Called to Question: A Spiritual Memoir
by Joan Chittister
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Book Summary Information
Author: Joan ChittisterEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2009-01-16
ISBN: 1580512194
Number of pages: 256
Publisher: Sheed & Ward
Book Reviews of Called to Question: A Spiritual Memoir
Book Review: Spirituality
Summary: 5 Stars
To me, "Called to Question" is a great book, It spoke to my most inner feelings.
Sister Joan Chittister speaks to the human soul. She speaks to many frustrated Catholics and other Christian denominations as well. Her voice has really become a movement that embraces many people of faith who seek to throw off the restraints of a male dominated society that has been so ever present in the Catholic Church. This though is not solely a Catholic issue or a women issue but applies to the abuse of male domination in all institutions of power. To Sister Joan, this long history of male domination in the world has limited the human imagination by suppressing the more caring aspects of the feminine soul.
In Sister Joan's writing and lectures, she expresses a deep passion to "open conversations and thought; to stir minds and touch hearts; to bring us into contact with our souls". This is because she sees institutions "as suppressing thought; governments jailing dissenters; churches excommunicating them; corporations firing them and communities shunning them".
Joan Chittister sees the heart of Christianity as being more of a counter-cultural faith rather than a faith of personal piety. To Sister Joan, it is Christianity that is "called to question", to be seeking justice and to question the unjust status quo of "brutal violence, inhuman poverty, unconscionable discrimination and self righteous fundamentalism. Otherwise the circle goes round and round as we prefer the security of the present to the possibility of the future".
To me "Called to Question" really goes to the heart of the insidious and diabolical nature of American consumer capitalism and how narcissist materialism is destroying the spirituality of humankind. Sister Joan though takes a less confrontational approach with the thought that American individualism has suppressed the spiritual self and that "the spiritual self is all we really have......It is not the world with which we wrestle; it is the self that is the antagonist in our lives. The cry of the restless self is the cry for the God beyond the little gods we fashion along the way".
Sister Joan though is by no means naïve about the oppression of the institutions of corporate capitalism and the human need to oppose such totalitarian rule. I love her paragraph on page 73. I quote: "The greatest spiritual problem of them all may be that we are simply too willing to give over our sense of direction, our compulsion to search, to those who want from us anything but a self. They want obedience or comformity or sacrifice and silence. They do not want us to make up our own minds about anything. They want us to put our minds down at the altar of oblivion so that systems and institutions can thrive, while the soul smothers under the weight of its own indifference. "We cannot afford not to fight for growth and understanding, even when it is painful, as it is bound to be," as she quotes from May Sarton.
Later on page 115, Sister Joan writes another pearl among so many: "It's when we discover that enough will never be enough that we can finally stop kicking and scratching our way through life, put it all down, and let God be the point of the compass for us. Then we are ready to link arms with the rest of the human race as partners in the great enterprise of life. Then we realize not only the insufficiency of the other on whom we have put the burden of our emotional satisfaction, but of ourselves as well. Because neither we nor they are God, we can finally be gentle with one another".
Another very powerful thought that Sister Joan leaves with the reader is that the powers that surround us should not discourage us . "In the end, power does not lie in wealth and authority; it lies in having nothing to lose. When we have nothing to lose or to gain in a situation, we are finally free. Then, the only things that stand between us and integrity are consciousness and truth. Powerlessness does not neutralize us, it drives us on. We are the only ones on the battlefields of life with an eye on the questions alone. Everybody else is too busy calculating the effect of the loss of the situation on their reputations and their careers and their images and their positions".
In summary, Joan Chittister really believes that consciousness really commits one to action. Once one sees so much evil in the world as disguised as virtue, one has no choice but to resist it. However success for radical social change depends on society's being able to achieve a critical mass of resistance. For that, Sister Joan says, "God will need to "send our laborers into the field."
Finally Sister Joan concludes: "The God of creation goes on creating us. The danger is that we ourselves are inclined to call our creation over before its time". .
Summary of Called to Question: A Spiritual Memoir
Called to Question: A Spiritual Memoir is Sr. Joan Chittister's most personal and intense writing to date. Alive with the raw energy of a journal and polished with the skill of a master storyteller, each chapter is an engaging dialogue between Sr. Joan and many different wisdom sources about such topics as God's existence and call, experience, struggle, justice, the role of women and men in society and church, living through doubt, and celebrating life. The paperback edition contains a new Preface by the author.Catholicism Books
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