Your Vocation is Not Cancelled

10 Questions for remaining steadfast to your calling without being tone-deaf, dismissive, or out of touch with the pain of the world

“Books are a gift, but they can never teach us to live. We have to see the words made flesh.”

—Steven Garber, Visions of Vocation

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Last week I spent some time in one of my favorite bookstores in the world. It’s not something you would find in the imagination of Nora Ephron, with warm twinkle lights and decorative window displays (though I love those kinds of bookstores, too). The building isn’t located on a quaint corner in Brooklyn or Bar Harbor, welcoming in children for story time.

The entrance to Eighth Day Books.

Instead, it’s an independent bookstore situated in the middle of the middle of the country. It’s called Eighth Day Books and you can find it in Wichita, Kansas. Located in 100-ish year old house, gritty shelves packed with titles, new and used, line every wall on every floor. With children’s books on the lower level and heady theology on the top, the higher you climb, the smarter you feel.

The stairwell to the kids section.

Any empty spaces between shelves are covered in layers of iconography. It’s no Shop Around the Corner, but it does have its own Kathleen Kelly, in a way. His name is Warren Farha and he founded and has been running this bookstore since 1988.

Christ Pantocrator, 6th century - one of the earliest icons of Christ.

I was there with a group, some for whom this was their first time visiting Eighth Day. When asked to share a little more about the vision behind the bookstore, Warren talked for several minutes, his excitement over our presence masked by his deep introversion.

He explained that the vision for the store is simple, echoing what the Eighth Day catalogue says: “We hope there is a coherence within this eccentric community of books, an organizing principle of selection: if a book—be it literary, scientific, historical, or theological—sheds light on ultimate questions in an excellent way, then it's a worthy candidate for inclusion."¹

Every time I hear Warren talk about the bookstore, I’m struck by the clarity of his vision for this place.

“This is meant to be a table of cultural conversation rooted in the incarnation. I wanted to lay all the classics of the Christian tradition out side by side. That’s the template and it’s not changed in 36 years.” —Warren Farha

Warren is convinced that all truth is related and if we’re paying attention, it will rightly direct our gaze toward God. I was particularly honored several years ago when they included a few of my own titles in their collection.

I love this bookstore and I love the books. But as Steven Garber reminds us, “words have to become flesh.” So the part that struck me most this time while visiting Eighth Day was the surety of the bookstore owner’s vocation.

“This is the plan,” he said, “there is no Plan B. I want to keep doing this until my last breath, whenever that is. I hope it’s a while.”

Warren Farha, founder of Eighth Day Books.

If you want to read more about how this bookstore came to be, check out this feature in The New York Times: Wichita Bookstore Expresses It’s Founder’s Eclectic and Christian Taste. It’s from 2015 but the origin story of course remains the same.

But I just keep coming back to the person behind the thing: the story and the longing, the prayers and the questions, the imagination it takes to say yes year after year (and also to say no).

I am a follower of Jesus, a spiritual director, a writer, and a soul minimalist. There are many things I could do, a handful of things I must do, and a couple of things only I can do. Naming and discerning those things can be a challenge even on a good day.

Remembering what I know and re-naming what is mine to do (while the world around us continues to change, revealing fresh horrors and new gifts all at the same time) sometimes feels impossible. How are we to remain true to a vocation that we identified during what seemed to be simpler times? I feel both sure of my vocation and decidedly unsure at times.

I can’t say I have good answers but hearing Warren talk about his store felt like a clue. His steadfast commitment to the work and life he discerned in 1988 felt like a needed pillar for steadying my work in 2025.

Here are some questions Warren admits to having as it relates to his vocation (found here):

• Will I endure the parts of the vocation that are distasteful to me in order to continue the thing as a whole?

• Will I continue to submit to the risks necessary to extend the life of this vocation?

• Will I live in a manner worthy of the gift of knowing my vocation, even a vocation that is also my occupation, a gift that many struggle their whole lives to determine?

• Will I distort my vocation through negligence, laziness, distraction? Through taking it for granted?

• Will I continue to be willing to subject my loved ones to the sacrifices they have to make, so that I might be able to pursue this vocation, which I hope is God's intended one?

Here are some additional questions I continue to ask myself as it relates to vocation:

• Will I organize my life in such a way that allows for intentional margin so that I don’t slide into burnout?

• Will I allow the chaos and heartbreak of the world to inform my vocation rather than distract me from it?

• Am I holding my own agenda lightly enough to allow for pivots, adjustments, and necessary hellos and goodbyes?

• Have I honestly named my core values and are they reflected in the way I live my life?

• Am I remaining true to the work that is mine even when it is quiet, hidden, and subject to judgment by those who may not understand?

Today is Maundy Thursday, the day of the Last Supper, Jesus's final meal with his disciples before the crucifixion. It’s the day he washed their feet in service and humility, the day he commanded them to love one another.

“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” —John 13:34-35

Maybe that’s the most important vocational question to hold right now: Am I willing to do whatever it takes to respond to this command from my friend Jesus, always keeping at the top of my mind and heart the humanity of my fellow image-bearers?

One more closing thought about Eighth Day Books from that 2015 The New York Times article:

I wondered if he considered the store a form of evangelism. “Is it a Christian mission?” I asked.

He thought for a while. Eventually, he decided.

“It’s not a mission,” he said. “I just think by definition, if you have books that articulate truth, that it’s going to be a de facto Christian mission, because I don’t think you can separate different truths from each other. They’re all connected.”

—Mark Oppenheimer from The New York Times

As always, I’m glad you’re here.

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I would love to hear from you. What vocational questions are you asking yourself these days? Are you feeling emboldened or discouraged as it relates to your particular place in the world? Does it feel indulgent to even be able to ask these questions?

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1. Paraphrased from the Catalogue of Eighth Day Books, as recorded by Warren Farha for the Office of Vocational Ministry at Hellenic College.