Forgetting Ourselves on Purpose

Brian J. Mahan a Catholic layperson, teaches at Candler School of Theology, Emory University.

• Foreword by Robert Coles.Preface--And an Invitation.What This Book Is About.What This Book Does.How to Read This Book.Acknowledgments.One: Ask Me What I 'm Living For.Doubting Pam.Vocation and Ambition.Compassion in Exile:Dickey 's Story.Wanna-Be Saint.Reawakening Our Epiphanies of Recruitment.Practice: Ask Me What I 'm Living For.Practice: Ask Me What I Think Is Keeping Me from Living Fully for the Thing I Want to Live For.Two: Failing at Success.My Dinner with Valentino.William James and the Desire for Something More.The Sisters of the Cenacle and How to Sneakinto Heaven.Practice: Remembering to Forget Ourselves.Two Practices: Finding Yourself by Losing Yourself.Practice: Why Do We Do That?Three: Ivan Ilyich,John Dean,and I:How We Deceive Ourselves.Dean and Ilyich.The Eraser and the Mendacious Mantra.Practice: Rationalization: A User's Guide.Four: If I 'm Really Something,You MustBe Nothing Much.A Short Tirade.The Hidden Fountains and Gardens of the Heart.Practice: Walker Percy and Spiritual Indirection.Three Lies: A Study in Spiritual Indirection.Practices: Mirroring Ambition.Five: Forgetting Ourselves on Purpose.Insight from Sri Lanka.They're Not Hypocrites;They Just Forgot.Wounded Audacity.Beatitude: Feeling the Pleasure of God.Practice: Days of Remembrance.Remedial Practice.Six: The Meritocracy Machine.Harvard and Other Problems with Admissions.Practice: Reasons and Rationalizations for the AdmissionsCommittee.Harvard Divinity School and Other Problems withAcceptance.Practice: Alternative Reading Skills.Practice: Planning an Alternative New Year 'sCelebration.Afterword: Occupations and Preoccupations.Practice: Captain Midnight and Other FailedProjection Devices.Notes.The Author.Index.