meant to do. Finally the readers are reminded of the distinction between the clear aspects of calling and the mysterious aspect of calling. It's tempting to want to discover all of God's plans for us right now. God doesn't work that way and He reveals elements of his vocation for us as we are capable of processing them.We must not strive too much for clarity or be too scared of ambiguity for both are implements in heavens tool chest.
      After providing these four reminders Os Guinness concludes the chapter with the story of Alexander Solzhenitsyn's life including some parting wisdom from that one man army. "Many lives have a mystical sense, but not everyone reads it aright...The secret of a great life is often man's success in deciphering the mysterious symbols vouchsafed to him, understanding them and so learning to walk in the true path."(pg62)

Let Your Life Speak
by Parker J. Palmer
Chapter 3. When Way Closes

     This chapter opens with a story as well. Palmer pulls a life lesson from his time at Pendle Hill, from a conversation with a wise Quaker woman. "there is as much guidance in what does not and cannot happen in my life as there is in what can and does happen, maybe more." (pg39) Knowing weaknesses is as important as knowing strengths. Knowing where you suck is as important as knowing where you thrive. Despite what Disney might say, not everyone can be anything they want to be if they believe in themselves and invest the time and effort. "Each of us arrives here with a nature, with both limits and potentials. We can learn as much about our nature by running into our limits as by experiencing our potentials. (pg42) Individuals were built for somethings and not for all things.Well intentioned  people often set up goals for themselves to become like Muhatma Gandhi or Thomas Aquinas or George Washington. However noble and good these people might have been the reality remains that we ought only try to learn from them, not become miniature versions of them. Human beings are not machines that, if given enough time can be reprogrammed to do anything or be anyone. We are living beings that were designed to grow a certain way, blossom at a certain time and bear fruit in keeping with the season and the circumstances. If we focus too much on becoming somebody else and ignore who God made us to be be, we'll find our life tedious and actions returning void. "Only when I give something that does not grow within me do I deplete myself and harm the other as well, for only harm can come from a gift that is forced, inorganic, unreal." (pg50) 
      Reality  is like the ocean constantly there but always in motion. God calls each of us into reality, a constant existence based on the perimeters which He has built for us with our abilities, our sensibilities, our instincts. All are called, no two are called exactly like, just as no two buckets of seawater are the same.  Palmer concludes chapter 3 with the following summary."If we are to live our lives fully and well, we must learn to embrace the opposites, to live in a creative tension between our limits and our potentials. We must honor our limitations in ways that do not distort our nature, and we must trust and use our gifts in ways that fulfill the potentials God gave us. We must take the no of the way that closes and find the guidance it has to offer- and take the yes of the way that opens and respond with the yes of our lives." (pg55)

Rising To The Call and Let Your Life Speak Chapter 2 Summary.

Rising To The Call
By Os Guinness
Chapter 2 Everyone, Everywhere, Everything

     This chapter is pretty straightforward with four essential parts. First we have a historical example of what the author will talk about. Next the reader is given a more detailed understanding of calling. The chapter concludes with two popular misunderstandings which often affect our ability to answer the call.
     Os Guinness opens his discussion with the story of William Wilberforce, the 18th century English abolitionist and parliamentarian. Wilberforce provides a textbook illustration for the biblical truth that you don't have to be a pastor or a missionary to do God's work. His story is a parable of sorts which teaches that all types of work are valuable if done properly. It's not a complicated concept but it's one that easy to miss. A wonderful movie about William Wilberforce.
     The idea of calling is fleshed out a bit more in this second section of the chapter. We're provided with the biblical uses of the world. These are simmered down into two functional ideas. Based on Os Guinness's reading of scripture the human being has two callings, a primary and secondary calling.

"Our primary calling as followers of Christ is by him, to him, and for him." (pg.24)

"Our secondary calling, considering who God is as sovereign, is that everyone, everywhere, and in everything should think, speak, live and act entirely for him."  (pg.25)

     Simply put, The primary calling provides direction for the sort of person we are supposed to be. God calls us to Himself, to be like Him and share in His godliness. The secondary calling is how we ought to spend our time. As I am fulfilling my primary calling I will discern a secondary which will determine my professional, academic and relational choices.
     Concluding this chapter the reader is warned about two distortions of calling. Essentially they are these, don't elevate primary calling to the exclusion of secondary calling. At the same time, don't elevate secondary calling to the exclusion of primary calling. Recognize both callings are important; both as created by God. One is the compass the other is the map that guide us on the straight and narrow way for which God has created us.


Let Your Life Speak
by Parker J. Palmer
Chapter 2 Now I Become Myself

"Now I become myself

It's taken time, many years and places.

I have been dissolved and shaken,

Worn other people's faces...."

     Beginning again with a poem this time by May Sarton, Palmer provides his own summary of his next chapter. He proceeds to take about thirty pages to tell some of his own story, drawing insights periodically, from his experience that he believes are relevant to his readers.
      After spending sometime discussing the concept of vocation he had in high-school. Palmer explains his current definition of vocation. "Today, I understand vocation quite differently-not as a goal to be achieved but as a gift to be received." (pg10) Following this up with a story from the Hasidic tradition.The Rabbi Zusya says "In the coming world, they will not ask me: 'Why were you not Moses?' They will ask me: 'Why were you not Zusya?'" (pg11)  The underlying concept of course being that it's more important that you be yourself, than it is, that you try to be a copy of somebody else. This idea is cemented on page 15 "The deepest vocational question is not, 'What ought I to do with my life?' It is the more elemental and demanding, 'Who am I? What is my nature?'" Answering these questions forces us to recognize our limitations as well as our strengths and gifts. Knowing who we can not be is important. There is a danger to ignoring who we are, a danger to striving after a life that is untrue to our identity. "If we are unfaithful to true self we will extract a price from others. We will make promises we cannot keep, build houses from flimsy stuff, conjure dreams that dissolve into nightmares, and other people will suffer if we are unfaithful to true self. (pg.31)
      A powerful sense of freedom awaits those who live into their vocation. Unfortunately not everyone is successful. Among those who are, "some journeys are direct, and some are circuitous; some are heroic, and some are fearful and muddled. But every journey, honestly undertaken, stands a chance of taking us toward the place where our deep gladness meets the world's deep need. (pg 37) Undertaking this journey often results in seasons of darkness, uncertainty. The road requires unmaking the inappropriate expectations that have been assumed for us. "The world needs people with the patience and the passion to make this pilgrimage not only for their own sake but also as a social political act." (pg.37)  Thus Palmer ends his chapter with the reminder that people don't exist in a bubble. It's not only for one's own sake that a person ought to discover their calling. 

Five Minutes with Malachi

My covenant with him was one of life and peace and I gave them to him. It was a covenant of fear and he feared me. He stood in awe of my name. True instruction was in his mouth and no wrong was found in his lips. He walked with me in peace and uprightness and he turned many from iniquity. Malachi 2:5-6

There is much talk about who we ought to be and how we ought to live. The scriptures clearly address the issues but often use words we don't like to hear. Humans like to ask questions of God but are only willing to hear certain types of answers. We ask God, "how do you want me to spend my life?" and we expect Him to instruct us in whether we ought to be a lawyer or a doctor or stone mason. It's similar to a man with no chickens, no knowledge of chickens, and no place to keep them wondering about whether he'd like an omelette or a fried egg. First things must be first and God always answers our questions with relevant information. His response to questions about purpose and vocation are usually centered around human character rather than action. Love your neighbor! Seek my face! Fear my name! Be perfect! such are the commands of Scripture. Only by walking in these directions will we find ourselves at a place appropriate for determining the smaller, less important questions concerning how we make our money and where we go to school.

The covenant of Levi is a covenant all of humanity is invited into. It is an old fashioned term for the modern evangelical concept known as "relationship with God". Today we like to sugar coat that idea but the reality of the relationship that God invites us into is just the same as it was twenty-three hundred years ago in the days of Malachi. It was a covenant of life and peace, we can look forward to those realities. It is a covenant of fear, that is our shield against apathy. The covenant bears fruit. The wisdom spouts from the mouth in a fountain of relevant instruction. There, is no shame. He who walks in the covenant of Levi need never hang his head. There is no wickedness in him and he is sought after for his teaching.

Let it be so with us dear brother and sister. Amidst the busyness of life let us not lose sight of the reality of what God calls us to.