Ambition: Essays by Members of the Chrysostom Society

What role should ambition play in our lives? Our culture generally buys the American Dream that yes we can fulfill all our aspirations. But to seek personal power and fame in the competitive world of Western culture has a dark side. Ambition can be subtle and enticing leading to great unhappiness. Questions about ambition are more urgent now than they have ever been. What is ambition exactly and is it okay to be ambitious? What part does self-esteem play in personal growth and productivity? Can the egos drive to get ahead and make a name for oneself lead to obsession or a growing narcissism? Does the desire to do ones best constitute ambition or faithfulness to ones calling? Can personal character and integrity be eroded by too much celebrity and success? The writers in this book address these complex questions about ambition in a variety of ways and in wonderfully different voices. The pieces range from personal musings to thought experiments and more formal reflections. With elegance and wisdom the writers raise and reflect on the question that lies at our most intimate core of being and at the very center of our culture. I am glad for Ambition. It explores the issue of human ambition a topic sorely in need of careful consideration in our day of raging hubris. Ambition is far from a many-splendored thing but it is certainly a many-faceted thing. Ambition explores these many facets of ambition thoughtfully even reverently. I recommend it highly. --Richard J. Foster Author of several books including Celebration of Discipline and Sanctuary of the Soul Ambition is a tensive topic for writers (and for women and for Christians and...). So this volume is not warm and cozy. Instead it is stimulating engaging provoking and by turns comforting and discomfiting. For anyone who lives ambivalently with desire and aspiration (and really isnt that everyone?) this should be required reading. --Lauren F. Winner author of Girl Meets God and Still Luci Shaw is a poet essayist and Writer-in-Residence at Regent College Vancouver. As the author of over thirty books her writing has appeared in numerous literary and religious journals. In 2013 she received the Tenth Annual Denise Levertov Award for Creative Writing from Seattle Pacific University and Image. She is author of a new collection of poetry Scape (2013) and Adventure of Ascent: Field Notes from a Lifelong Journey (2014). Jeanne Murray Walker is a professor of English at the University of Delaware and a mentor in Seattle Pacific Universitys MFA program. She lectures teaches and gives readings in places ranging from the Library of Congress and Oxford University to Whidbey Island and Texas canyon country. She is the author of seven books of poetry including New Tracks and Night Falling and a memoir The Geography of Memory: A Pilgrimage through Alzheimers.