Stephen Jenkinson

Are you waiting for permission for your mission?

On Mission

“You exist as a consequence of people seven generations ago who were willing to proceed as if a day would come when you and yours would be in the world and they’d be long gone, and you somehow picked up an ember of that and safeguarded it until it caught a spark. And maybe that turned into your life’s work, but you can’t claim to be the author of it. You’re on the receiving end, and your job is to have the humility of a broken-down jalopy. So you’re not going to make a lot of claims for yourself, but you can say you have a sneaking suspicion this has been around before, and you’re a part of some kind of tradition.”

On Permission

“…when I was working in palliative care…I realized that if I was going to serve these dying people well, then I couldn’t wait for anyone to ask me to do it.”

Both quotes are from an interview with Stephen Jenkinson, in The Sun, August 2015.

Are you waiting for permission for your mission?