I am writing this article looking out my home office window onto a canopy of old-growth trees. It is 8:00 p.m. on a late August day, and I am struck by two things. One, nighttime is rapidly falling, and two, there is a single patch of yellow near the crown of a sea of green. It is still summer, though there are no longer 15 hours of daylight in Minnesota. It is not yet autumn, though there are hints of it everywhere. The view from my window reminds me of what I already know: we live our lives in the spaces “between no longer and not yet.”1
I first came across this idea of the “space between” several years ago in a blog post by Nancy Levin. She writes, “Honor the space between no longer and not yet.”
Of the host of spaces between that existentially mark this present time, given my work at St. Olaf College as the Director of Programming, Engagement, and Innovation for Congregational Thriving, a few are critical to me: the space between no longer flourishing denominational churches and a not yet determined post-Christian church; the space between a no longer pre-George Floyd world and a not yet realized world of racial justice; the space between a no longer binary worldview and a not yet accomplished non-binary way of being. Equally significant are the personal spaces between that mark all of our lives—spaces between jobs, relationships, and stages of life, spaces between joy and sorrow, history, and hope.
Levin reminds, however, that it is not just about recognizing these spaces between, but honoring them. One way to do this is to engage in spiritual practices that “deepen…relationships with the sacred and the world around”2 us in ways that open us to the unique, creative possibilities that a particular space between affords. Such honoring is the purpose of the Vocare spiritual practice.
Developed as a part of the Nourishing Vocation Project, Vocare is a six-word spiritual practice designed to help individuals, small groups, and whole communities discern and live more fully into their various callings—personal and professional, public and private—so that life in the present can be lived more intentionally on purpose for the common good.
In its most basic form, VOCARE invites reflection upon the following questions:
V: What do I value, and how am I living my values?
O: To what am I being asked to be open? How do I respond?
C: What voices, literal and metaphorical, are calling to me? Which ones do I listen to, and why? Which ones can I silence?
A: Where am I investing my attention? Does my attention align with my values?
R: What are my regrets? What insight do I gain from them, and how are they calling me to something new or different?
E: When, where, and how have I experienced the presence of the sacred in my everyday life? What does that experience say to me? What will I carry with me from this reflection?
Designed to be used across religious traditions, perspectives and worldviews, there are a variety of established Vocare experiences. These include guided meditations, Sing Vocare!, and Christian worship liturgies. Users of Vocare are encouraged to adapt its language to their worldview, make it their own, and engage it in a way that nourishes their own unique spaces between no longer and not yet.
More information can be found in the Vocare section of the Nourishing Vocation Project website: https://tinyurl.com/288zenuh
Endnotes
1. Levin, Nancy. “Is It Time for a Graceful Exit? - Nancy Levin.” The Practice, 24 June 2015, nancylevin.com/is-it-time-for-a-graceful-exit/.
2. Brussat, Frederic and Mary Ann. “Spirituality & Practice.” What Are Spiritual Practices?, Spirituality and Practice: Resources for Spiritual Journeys, 2006, www.spiritualityandpractice.com/about/what-are-spiritual-practices.
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Editorial
From the Editor: So That We, Too, May Flourish
Colleen Windham-Hughes
Windham-Hughes introduces the 2023 VLHE conference theme of educator flourishing, drawing on Dr. Monica Smith’s plenary challenge — “How can we flourish if only some are centered and others are at the margins?” — and invites readers to ground themselves in Us/We, the cover art by Augustana graduate William Hatchet, and join the conversation.
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Editorial
Maintaining Our Lutheran Identity: A Source of Strength
Lamont Anthony Wells
Wells reflects on the well-being of staff, faculty, and administration in Lutheran higher education across four pillars — rest, creativity and innovation, religious diversity and pluralism, and the preservation of Lutheran identity — and addresses the painful reality of Finlandia University’s closure as a reminder of the network’s shared mission.
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Article
A Lutheran Call for Educator Flourishing
Krista E. Hughes
Hughes argues that without educator flourishing there is no student flourishing, traces how an exploitative “passion tax” can distort vocation, and offers seven Lutheran “third-way” value pairings — including Metrics/Grace, Efficiency/Kairos, and DEI/Priesthood of All Believers — to reframe institutional success at NECU campuses.
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Article
Do One Thing: Academic Vocation in the Age of Burnout
Jonathan Malesic
Malesic draws on Oliver Burkeman’s 4,000 Weeks and Søren Kierkegaard’s Purity of Heart is to Will One Thing to argue that academic burnout is fundamentally institutional — a widening gap between mission ideals and working conditions — and urges colleges to resist “projectitis” by focusing on the one thing that matters most.
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Article
Cultivating Staff Flourishing in Lutheran Higher Education: A Framework for Advocacy and Engagement
Laree Winer
Winer narrates her own “love affair” with Lutheran Higher Education to argue that the heart of the tradition — vocation, de-emphasized hierarchy, and shared humanity — equips NECU institutions to advocate for staff flourishing through data collection, professional development, and ongoing relational commitment.
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Article
Staff Governance at St. Olaf College, Northfield, MN
Don Ezra Cruz Plemons
Cruz Plemons describes how staff at St. Olaf, in the wake of a decade of difficult events, have built a three-year, glacier-paced effort toward a Staff Governance model — through affinity groups, the Council for Equity and Inclusion, and the Task Force to Confront Structural Racism — that gives staff a voice alongside faculty and students.
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Reflection
The Importance of Connection
Alex Piedras
Piedras reflects on the 2023 “So that We, Too, May Flourish” Conference at Augsburg as a refreshing space for a weary DEI advocate — surfacing burnout, the Talking Circle on Indigenous Issues, and Dr. Monica Smith’s Racial Healing Circle as opportunities to recharge the soul and build authentic connections for the long journey.
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Article
“A Decolonizing Conversation”: Indigenous Engagement at Luther College at the University of Regina
Marc Jerry, Sarah Dymund
Jerry and Dymund describe Luther College at the University of Regina’s response to Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission — Land Acknowledgments, a Starblanket ceremony, the Project of Heart, an Elder in Residence, and the unedited video conversation with Elder Lorna Standingready that anchored their 2023 VLHE keynote.
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Article
Beyond Deep Gladness: Coming to Terms with Vocations We Don’t Choose
Deanna Thompson
Thompson, living with incurable cancer, expands Frederick Buechner’s definition of vocation to make room for deep sadness — drawing on Arthur Frank, Shelly Rambo, Beverly Wallace, and Ross Gay to argue that practices of lament, including the public lament of Friday Flowers at St. Olaf, open space for gladness, joy, and even flourishing to emerge.
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Institutional Focus
Continuing the Dialogue: Augustana College
Sandra C. Looney
No. 1 · Summer 1996
Looney describes Augustana College, Sioux Falls, debating and renaming its values—Christian, Liberal Arts, Community, Excellence, Service—under the leadership of religion professor Dr. Arthur Olsen and the T’N’T (“Through Thick and Thin”) committee, in the wake of ELCA Region III’s “What Does It Mean to be a College of the Church?” conversations. She describes Augustana’s 56% Lutheran student body, daily 10 a.m. chapel, dual Christmas Vespers in Our Savior’s Lutheran Church and St. Joseph’s Cathedral, the Capstone classes on moral and aesthetic issues, and the ongoing work of enlarging Augustana’s conversation to include Native American, Jewish, and Islamic voices.
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Editorial
From the Editor
Robert D. Haak
No. 29 · Spring 2009
Haak frames the issue’s essays around the question of Lutheran colleges and the role of citizen, noting H. Richard Niebuhr’s typology in Christ and Culture and Luther’s own complex understanding of Christian and state, and offers a fitting farewell to Arne Selbyg with Mike Blair’s tribute song “A Fine Norwegian.”
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Editorial
From the Editor
Jason A. Mahn
No. 42 · Fall 2015
Mahn introduces the “Vocation and the Common Good” issue by asking what is left of “the commons” in an age of privatized goods and education-as-commodity, and frames church-related colleges — with their stubborn vocabulary of “liberal arts,” “collegiate,” and “calling” — as among the least fully-privatized resources left in American life.
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Article
Reconciled Diversity: Reflections on our Calling to Embrace our Religious Neighbors
Jacqueline Bussie
No. 33 · Spring 2011
Bussie offers three concrete recommendations for cultivating reconciled religious diversity on Lutheran campuses — Lutheran listening and the telling of stories, engendering encounters with religious neighbors through curriculum and bridge-building events, and choosing empathy and collaboration over evangelism and creed — arguing that what students fear most in encounters with the religious “other” is the loss of their own identity and distinctiveness, and that we can show them how loyalty to one’s own tradition and reverence for different traditions can coexist.
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Book Review
Assessing the Value of Liberal Arts: A Review of The Evidence Liberal Arts Needs, by Richard A. Detweiler
Robert D. Haak
No. 55 · Spring 2022
Haak reviews Richard A. Detweiler’s The Evidence Liberal Arts Needs, in which the former president of the Great Lakes Colleges Association analyzes 240 college mission statements and interviews more than 1,000 graduates to argue that liberal arts educational experiences have a measurable impact on adult lives of consequence, inquiry, and accomplishment — and invites NECU institutions into a further conversation about how Detweiler’s methodology applies to Lutheran higher education.
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Response
Response to Mark Wilhelm: Distinguishing Between Identity and Vocation
Andrew Tucker
No. 56 · Fall 2022
Tucker proposes that NECU’s next most faithful step is to faithfully and effectively differentiate vocations and identities — arguing that identity is who you are, vocation is what you do, and that recognizing the plurality of both helps Lutheran institutions name which work is theirs to take up and which is good work that belongs to someone else.