Calling and vocation

The past week and a half, spent at a retreat for my faith community and a conference for church worship, really energized me for the work I do. My two jobs are quite different, but my ministry at the online church and my work here at the Century both allow me to help people wrestle with important questions of faith, justice, meaning, and purpose. I guess you could say this intersection is a big part of my “calling.”

Two of our new articles touch on calling as well. Like me, Voices columnist Alejandra Oliva has multiple jobs—and in her work as both translator and immigration rights advocate, she seeks to do justice. Many people feel called to create music for the church; but can they make a living if they pursue this calling vocationally? Only if churches report their song usage to licensing companies, as Brenna C. Cronin explains in an interview with Steve Thorngate.

No new video this week due to all my retreat-hopping. But here is a bonus article I wrote for the site Red Letter Christians; it’s about a Pride Month lesson I received from the hit show Ted Lasso.

Email me: Do you have a sense of calling? How have you lived into it?

Jon Mathieu
[email protected]

Acts of translation

“I’m both a translator and an immigration rights advocate, and my book Rivermouth circles around this idea of doing justice both on the page and in the world.”

Sing a rights-cleared song to the Lord

“Copyright holders and artists are real, flesh-and-blood people who dedicate themselves to creating music for the church. To use a piece of music without reporting that use is no different than photocopying a play, videotaping a musical without copyright permissions, or photographing a painting: it’s not a legal use.”

Domestic poverty and who it serves

“Sociologist Matthew Desmond’s new book explains why poverty persists despite—and because of—the things we do.”

In the Lectionary for July 2 (Ordinary 13A)

I hear the psalmist’s words on the lips of the unhoused. How long, O Lord?

Welcome to the commodity biopic

“Part of the pleasure of Air, Tetris, and BlackBerry is looking back on the not-so-distant past as a foreign country: a world before video games turned computer terminals from productivity machines for elite workers into entertainment devices for all of us, before sneakers defined a careful hierarchy of street style.”

by Kathryn Reklis

Raising the Dead

“is never easy, not even in a dream.
You start with an old woman,
long, grey tufts of hair . . .”

poem by Samuel Smith