Constructive Clarifications
A Feature Review of
You Have a Calling: Finding Your Vocation in the True, Good, and Beautiful
Karen Swallow Prior
Hardcover: Brazos Press, 2025
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Reviewed by Scott Postma
Dispense with the folk advice of “follow your passion” and other “unhelpful, feel-good sayings,” like “you can do anything,” because such misguided counsel makes it that much harder to find a true calling (23–26); instead, order your pursuits toward that which is true, good, and beautiful and you’ll apprehend a meaningful life. This is the central thesis of Karen Swallow Prior’s latest book, You Have A Calling, a timely and graceful work that offers constructive clarifications for anyone serious about discovering their true calling.
Prior’s book is part personal testimony, part literary essay, and part theological reflection, delivered in the humane, discursive style of Montaigne. It draws from a bounty of historical sources and cultural criticism, integrating literature, Scripture, and personal narrative with warmth and wisdom. It is a much-needed corrective to the modern vocational confusion that often reduces calling to either consumerist fulfillment or romantic self-expression.
In the first place, Prior establishes a robust theology of work. Given that work is any effort or exertion that produces an effect, she insists that work accomplished as a sub-creative act in the service of human flourishing and to the glory of God is good work. Prior explains, “Work itself is a good that is part of God’s original design and therefore contributes to human flourishing. And while work and calling do overlap at times, they are not the same” (15). This distinction is vital, because work, even in Eden, was part of paradise, not the result of the curse. The Fall, she reminds us, introduced pain into work, not work itself (7). Also, “looking down on any kind of ‘good work’… reflects a diminished or distorted view of vocation” (19).
Prior further explores the historical transformation of the concept of vocation. Before the Reformation, calling was almost exclusively a reference to the priesthood or monastic life. The Protestant Reformers liberated that view, affirming that all legitimate work could be a divine calling. Regrettably, modernity has diminished this transcendent view. As she notes, “the Protestant work ethic…eras[ed] the false distinction between sacred and secular vocations, [but] it paradoxically…contributed to the erasure of the concept of vocation altogether” (16). While work became sacralized, calling, in many quarters, became secularized.
A particularly insightful section of the book makes clear distinctions between desire, passion, and calling. “The words ‘desire’ and ‘passion’ are not interchangeable,” she insists (31). Desires may arise naturally or be cultivated; passions are more intense, enduring forms of desire often accompanied by suffering. Calling, by contrast, is external. It is “a divine invitation, a calling from outside ourselves” (53). A calling implies a need beyond the self. Someone calls because there is something that needs to be done. “Vocation is about being called by others to serve,” she writes, “not about being able to fulfill our desires, pursue our passions, or follow our bliss” (65).
Yet, one minor quibble is worth mentioning. Despite Prior’s otherwise careful distinctions, she occasionally undermines her own clarity. While she critiques the modern overemphasis on passion as a vocational compass, she occasionally slips back into phrasing that suggests the very conflation she wishes to avoid. For example, while denouncing the “follow your passion” narrative, she also offers anecdotes and turns of phrase that treat passion as a functional stand-in for vocation. The examples of her friend who pursued her passion to be “a playwright and producer for the stage” (39) and Steve Jobs, who pursued his passion for Zen (41) seem to be cases in point. The former came to see her passion as a true calling and the latter pursued more than one passion, one of which was his career in the tech industry. Likewise, her etymological treatments in places—such as her commentary on “calling” and “vocation” in the chapters on Definition and Calling (51, 58)—lack the precision one might hope for in a work aimed at clarifying these terms. She acknowledges that “context” is key (51), but at times, context becomes a substitute for consistency.
The occasional tendency to equivocate—using terms both in their classical denotation and their modern connotation—dilutes her otherwise sound thesis. Still, these weaknesses do not negate the book’s strengths. The chapters on the True, the Good, and the Beautiful are alone worth the price of the book. Thus, Prior’s reliance on the classical tradition of the transcendentals (Truth, Goodness, and Beauty), and her careful delineation in the language used to convey them, is deeply encouraging. “Pursuing truth,” she writes, is “thinking about truth itself, knowing the truth about ourselves, knowing the truth about the work we might be called to do, and walking in truth in all that we do” (88). Pursuing Goodness means seeing and celebrating “the fullness of the earth and its infinite goodness—and contribut[ing] to that goodness” (105). Pursuing Beauty is apprehending and appreciating the “harmony between order and wonder, between pattern and newness, between perfection and surprise” and doing work that is fitting: attempting “to make order in the world and to feel at home in it” (132-133).
The book is especially helpful for those who find themselves discouraged or disoriented in their work. To this end, Prior offers both comfort and clarity. “Finding work that aligns with our passions, desires, and gifts is, of course, ideal,” she writes. “It just doesn’t always happen, and that is okay” (21). Her own testimony—of an unexpected vocational departure from academia—is presented with humility and honesty. It serves as an important reminder: a calling may end, not by choice but by providence. And yet our vocation is not thereby thwarted. It is redirected.
In the end, You Have a Calling is a small book with a big heart. It does not offer a secret formula, a six-step plan, or even a vocational personality quiz. Instead, it offers a classical and Christian vision of work, calling, and human flourishing permeated with literary insight and lived experience. It is not without its flaws, but like any true gem, its brilliance outshines its minor imperfections. Prior reminds us that our true calling is not a job title, but a way of being in the world: one oriented toward truth, goodness, and beauty. And, as she concludes, “Your true calling looks beautiful on you” (135).
Scott Postma
Scott Postma is the president and CEO of Kepler Education. He teaches dual enrollment courses for Kepler in collaboration with Faulkner University and Colorado Christian University. For the past decade, he has lived in the Pacific Northwest with his wife and family. Inspired by the classical and Christian imagination, his passion is to help students obtain a Christian liberal arts education.
 Reading for the Common Good From ERB Editor Christopher Smith "This book will inspire, motivate and challenge anyone who cares a whit about the written word, the world of ideas, the shape of our communities and the life of the church." -Karen Swallow Prior Enter your email below to sign up for our weekly newsletter & download your FREE copy of this ebook! |
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