A Sacred Voice Is Calling

by Neafsey, John

• ISBN13: 9781570756450
• ISBN10: 1570756457
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2006-04-30
• Publisher: Orbis Books

Summary

What does it mean to find and follow our personal calling? Howdo we distinguish between the "still, small voice" of our authentic vocation and all of the other competing counterfeit voices in our hearts and the needs of our world? Drawing widely on the wisdom of saints, sages, and the traditions of spiritual direction, Neafsey describes a path to living in the place, as Frederick Buechner has put it, "where our deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet.

Author Biography

John Neafsey is a clinical psychologist and senior lecturer in the department of theology, Loyola University Chicago

Table of Contents

Preface	ix
Introduction: Personal Vocation and Social Conscience	1	(18)
Meanings of Vocation	2	(3)
The Voice	5	(5)
Learning to Listen	10	(3)
Learning to Live	13	(6)
Sacred Voices: Listen, So That You May Live	19	(17)
Spirit Persons	20	(6)
The Cry of the Poor	26	(4)
The Still, Small Voice	30	(6)
Discernment: The Inner Compass of the Heart	36	(15)
The Inner Compass	37	(3)
Discernment of Spirits	40	(3)
Three Key Questions	43	(2)
Discernment and Social Analysis	45	(6)
Authenticity: To Live as though the Truth Were True	51	(20)
True Self, False Self	52	(5)
Wholeness and Holiness	57	(5)
Truth and Lies, War and Peace	62	(5)
The Truth Will Make You Free	67	(4)
Passion and Compassion: The Heart's Calling	71	(18)
Reasons of the Heart	72	(2)
Falling in Love	74	(4)
Our Desires and God's Desires	78	(4)
Compassion and the Heart of God	82	(7)
Vision: The Quest for a Worthy Dream	89	(20)
The Vision Quest	90	(3)
Dreams: God's Forgotten Language	93	(5)
The Dream with a Capital ``D''	98	(2)
Prophetic Imagination and the Dream of God	100	(9)
Suffering: The Call of the Wounded Healer	109	(22)
Growing Pains	110	(2)
Symptoms as a Voice of the Soul	112	(3)
The Wounded Healer	115	(7)
Redemptive Suffering	122	(9)
Conscience: The Morality of the Heart	131	(15)
The Inner Voice of Conscience	132	(5)
Real and False Guilt	137	(3)
The Sound Heart and the Deformed Conscience	140	(6)
Social Conscience: Awakening from the Sleep of Inhumanity	146	(15)
Option for the Poor	147	(6)
The War on Terror and the Call of Conscience	153	(4)
The Call to Speak	157	(4)
Conclusion: A Still and Quiet Conscience	161	(18)
Success and Failure	162	(5)
Risks and Mistakes	167	(4)
Love and Death	171	(4)
How Can I Keep from Singing?	175	(4)
Notes	179	(26)
Index	205