Pillars: Our values
Grace Year is a year of living in action and reflection around the pillars of interfaith spirituality, intentional community, and meaningful vocations.
The three pillars are sequential: to discern your vocation, you first have to understand your communities, their needs, how you relate to them, and how you can serve them. To do that, you must first look inwardly and develop an understanding of yourself and your perspective on the world through your spiritual life.
This is why, in our reflection practices, we begin with spirituality, move on to community, and then into vocational discernment. At the same time, these three pillars are deeply intertwined, and that is why, in our action practices, we engage with all three pillars from the start.
Committing to the pillars
In joining Grace Year, fellows commit fully to practicing and exploring all three pillars. You will be challenged by some aspect of all of these pillars, but it is important that you still show up.
Why these pillars?
The reason these three values are our pillars is that they are an inherent part of human life, but are often ignored by contemporary, capitalist life. Spirituality is ignored, community is put on the back burner, and vocation, while it sounds similar to “career,” is about pursuing what you personally are called to, not what social pressures push you to do. This is why we believe in the concept of the grace period—a period of time to take a step back, get grounded, and cultivate the parts of ourselves that we often ignore so we can positively impact the world.
A grace period
Grace Year is a year for reflection on who you are, your deepest values, and what you feel called to. It is also a year of action, of living out those values, facing obstacles, confronting discomfort, and for that reason, it is not always easy. But it is in those harder moments that Grace Year offers you the opportunity to grow, and it is that fact that you can enter those harder moments knowing that you have support of this community that makes it a grace period: not a time to shy away from uncertainty and discomfort, but a time to steer into them, knowing this community is here for you if you stumble.
The three pillars are sequential: to discern your vocation, you first have to understand your communities, their needs, how you relate to them, and how you can serve them. To do that, you must first look inwardly and develop an understanding of yourself and your perspective on the world through your spiritual life.
This is why, in our reflection practices, we begin with spirituality, move on to community, and then into vocational discernment. At the same time, these three pillars are deeply intertwined, and that is why, in our action practices, we engage with all three pillars from the start.
Committing to the pillars
In joining Grace Year, fellows commit fully to practicing and exploring all three pillars. You will be challenged by some aspect of all of these pillars, but it is important that you still show up.
Why these pillars?
The reason these three values are our pillars is that they are an inherent part of human life, but are often ignored by contemporary, capitalist life. Spirituality is ignored, community is put on the back burner, and vocation, while it sounds similar to “career,” is about pursuing what you personally are called to, not what social pressures push you to do. This is why we believe in the concept of the grace period—a period of time to take a step back, get grounded, and cultivate the parts of ourselves that we often ignore so we can positively impact the world.
A grace period
Grace Year is a year for reflection on who you are, your deepest values, and what you feel called to. It is also a year of action, of living out those values, facing obstacles, confronting discomfort, and for that reason, it is not always easy. But it is in those harder moments that Grace Year offers you the opportunity to grow, and it is that fact that you can enter those harder moments knowing that you have support of this community that makes it a grace period: not a time to shy away from uncertainty and discomfort, but a time to steer into them, knowing this community is here for you if you stumble.
