Serving those who need it: an excerpt from the book Visions of Vocation

November 26, 2014 By Dr. Steven Garber

This excerpt from Steve Garber’s book Visions of Vocation is reprinted here with the kind permission of InterVarsity Press. Stay tuned as we continue to occasionally publish excerpts from the book here at Visions of Vocation the blog. And get the book from IVP at this link! [Steve writes about some of his friends:] In the relationships and responsibilities of common life, they see themselves as implicated in the way the world is and ought to be. They see themselves as having vocations that call them... Read more

Doing good work: an excerpt from the book Visions of Vocation

November 12, 2014 By Dr. Steven Garber

The word becomes flesh: an excerpt from the book Visions of Vocation

October 29, 2014 By Dr. Steven Garber

This excerpt from Steve Garber’s book Visions of Vocation is reprinted here with the kind permission of InterVarsity Press. Stay tuned as we continue to occasionally publish excerpts from the book here at Visions of Vocation the blog. And get the book from IVP at this link! For years, I thought that the Gospel of John was the least accessible and the most mysterious of the Gospels, and I stayed away. But then I read it again, with more of life lived, and read... Read more

Frail people that we are

October 25, 2014 By Dr. Steven Garber

Originally posted at the Washington Institute for Faith, Vocation, and Culture. I still remember feeling really sick. So I decided to call off my trip for the week, and just get in bed—with “David Copperfield” by Charles Dickens. While I was feeling horrible, there was a pleasure in entering into the imaginative world of Dickens and his David. As I followed the story from his early sorrows, on through more heartaches and disappointments, I watched him grow from a boy... Read more

Repairing the world

October 20, 2014 By Dr. Steven Garber

Originally published at the Washington Institute for Faith, Vocation, and Culture. Tikkun olam. There were times this week I felt like I was walking through the day trying to repair the world. One morning I put on worn-out jeans and painted in my son David’s house in Anacostia. After some years of dreaming and working in that neighborhood, he is selling his house. A horrible mess when he bought it, completely full of junk and garbage everywhere, he slowly made... Read more

Called to covenant: an excerpt from the book Visions of Vocation

October 15, 2014 By Dr. Steven Garber

This excerpt from Steve Garber’s book Visions of Vocation is reprinted here with the kind permission of InterVarsity Press. Stay tuned as we continue to occasionally publish excerpts from the book here at Visions of Vocation the blog. And get the book from IVP at this link! If at the core of the calling to be human is the task to know and do rightly, to act responsibly in history, to coherently connect knowledge with understanding with love, then there must... Read more

All of learning. All of labor. All of life.

October 9, 2014 By Dr. Steven Garber

“Es como el sagrado sacramento!” At the turn of the 18th-century, Gabriel Moraga led the first expedition across the hills from what we now call the San Francisco Bay area into the northern end of the San Joaquin Valley. Seeing the bright blue sky, the flower-filled meadows, the high mountains to the east, and the glory of what is now known as the Sacramento River, they were incredulous. “Canopies of oaks and cottonwoods, many festooned with grapevines, overhung both sides... Read more

Caritas and the common good

October 2, 2014 By Dr. Steven Garber

Originally published at the Washington Institute for Faith, Vocation, and Culture. “What is the common good? “We could, with meaning and richness and depth, ask: what is caritas? But to answer that question, we have to come back into the very reason for being of a university like Cal, and of its origins in Bishop Berkeley musings over the nature of knowledge. The best questions, the truest questions, are complex, and their answers are complex. Wondering about “the common good,” takes us... Read more

Merry Michelmas (or, what do angels have to do with work?)

September 30, 2014 By Patheos Faith and Work Channel

Posted on September 30, 2014 by Laura Merzig Fabrycky at the Washington Institute blog, Missio. As one of the defining features of Missio,the editors of and contributors to this blog have sought to be mindful of the rhythms of the church calendar while writing about vocation. This has not always been an easy task, nor at first glance an altogether intuitive one, but the discipline has proven to be a fascinating lens on the nexus of faith, vocation, and culture. Take yesterday’s feast – the Feast of St. Michael and All Angels, or Michaelmas as... Read more

[AUDIO] Vocation is mission

September 26, 2014 By Patheos Faith and Work Channel

Today we simply want to give you links to some wonderful talks by members of the Washington Institute on vocation, as found in the Vocation as Mission section of the institute’s webpage. Listen and be blessed! “Calling & Constraint” – Kate Harris Most Christians desire to know God and understand His call on their life, but for those with many choices about how to spend their life and talents, understanding how to think Christianly and coherently about work at home, in... Read more