Book Review: You Have a Calling by Karen Swallow Prior

A five-star review of a quick and satisfying read.

It seems odd to center a review of a book about calling on the idea of not being called. But in this deeply personal work about the deeply personal idea of vocation, the chapter that stood out the most to me was in the very center.

In the chapter on “Calling,” the fifth out of nine, Karen Swallow Prior writes,¹

Sometimes people call you to fill a need because you would be able to fill that need well. And that might be true. But that doesn’t mean you’re the only one or even the best one to do it. Sometimes the honor in being asked makes it hard to say no. But it can also be wiser, for whatever reasons, to do exactly that—say no.

This is by no means the most eloquent or beautifully written passage of the book. It is neither poetic nor particularly profound, at least not when compared to other sections that leaped off the page. But it struck me personally because it met me where I am right now.

I read You Have a Calling: Finding Your Vocation in the True, Good & Beautiful in two parts. The first was in e-book form as an ARC through NetGalley, and the second was in the lovely little hardback edition that came in the mail just before I left for vacation at the Outer Banks. I began reading the digital version because it was available sooner than the hardcover, and I knew I would want to write about it on Substack; it was practical, accessible, and quick. But I savored the paper copy in the car as we drove to the ocean, on a third-floor porch at the beach house we rented for four precious fleeting days, and in bed tucked beneath clean white sheets that I didn’t have to wash. It was a vocation read, not a vacation read, but what I read of work and calling blended very well with the beauty and goodness I was enjoying on our trip.

This little beach getaway came just as this summer is ending, and as I am looking forward to a new school year that will be different from any I have had before. I have been in some form of college classes at some time during every year since 2017, but this semester is my first time experiencing full-time academic work. Before this I was always either working full-time or parenting at home full-time. This year, I am shifting gears, and this shift has brought with it a good deal of anxiety and angst. Is this English degree a good use of my time and our family finances? Is the pursuit of a writing or academic career the best thing I could be doing? Should I be at home with my children, or working a more prosaic job to provide for them? How do I balance school and work and paying for childcare and doing childcare and being present for my family and volunteering with my church and doing all the things that are important to me in just twenty-four hours a day? And what exactly does God want me to be doing right now?

I have to admit I picked up You Have a Calling hoping it would give me a straightforward answer. It did not. But, as Prior makes clear in the opening pages, that is not this book’s job. There is no One Best Way for the Christian life, for the abundant life. Each of us has a journey to discover our own calling, and that calling may look a lot more like ordinary work and a lot less like beatific vision than we may prefer. And in reading about the truth, goodness, and beauty that can be found in doing ordinary work with all my might, I felt a greater sense of peace about letting some of my work take a season of rest right now. When I am sorting through my schedule and figuring out where I can fit in writing between work and teaching and studying and making meals and doing laundry, I am often overcome with a feeling that I need to be doing more, as if there is some sort of tangible inspiration I need to take hold of lest it pass me by. If I don’t write now, if I don’t outline and edit and publish and “““network,””” I will miss out on… what? If I don’t respond right away to a request for assistance—someone to help out at youth group, someone to serve in the nursery—I will let down… who?

Hard work is its own reward, certainly, but frenetic, finger-in-every-pie energy that allows for no honing and specialization is not so much hard work as it is manic busyness, and I see in myself a tendency to the latter. I am not indispensable, and though there are needs pressing in on every side, there is community rising up all around me as well. Every opportunity is not a call to me. Part of the ability to say no, I think, is grounded in humility: the painful but necessary realization that I cannot do it all. Nor am I called to.

In chapter seven, “The True,” Prior writes,²

“Our sense of reality and our expectations can be built by what we see around us. Human beings are by nature built for community and shaped by our communities. Our desires… are cultivated by the world around us. …With opportunities numbering near infinity, we must use wisdom and discernment in considering whether or not an opportunity is a call.”

This fall I will be focusing my strength on nurturing my children in the shorter hours I have with them, studying and reading as diligently as I can, spending time with the people I love, and keeping my house from dissolving into an actual pigsty. I will probably write here on Substack less. I will likely read fewer books “for fun.” I will set strict boundaries around my work in ESL ministry, and channel my time and talents into making my classroom the best it can be—and, no matter how fun it sounds, let someone else chaperone the teens to the trampoline park. (Youth group will still be there in a few years, after all.)

In the chapter on “The Transcendentals,” Prior writes,³

In the orchestra of the world, some of us are clarinets, some are violins, some are triangles. We all play our parts. And some of us have to wait a hundred measures of rest before we do so.

As I write about this book I am conscious that I am not writing a traditional review. I am writing about how this book spoke to me, personally, subjectively, and not attempting to make a generalized recommendation to everyone reading this post. Certainly I think you should read it. I think you may take something different from it than I did, and that is the point. In reading about and pondering my own calling, I felt a clear and gentle motivation to step back. Perhaps you will read this book and feel called forward. I hope, whatever the outcome, that you will find it true, good & beautiful. And that you will be as amused as I was to spot the reference to the menswear guy on Twitter.

1. Prior, You Have a Calling, 81.

2. Prior, 103.

3. Prior, 87.