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The Echo Within

Finding Your True Calling

Robert Benson

About The Echo Within

“I can remember the words people said that meant so much to me and my own sense of who I was and who I might become…. You know you have heard such a sentence when you hear inside a corresponding Yes. The Yes is an echo of sorts, or at least it is the same voice as is the Echo that you have come to count on. Such a sentence takes your breath away…. It tells you something about yourself that you suspected or hoped, something you glimpsed but were too shy or uncertain to name aloud.”

To Hear and Live Your Calling

When one day a friend wondered if he was being called to a certain field of work, he asked Robert Benson, “Do you think I am?”

The Echo Within is Robert’s illuminating answer, a thoughtful, honest, profoundly-affecting account of his own search and failings and eventual discovery of the Yes he describes–what it is one truly is called to do and be. Written out of a lifelong search and response to the callings on his life, The Echo Within explores:

•how to love the work you do, and the process of doing it.

•ways to sense God’s pleasure in your pursuits, both in the pursuits and in you.

•whether you fall into your vocation as a destiny or you chart that course.

•how to begin living with added dimensions of meaning and purpose.

Through the ups and downs of the changes inherent in family life, professional choice, and spiritual experience, Robert shares with wisdom, humor, and heart what he’s learned–and how you can discover your calling too.

Praise

“In this so-beautiful book, Robert Benson provides the sky in which your soul can soar. You can fly.”
Leonard Sweet, author of the The Gospel According to Starbucks

“A rare treasure of a book. Robert Benson invites us into a heartfelt and humble journey of discovery of our calling via brokenness. Benson’s generous language fills the reader’s heart with godly wisdom, humor, and care. A must-read for all those struggling with the gap between deeper longings and the day-to-day struggles of our lives.”
Makoto Fujimura, founder of the International Arts Movement, and author of River Grace and Refractions: A Journey of Faith, Art, and Culture

“The Robert Benson whom so many of us trust and enjoy has never been more open or wiser or funnier about vocation than he is here. Alternately candid and droll, lyrical and entertaining, he lays out the fruits of a lifetime and invites us to feast at will upon them. You will love this book.”
Phyllis Tickle, author of The Words of Jesus: A Gospel of the Sayings of Our Lord and The Divine Hours


“Benson makes a convincing argument that the voice we hear urging us to do the work we love could actually be the voice of the greatest lover of all. By the book’s end, readers will smile to think that the vocational boxes we would like to check on our life resume are the same boxes God has already selected for us.”
-Nancy Hull, book reviewer for Horn Book Review and The Grand Rapids Press, and author of On Rough Seas

“An insightful and sensitive book about the all-important subject of vocation.”
Marcy Heidish, author of Soul and the City and A Woman Called Moses

More Praise for Other Books by Robert Benson
“Benson’s tone remains chatty and down-to-earth, and the analogies he draws hit the mark ....”
The New York Times Book Review

“Benson writes mellifluously with original insights and welcome humor .... [He] captures a world in which time slows down and material things become of less importance .... Charming and elegantly written . . . that rare gift, a thought-provoking record of his own spiritual quest .... Willa Cather’s phrase, ‘They will be done in art as it is in heaven’ could serve as an epigraph to (his) fine work.”
Publisher’s Weekly

“In looking at his own life with candor and hope, Robert Benson helps us to look at our own. His words have the ring of truth.”
Frederick Buechner, acclaimed author of more than 30 novels and non-fiction books, including his latest, Secrets in the Dark

“Robert Benson reminds us of what we too often forget–that the ground we walk upon is sacred. With the creative eye of a novelist and the playfulness of a poet, he tutors us in the art of really knowing the place where we live and celebrating the wonders in our own backyards.”
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat, coauthors of Spiritual Literacy and directors of SpiritualityandPractice.com

About Robert Benson

Robert Benson is the author of several books, including Living Prayer, Venite: A Book of Daily Prayer, and Between the Dreaming and the Coming True. He lives in Nashville, Tennessee.

Product Details

192 pages | Published by WaterBrook

On Sale Date: Jan 6, 2009

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