Here is a great video about my daughter Mary Moerbe’s book on vocation for kids! (A link for ordering it after the jump.)
Here is a great video about my daughter Mary Moerbe’s book on vocation for kids! (A link for ordering it after the jump.)
Speaking of Flannery O’Connor, her prayer journal has just been published, dating from her grad school days studying creative writing at the University of Iowa. Her reflections on writing, her thoughts on her vocation as a writer, and her love of God are stunning. After the jump, an excellent review by James Parker in the Atlantic, with quotations from the book. (more…)
This is Veterans Day, so let us honor those who have served in the military vocations. You readers who are veterans, thank you for your service.
I’ve read that some veterans, particularly of our recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, are sick of hearing that. It is good, though, that they are receiving today almost universal respect, unlike the reception in some quarters of Vietnam vets. After the jump, some questions and a link to a classic discussion of the military vocation. (more…)
Today is election day. Mostly up for grabs are local and state races. Voting has been called a “civic sacrament.” The analogy is an imperfect one, and it applies only to democratic systems. Some say that voting “doesn’t do any good,” which even if it were true is not the point. We have a vocation of citizenship. For those of us blessed enough to have been called to citizenship in a country in which we govern ourselves by choosing our own leaders, voting is one of the duties of our vocation.
Church historian Martin Marty discusses how conservative Christians are pulling back from the culture wars. He cites the leadership of Pope Francis for the Roman Catholics and Russell Moore for the Southern Baptists. An additional factor is the increasing secularization of the conservative movement, citing the Tea Party’s general indifference to moral issues the church has been concerned with. (He might have added the active atheism and hostility to Christianity of the hard-core libertarian followers of Ayn Rand.)
Read what Dr. Marty has to say–and what I have to say about what he says– after the jump. (more…)
Tip of the hat to my former student Nathan Martin, who is involved with this program in Louisiana that teaches students in troubled high schools to be electricians, welders, or other well-paid skilled technicians. Read about it after the jump and then consider my questions. (more…)
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