“Don't choose a profession you can live with;
choose a profession you can't live without.”
― Matshona Dhliwayo

“It is in the stormiest skies that eagles find their true calling.”
― Matshona Dhliwayo

“What you are willing to study for is a hobby, what you are willing to strive for is a job, what you are willing to suffer for is a career, and what you are willing to die for is a calling.”
― Matshona Dhliwayo

“To journey as Abraham and Sarah did is to reject our inclination to protect ourselves by force. In their going--in our going--we embrace our vulnerability and forsake our tribe in order to journey with God and God’s tribe, pronouncing God’s blessing upon the world.”
― C. Andrew Doyle, Vocatio: Imaging a Visible Church

“Is this true? Those who had "world' enough, that is, those engaged in a demanding daily vocation, were short of time while those without regular obligations had more than sufficient time, but no world?”
― Carolyn G. Heilbrun, The Last Gift of Time: Life Beyond Sixty

“If you were born to teach, learn; born to lead, serve; born to coach, train; born to write, read; born to perform, practice; and born to fight, exercise.”
― Matshona Dhliwayo

“Birds sing because they have a song, not because they want to impress anyone.”
― Matshona Dhliwayo

“What you are willing to study for is a hobby, what you are wiling to strive for is a job, what you are willing to suffer for is a career, and what you are willing to die for is a calling.”
― Matshona Dhliwayo

“God’s invitations are very persuasive. Through visions, voice, and the advice and counsel of friends, God invites God's people to go. The specific circumstances of this going vary across different contexts, but there is always purpose behind God's invitation to go. People are always being sent. There is a hinge here in the language--a double meaning: going and being sent are about both the invitation and the purpose.”
― C. Andrew Doyle, Vocatio: Imaging a Visible Church

“God calls God’s people to create a new community of shalom. We must take care not to simply make God's mission into a social ethic or universal morality. God’s call is not merely a means for achieving better wages and working conditions for the enslaved. It cannot be narrowly defined as a socio-political intervention or strategy...God did not give Moses a theory of justice. God wanted to foster real, transformed, and renewed relationships among the people of Israel and the people of Egypt. Remember, the story of Israel in the land of Egypt began with friendship between a lost son and a ruler, Pharaoh and Joseph. What is broken by Israel’s slide into slavery is that original relationship. A time had come when people did not remember the blessings they have been for one another. Shalom, peace, is not a political "symbol" or "myth," but a real action of relationship that has a communal/social function in building a different kind of kingdom than the reign of humanity”
― C. Andrew Doyle, Vocatio: Imaging a Visible Church

“Paul’s mission was profoundly shaped by the way God called him and invited him to reject his life of violence to take on the yoke of peace. Paul became the voice of God to the Gentiles and all those in the wider community who had no place in the inheritance of Israel. Paul began to proclaim that God's narrative of grace, begun with Abraham and Sarah, was meant for all people. Paul's conversion was actually the reconversion of the community of shalom. The community was reminded to be different from other religious communities, and different from the powers and authorities of the world. The community did not repay violence with violence, but practiced peace instead.”
― C. Andrew Doyle, Vocatio: Imaging a Visible Church

“The story of the golden calf is about the human tendency to believe that human-made items can resolve our fear, anxiety, sense of lostness, despair, and hopelessness. The calf was supposed to be a conduit of grace. But God’s work of shalom is about relationship. God invites God’s people directly to go on God’s behalf, so God can do mighty works through them. No golden calf is necessary. No object is needed for the relationship between God and God’s people to take root in the world--only a community of willing individuals.”
― C. Andrew Doyle, Vocatio: Imaging a Visible Church

“Tariel achieved everything!
He is not on the throne alone.”
― Shota Rustaveli, The Knight in the Panther's Skin

“Annoying neighbor woman keeps telling me to get a job. You can't just sit around and do nothing. You'd be out on the street if you were MY child... she keeps saying. So what do you want me to do, exactly? Study Elephants in Norway, like YOUR kids? No... she says... you need a PHD for that job. Well I rest my case. Fuck work.”
― Dmitry Dyatlov