Dalton Hill
Vocation and Life Journals
Dr. Patty
11/7/15

Journal 1:
Mailaender LLM Certain relationships are of profound importance for human life and of great significance for the moral life. Meilaender explores some of the tension which Christian experience discovers in one such relationship, that of the bond of friendship. These tensions help to explain why friendship was a more important topic in the life and thought of the classical civilizations of Greece and Rome than it has usually been within Christendom.

Journal 2:
Merton in LLM The author states that solitude is "not just a recipe for hermits" but a means to keeping society together. Individuals need a retreat from the exigencies and pressures of work in order to dialogue with God. Merton outlines some characteristics of the spiritual life that set the stage for solitude: gratitude, keeping awake, practicing humility, listening, and unifying our lives. He sees silence as "the mother of truth" and as a divine milieu. He calls the Psalms "the true garden of the solitary." By submitting ourselves to God, we foster our love for others while we are apart from them. This is "the true fruit and the true purpose of Christian solitude.”

Journal 3:
Harding in LLM In “I Hear Them… Calling”, the community really helped Vincent Harding realize his profession of historian and minister and rebel for a cause. He was able to make his own choice and he changed ideas, career ideas, and actual professions, many times. But his community was a steady rock for him to come back to, and to take advice from. They were invested in him, and he gave back to them in whatever profession he had. As individuals we do owe our communities, yet it isn’t in the sense of a debt. It’s more of a sense of human compassion we are expected to give back to our community, but we are also supposed to really feel when we are giving back. It’s the thought that counts. When you do something good for someone else, it’s supposed to make you feel blissful that they are happy and also that you did something good.

Journal 4:
Bonhoeffer in LLM Bonhoeffer describes the makeup of responsible life with the concepts of displaced representative action, harmony with reality, taking on guilt, and freedom. ‘The structure of responsible life is determined in a dual manner, namely by life’s bond to human beings and to God, and by the freedom of one’s own life it is this bond of life to human beings and to God that constitutes the freedom of our own life.” Responsible action ‘involves both willingness to become guilty and freedom.’ So, for example, there will be unexpected circumstances that dictate that one cannot strictly perceive laws of state. This is acceptable because Christians have ‘free responsibility’ before God.

Journal 5:
Martyrdom of Perpetua During the First Century A. D., Christianity was a religion of mostly poor and oppressed people living in conquered Roman provinces and generally those of the lower classes in Rome itself. During the late second century and throughout the third century, Christianity steadily gained ground amongst the wealthy and influential citizens of the Roman Empire. This approach established how little the emperor really understood Christianity. The Great Commission given by Jesus Christ was to go into the entire world and spread the good news about Jesus' act of redemption and salvation.

Journal 6:
Nussbaum in LLM Nussbaum argues for a new take on the church and state debate. "If you look into the religions, they have this deep idea of human dignity and the source of dignity being conscience. This capacity for searching for the meaning of life. And that leads us directly to the idea of respect. Because if conscience is this deep and valuable source of searching for meaning, then we all have it whether we're agreeing or disagreeing. And we all ought to respect it and respect it equally in one another.”