Forgetting Ourselves on Purpose: Vocation and the Ethics of Ambition - Hardcover

Brian J. Mahan

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0787956333 ISBN 13: 9780787956332

Publisher: Jossey-Bass Inc Pub, 2002

Synopsis

In the wise and often witty Forgetting Ourselves on Purpose, Brian Mahan considers the question of how it is possible to create a meaningful spiritual life while living in a culture that measures us by what we have rather than who we are. Drawing on nearly two decades of teaching experience. Brian Mahan shares stories of personal struggle and triumph that demonstrate how those who seek meaning and purpose have recalimed their authentic selves by resolving the inevitable tension between personal ambition and spiritual vibrancy.

About this title

About the Author

Brian J. Mahan a Catholic layperson, teaches at Candler School of Theology, Emory University.

From the Back Cover

"Don't be misled by the charm of this genial book. It is as deep as the author's Irish bogs, and as wide as his American prairies. God will admire the energy and efficiency of its God-seeking."
—Nuala O'Faolain, author, Are You Somebody? "This engaging book invites us to explore the places where our deep gladness and the world's great hunger might possibly meet. It is about claiming vocation in the spiritual sense of finding a purpose for our lives that is part of the purposes of God. Its special gift lies in helping us examine our personal and cultural inhibitions about claiming our calling. Unique and powerful!"
—James W. Fowler, author, Stages of Faith
"What a great book about us human wanna-be's! Mahan certainly sets mind and spirit buzzing as he leads us through a series of openings about how we cope with being ourselves. Don't be too serious about your life, Mahan warns us, but don't be too serious about not taking yourself seriously, either! Especially when moments of pure joy in just being sneak up on you."
—Elise Boulding, professor emerita of sociology, Dartmouth College
"Brian Mahan explores the relationship between ambition and vocation by pacing remarkably shrewd readings of Thomas Merton, Tolstoy, the Buddha, and William James with marvelously written memories of and Irish-Catholic boyhood. The result is an often puckish, indeed downright funny, yet deadly serious and ultimately subversive book-a heartfelt invitation to revisit just what it is that we think we are living for."
—Anthony Glavin, author, Nighthawk Alley
"Brian Mahan is an excellent guide on the human journey towards authenticity. With encouragement and humor, he leads the reader along important paths of self-knowledge we might otherwise avoid. His work is at once wise and witty, theoretically sound and pragmatically helpful. One might not expect it from the subject matter, but this very worthwhile book is also a lot of fun!"
—Gerald May, author, The Awakened Heart and Will and Spirit

From the Inside Flap

What happens when we are asked to trade our worldly ambitions for our search for personal authenticity and a morally centered life? Is the choice truly either/or? Is it possible to be true to sacred principles and meaning while living in a world that tells us happiness is measured by the price of the car in the garage, the school we attend, or the title on a business card? How can any of us become the authentic person we were meant to be?
In the wise and often witty Forgetting Ourselves on Purpose, Brian Mahan considers the question of how it is possible to create a meaningful spiritual life while living in a culture that measures us by what we have rather than who we are. Drawing on nearly two decades of teaching experience Brian J. Mahan shares stories of personal struggle and triumph that demonstrate how those who seek meaning and purpose have reclaimed their authentic selves by resolving the inevitable tension between personal ambition and spiritually vibrancy.
If you have ever experienced doubts about choosing the moral versus the material, this book's simple yet profound practices and explorations will guide you to find your own way through the cultural messages that tend to blind you to your true vocation. Throughout the book Mahan invites you to "forget yourself on purpose" so that you can uncover your dreams and discover (in your everyday activities) God's purpose for your life.
Engaging, humorous, compassionate, and provocative, Forgetting Ourselves on Purpose will serve as a practical field guide for anyone who wants to look beyond the empty messages of contemporary culture and reconnect with their true purpose in life.

Reviews

Do we all have "shadow governments of compassion and idealism"? In this odd, sometimes disjointed but always engaging meditation on the relationship between vocation and ambition, Mahan answers yes. Referencing Thomas Merton, Frederick Buechner, William James, Walker Percy and Leo Tolstoy, Mahan muses rather than argues, and ends each chapter with assignments gleaned from the college courses he has taught on this topic. For example, at the end of one chapter, he invites readers to hold a national press conference at which they attempt to rationalize an episode in their lives when they engaged in repeated self-deception leading to serious moral compromise. Each chapter and assignment leads readers, in one way or another, to examine the tension between the lives they would live governed by compassion, in complete harmony with God's calling, entered into via "epiphanies of recruitment" and the socially scripted, ambition-driven lives they do live. Pleasantly surprising is Mahan's light touch: he never resorts to heavy-handed homilies about how bereft conventional lives are, but rather invites readers to observe themselves living such lives, and to do so nonjudgmentally, with equal parts good humor, discomfort, acceptance and motivation to change. While encouraging readers to attempt mystical and imaginative exercises, Mahan ultimately avoids prescription. On the contrary, he ends by suggesting that ambition and vocation are not mutually exclusive, and that God delights in any and all attempts that flawed, inevitably ambitious people make to live according to their ideals.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

In a short book demanding a slow reading, Christian educator Brian Mahan challenges the American cult of success with its inevitable apotheosis of the triumphant self. Convening an improbable conclave of spiritual advisors--Christian devotionalists, psychological theorists, and modern novelists--Mahan invites readers to probe the origins and consequences of their personal ambitions. Again and again, our cravings for wealth and prominence betray our vulnerability to self-deception and alienation, as we rationalize choices that suppress our authentic impulses of benevolence and idealism. To help recover our suppressed aspirations, Mahan guides us through the tasks of "formative remembering" (What am I living for?) and "spiritual misdirection" (What is distracting me from my true aims?). Honest engagement with these tasks draws us into the paradox of deliberate self-forgetfulness and toward the joyous discovery of what Mahan calls vocation: the proper dedication of our unique talents to meeting the needs of others. A priceless book for readers whose march through success manuals has left them with only emptiness and cynicism. Bryce Christensen
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Edition details

• Publisher: Jossey-Bass Inc Pub
• Publication date: 2002
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0787956333
• ISBN 13: 9780787956332
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 209