Suffering and Death
Article
Discerning Vocation through Loss, Suffering, and Death
Volume 1 | June 6, 2022
Theme: Pedagogy, Suffering and Death, Vocation
Discipline: Religious Studies, Theology
In September of 2002, exactly one year after the attack on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center, essayist Mark Slouka reflected on how those events had challenged the American psyche, defined for so long by the myth of happy endings. Here in the New Canaan, in the land of perpetual beginnings and second chances,…
Article
Beyond Deep Gladness: Coming to Terms with Vocations We Don’t Choose
Volume 1 | June 6, 2022
Theme: Pedagogy, Suffering and Death, Vocation
Discipline: Religious Studies, Theology
Back in the 1990s, St. Olaf and many other campuses across the country were infused with grants from the Lilly Endowment to explore the concept of vocation. Lutheran institutions of higher education lift up vocation in part due to the prominent role it plays in Lutheran tradition and identity. Vocation comes from the Latin vocare…
Article
Purpose and Meaning in a Time of Crisis
Volume 1 | June 6, 2022
Theme: Pedagogy, Suffering and Death, Vocation
Discipline: Religious Studies, Theology
In his profound and troubling book, Fear and Trembling, the Danish religious writer Søren Kierkegaard remythologizes the story of the binding of Isaac from Genesis 22. I say “remythologizes” rather than “analyzes” or “understands” because Kierkegaard takes pains to attend to all the unthinkable components of the story—to the narrative elements that resist translation into takeaway ethical lessons or airtight conceptual categories.
Book Review
Review of Jason Mahn, Neighbor Love through Fearful Days: Finding Purpose and Meaning in a Time of Crisis
Volume 1 | June 6, 2022
Theme: Suffering and Death, Vocation
Discipline: Religious Studies, Theology
If a sacrament is something ordinary that becomes a vehicle of grace—something like water, bread, or wine—then Jason Mahn has written a deeply sacramental book. Begun as a daily journal during six of the darkest months of 2020, this is a book of stories—stories that chronicle ordinary acts of courage, of neighbor helping neighbor, of…