“The holy call is a revelation, an inner prompting, a vision, causing an individual to turn from a personal, self-cenetered, and superficially expressed life to that of a servant of the divine.

“The numinosity of such a transcendent call is often of such a magnitude that the individual experiences a rupture of his or her life.

“He nor she is cast into a vaster consciousness, and often acts with a sense of extreme vulnerability and wounding brought on by the leaving behind – and therefore the betrayal of – everything that had previously held primary value in the individual person’s life.

“The members of the famnily, circle of friends, professional colleagues, and organizations threatened by such a disruption may exert extreme pressure to reform the called one. And, failing that, to ignore or, worse yet, to cast out the ‘misguided’ individual.” – W. Brugh Joy, M.D.

(W. Brugh Joy, M.D., “Introduction” to David Spengler, The Call. New York: Riverhead Books, 1996, xiii-xv.)