‘It is in the mundane, mind-numbing, boring, and tedious chores of taking care of ourselves and others that we catch glimpses of what God created us to be’ (p. 11). From this premise, Brent Waters’ Common Callings and Ordinary Virtues departs. True to his subtitle, ‘Christian Ethics for Everyday Life’, Waters shifts our attention from the extraordinary contexts that so often draw ethicists’ attention to the unexceptional routines that occupy most of our time. Although Waters worries that this focus may not make for particularly exciting reading, he finds in it a vista on the ordinary virtues that may yet dispose us to flourishing amid the malaise of late-modern society.
While each of the book's chapters might be read as a standalone reflection on one or another facet of daily life, they fit within the train of a larger argument. Waters’ work begins in the doctrines of creation, incarnation and resurrection. In the doctrine of creation, Waters underscores human beings’ existential debt to a gratuitous act of love. God creates for love and for no other reason, and this truth is reaffirmed in God's decisions to become human in the incarnation and to rehabilitate humankind in the resurrection. This doctrinal paradigm frames our common calling as human beings. We are called to order our lives according to that love which is our beginning and our end. As embodied, finite creatures, we pursue this calling over time and in particular places. Thus, most of the time, it is diffused into the diverse, unglamorous activities of daily life. Nevertheless, Waters avers, if we approach these tasks with an eye to the creation's eschatological trajectory, they become a school for the virtues. Chapters about various sorts of neighbours (friends, spouses, strangers) and various sorts of activities (housework, personal hygiene, eating), then, do not amount to so many digressions, but a thoughtful engagement with the times and places, peoples and relationships, that facilitate our growth in Christian character.
The challenge, as Waters sees it, is that inhabitants of late-modern culture find themselves awash in a world preoccupied with excitements and pleasure that promise the extraordinary but amount to little more than trivial diversions. It is remarkably difficult, at this stage in history, to appreciate ‘the good of being boring’ (p. 233). To overcome this challenge, Waters enlists the help of theologians and novelists to draw out the theological profundity and rich textures of everyday practices.
Though Common Callings is a work of theology, Waters’ analysis is at its best when he allows the novelists to take centre stage and present everyday life in rich, narrative detail. In these cases, the novels do more than provide illustrations of theological or ethical points that might be attained by other means. Instead, they make the particularity and arbitrary contingencies of everyday life a vital setting for drawing theological insights that would be unavailable otherwise.
The book's penultimate chapter on eating may provide Waters’ best and most consistent foray in this approach. Led by Iris Mudoch and Idwal Jones (and supplemented by Clement of Alexandria), Waters demonstrates how choosing recipes, fumbling with ingredients, sharing meals, savouring food and doing dishes all point to goods beyond eating. From the mis-example set by Charles Arroby in Murdoch's The Sea, the Sea, Waters guides the reader to appreciate the fundamentally social nature of eating. Under the tutelage of Jones’ Gallois, Waters draws out the interplay of memory and anticipation evoked by the fragrances and flavours of a meal. The combined effect is an account of eating that shows it to be an act of love shot through with eschatological longing; a compelling demonstration of Waters’ central thesis.
Ironically, this very same descriptive acuity may be what leaves readers wanting more from the book. Waters’ literary conversation partners hail from primarily Anglo-American and European contexts. The particularity of these authors may raise questions about the commonality of the vocations they describe. One might wonder whether a different experience of the everyday, say, one provided by Toni Morrison or James Baldwin, would furnish a different theological vision. Moreover, the epistemic significance that Waters ascribes to the everyday gives such questions distinctive exigency.
All the same, this limitation should not discourage prospective readers. Waters does not pretend that his account is comprehensive. Therefore, the places where he falls silent might be read as invitations for others to speak. Common Callings is a valuable contribution for precisely this reason. Moral philosophers and theologians have seldom given such consistent attention to the miscellanea of everyday life. Thus, Waters’ book provides a thought-provoking call to conversation. The familiar subject matter and accessible prose commend it not only to scholars but to graduate and undergraduate students alike. The book might be particularly at home in a course on pastoral ethics, but it might just as well provide the topic of conversation for a dinner party – its suitability for the latter may be its defining success.
