Leading Lives That Matter: What We Should Do and Who We Should Be

by Mark R. Schwen (Editor), Dorothy C. Bass (Editor)

Leading Lives That Matter compiles a wide range of texts—from ancient and contemporary literature, social commentary, and philosophy—related to questions of vital interest for those who are trying to decide what to do with their lives and what kind of human beings they hope to become. This book draws upon both religious and secular wisdom, bringing these sources into conversation with one another. 

Mark Schwehn and Dorothy Bass identify four vocabularies typically used in discussions of the meaning of life choices: authenticity, virtue, exemplarity, and vocation. Six guiding questions shape the chapters that contain the majority of the texts. Each chapter’s texts provide a variety of insights and approaches to be considered in addressing the question, arranged and introduced in ways that prompt deeper reflection. Leading Lives That Matter invites readers into arguments that have persisted for generations about what we human beings should do and who we should be. 

This second edition includes forty-seven new readings from a diverse array of writers, including Toni Morrison, Kazuo Ishiguro, Denise Levertov, Malcolm Gladwell, Julia Alvarez, Alice Walker, Martin Luther King Jr., Pope Francis, and Chung Tzu. Three new guiding questions have also been added: To whom and to what should I listen as I decide what work to do? With whom and for whom shall I live? What are my obligations to future human and other life? 

Genres: Self Help, Philosophy

632 pages, Paperback

Published June 16, 2020

Reviews

[Janna · Rating 3 out of 5]

I feel as though ratings on books I read for class are so unfair because I’m “forced” to read the book rather than reading it out of desire. This one is no exception.
I am a little thrown off by the choice of passages in this book. I understand it is written by coauthors and we actually met one over zoom in our class. Yet I am still thrown off for whatever reason. As a person of color I always have a secret expectation that my ethnicity will be featured and am slightly disappointed when it is not. But also, maybe my expectations are just too weighted.
Otherwise, this book did a good job at making me contemplate my values and virtues in life. Our weekly journal writings were very enjoyable since low-stress creative writing is a new outlet I have very much enjoyed in college. I’m giving it 3 stars because a few of the passages were just too long and difficult to capture my attention.

[Wren]

Here are rapid-fire comments about some of the selections in this anthology. Author mentioned and not title of the entry to save space.

Preface
Intro
Prologue is achieved by these two readings:
William James: a speech he gave when he mused about the relationship between knowing and doing. (Marxist / romantic notions of the noble working class. Tolstoy qtd a lot.)
Vincent Harding: Highly autobiographical and focused on work being a vocation, a calling.

Vocabularies: The following are subgrouped by one of these labels: Authenticity, Virtue, Exemplary, Vocation

Charles Taylor: The authentic self actually exists in a dialogue with others.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton: an address before US Congress about the immense capabilities of women.
Natalia Ginzburg: Love of life as one of the Little Virtues she extols in her book thus titled.
Edith Jones: Her poem "Patience" on joy filling what was formerly endured by patience
Lee Hardy: Admonishes people to look not for miracles but for who and what they are.
Frederick Beuchner: An extended dictionary-type definition of vocation as calling.
Chuang Tzu (aka Master Zhung): Carving a bell is a spiritual endeavor.
Dorothy L. Sayers: "The only Christian work is good work well done" (Sayer 203).
Margaret Piercy: ". . .well done / has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident" (Piercy 213).
Amy Tan: A dialectic between the "Perfectly Contented" child and the "Pleading Child."
Tayeb Salih: A story about compassion for a man who lost his palm trees to a savvy man.
Albert Schweitzer: Small acts and soliciting with tact and restraint are virtues.
Jhumpa Lahiri: Her double consciousness of straddling Indian and American cultures.
Abigail Zuger: Two types of employees: detached efficiency vs passionate burnout.
from The Iliad: Should Achilles fight and die for glory; or go home, live, and die in obscurity.
Martha Nussbaum: Agamemnon as an ex. of tragedy by trying to live well by all definitions.
Robert Frost: Road Not Taken: be a nonconformist
Mary Catherine Bateson: Dealing with discontinuity is discovering hidden continuity.
Julia Alvarez:

I read this as part of a July 2022 retreat. I think we are reading more for a Feb 2023 retreat. I'll update with more staccato comments as I read more selections.

[Bob · Rating 4 out of 5]

Summary: An anthology on what the well-lived life looks like exploring four important vocabularies and six vital questions through a range of religious and secular readings.

How might we live lives that matter? To whom or what will I listen as I discern my vocation. With and for whom will I live? What obligation do I have to human or other life? How shall I tell the story of my life. All of these are important questions for anyone who wants their lives to matter. This collection of nearly ninety readings, forty-seven new to this edition help to explore through a variety of genres these questions. Both religious and secular resources are included. The book is organized around four “vocabularies” used about the well-led life, and six important questions. Here are the vocabularies and questions along with a reading that particularly stood out (although the overall selection is outstanding).

Vocabularies

Authenticity: Charles Taylor’s “The Ethics of Authenticity”. Taylor argues that authenticity is not just a matter of doing one’s thing, but an identity formed by wrestling with deep questions of truth.

Virtue: “On Love” by Josef Pieper is one of the best and most concise essays on the different types of love, what we mean by the love of God and love for God.

Exemplarism: To understand the importance of exemplars, what they are and how we might observe them, I could not do better than Linda Zagzebski’s reading “Why Exemplarism.”

Vocation: The readings here were some of the strongest with contributions from Lee Hardy, C.S. Lewis, Denise Levertov, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer. I choose the one by Charles D. Badcock on “Choosing” who argues that vocation is not finding the one “right” job, but living for the will of God and doing what we please.

Questions:

Must My Job Be the Primary Source of My Identity? The essay by Dorothy L. Sayers, “Why Work?” is marked by her clear thinking and the idea of serving the work, serving God in our work.

To Whom and to What Should I Listen as I Decide What to Do for a Living? The selection from Lois Lowry’s The Giver in which each young member of the community is assigned their work by the elders explores the role of others in our choices of work and captures why this book is so well-loved. Among other good selections are those by Albert Schweitzer and James Baldwin.

With Whom and For Whom Shall I Live? Toni Morrison’s “Recitatif” explores the encounter of two orphans, one black and one white, later in life and the choice of whether childhood friendship or race would determine their relations. The essay by Martin Luther King, Jr., “The World House” is also powerful.

Is a Balanced Life Possible and Preferable to a Life Focused Primarily on Work? Perhaps the most thought-provoking is the article by Karen S. Sibert that answers that for some professional jobs, the answer is “no.” The reading is titled “Don’t Quit This Day Job.” Perhaps offsetting this is the concluding reading of the section, a selection from The Sabbath by Abraham Joshua Heschel

What Are My Obligations to Future Human and Other Life? Larry Rasmussen writes a fictional letter to his grandson, “A Love Letter from the Holocene to the Anthropocene” on the failure of his generation to conserve the environment for that grandchild in terms of options, quality, and access. He raises profound questions about our failures to future generations. The section also features portions of Pope Francis’ Laudato Si.

How Shall I Tell The Story of My Life? The section begins with the marvelous poem “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost and ends with Michael T. Kaufman’s “Robert McG Thomas, 60, Chronicler of Unsung Lives.” This last is the obituary of the New York Times noted obituary writer whose obituaries were stories that captured and honored the essence of generally unknown people. It makes you think about what stories will people tell of our lives.

I suspect the primary audience of a work like this is a capstone-type class still offered by many undergraduate colleges, reflecting on vocation and life’s big questions. But it is worthwhile for anyone examining their lives and sense of calling, not only for the vocabulary and the questions but for the excellence of the readings that hold up a mirror to our lives.

________________________________

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher. The opinions I have expressed are my own.

[Robert D. Cornwall · Rating 4 out of 5]

How should we live our lives? What makes them worth living? How do we live lives that matter? In an age when higher education focuses on getting a job, is there more to life than simply making a living? That is the question raised and explored in this anthology edited by Mark Schwehn and Dorothy Bass. This is a greatly enlarged version of an earlier anthology published in the mid-200os.

The anthology is designed to be used in college/university settings, though I can foresee its use by preachers and teachers, seeking wisdom from the ages that deal with life in its complexity. They note that more than half the texts are new to this edition, which runs over 600 pages. While the book is enlarged, the structure remains largely the same.

There are three sections to the book. Part One is titled the "Prologue and includes readings from William James and Vincent Harding. It is recommended that the introduction and readings from this section be read as a starting point because they deal with the significance of life and what it means to feel a sense of call.

This section is followed by Part Two -- "Vocabularies." Through sets fo readings, we have the opportunity to consider the terms "authenticity," virtue," "exemplarity," and "vocation." Readings come from such diverse persons as modern philosophers such as Charles Taylor on authenticity to Aristotle on virtue. Most are western and Christian, but there are readings from the east as well.

Part Three focuses on a series of questions, two of which are new to this edition. These questions focus on the relationship of one's job to one's identity; to whom we should listen on deciding what to do to make a living; questions about with whom and for whom we live; whether a balanced life is possible; our obligations to the future human and other life, and finally the question of how we should tell our life story.

There is an epilogue that features Leo Tolstoy's "The Death of Ivan Ilych." The editors suggest that this might be the most important reading in the book because it "raises in a vivid and complete way all the questions that the anthology addresses." As a result, they suggest it can do two things. First, it offers an opportunity to apply the questions of the readings. Secondly, it offers rich wisdom about the meaning of life.

This isn't the sort of book one sits down and reads cover to cover, but there is much here to explore and ponder as we ask the question of how life should be lived, not just to make a living but in truly fruitful ways.

[Natalie Veech]

Not rating this one because I read it for a class and it’s not necessarily one of those books you rate. I also didn’t quite finish it because it’s more so a book that you keep revisiting.

This book is a compilation of excerpts regarding four Vocabularies and Six Questions to be considered in an attempt to live a life that “matters.”

This is just the type of book I’d recommend to anyone to just have on hand so you can go through and read excerpts when you need them at different points in your life.

I did really enjoy the premise of this book and course though.

[Connie F5.0 · Rating 5 out of 5]

After reading this for a class it makes me want to do more. Do more for my community and maybe for the environment.

[Erin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having the opportunity to read and dissect these stories for a class on one’s calling and life purpose was so fundamental to the way I now interact with the world.