A Sense of Call

Kathleen Norris writes, “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 that we can live ‘an uncalled life,’ one not referred to any purpose beyond one’s self.” “

“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 working through a call to any genuine vocation.” The Cloister Walk, page 41.

We are ground down into the dust of conformity, especially conformity of thought; and those who once had dreams of things beyond the material, who once had dreams that called for fulfillment, now walk with hollow imaginations; what was once fertile ground is now polluted by the spirit of the materialistic mechanistic electronic self-seeking age and nothing organic can be grown…so we plant artificial plants and flowers and delude ourselves into thinking “that’s nice.” It is as if we live in a zone in which a nuclear reactor had a meltdown – all is polluted, all is sterile…will there ever be life? The difference is that we are told to live by the doomed reactor, we are not told to flee…how can this be?

Is there a call in your life that you have abandoned?