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- Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
- Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
- Sprache: Englisch
PLEASE NOTE: Some recent copies of Let Your Life Speak included printing errors. These issues have been corrected, but if you purchased a defective copy between September and December 2019, please send proof of purchase to [email protected] to receive a replacement copy. Dear Friends: I'm sorry that after 20 years of happy traveling, Let Your Life Speak hit a big pothole involving printing errors that resulted in an unreadable book. But I'm very grateful to my publisher for moving quickly to see that people who received a defective copy have a way to receive a good copy without going through the return process. We're all doing everything we can to make things right, and I'm grateful for your patience. Thank you, Parker J. Palmer With wisdom, compassion, and gentle humor, Parker J. Palmer invites us to listen to the inner teacher and follow its leadings toward a sense of meaning and purpose. Telling stories from his own life and the lives of others who have made a difference, he shares insights gained from darkness and depression as well as fulfillment and joy, illuminating a pathway toward vocation for all who seek the true calling of their lives.
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Seitenzahl: 154
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015
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CONTENTS
COVER
OTHER BOOKS BY PARKER J. PALMER
TITLE
COPYRIGHT
DEDICATION
GRATITUDES
CHAPTER I: Listening to Life
CHAPTER II: Now I Become Myself
A VISION OF VOCATION
JOURNEY INTO DARKNESS
SELFHOOD, SOCIETY, AND SERVICE
CHAPTER III: When Way Closes
WAY WILL OPEN
LEARNING OUR LIMITS
THE ECOLOGY OF A LIFE
THE GOD OF REALITY
TURNING AROUND TO DISCOVER THE WORLD
CHAPTER IV: All the Way Down
A PERSONAL PREFACE
THE MYSTERY OF DEPRESSION
FROM THE OUTSIDE LOOKING IN
FROM THE INSIDE LOOKING OUT
THE WAY TO GOD IS DOWN
CHAPTER V: Leading from Within
BACK TO THE WORLD
SHADOWS AND SPIRITUALITY
OUT OF THE SHADOW AND INTO THE LIGHT
INNER WORK IN COMMUNITY
CHAPTER VI: There Is a Season
FROM LANGUAGE TO LIFE
AUTUMN
WINTER
SPRING
SUMMER
NOTES
Gratitudes
Chapter I
Chapter II
Chapter III
Chapter IV
Chapter V
Chapter VI
THE AUTHOR
CREDITS
OTHER BOOKS OF INTEREST
Wiley End User License Agreement
Guide
Cover
Table of Contents
Begin Reading
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OTHER BOOKS BY PARKER J. PALMER
A Hidden Wholeness
The Courage to Teach
The Courage to Teach: A Guide for Reflection and Renewal (with Rachel Livsey)
The Active Life
To Know As We Are Known
The Company of Strangers
The Promise of Paradox
Caring for the Commonweal (coeditor)
LET YOUR LIFE SPEAK
LISTENING FOR THE VOICE OF VOCATION
Parker J. Palmer
Author of The Courage to Teach
Published by
Copyright © 2000 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Jossey-Bass is a registered trademark of John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Sections 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, (978) 750-8400, fax (978) 750-4744. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158-0012, (212) 850-6011, fax (212) 850-6008, e-mail: [email protected].
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Credits are on page 117.
We at Jossey-Bass strive to use the most environmentally sensitive paper stocks available to us. Our publications are printed on acid-free recycled stock whenever possible, and our paper always meets or exceeds minimum GPO and EPA requirements.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Palmer, Parker J.
Let your life speak: listening for the voice of vocation/
Parker J. Palmer.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 0-7879-4735-0 (acid-free)
1. Vocation—Christianity. I. Title.
BV4740 .P35 2000
248.4—dc21 99-6467
For Heather Marie Palmer my granddaughter
May you always treasure true self …
GRATITUDES
With the exception of Chapter I, every chapter in this book originally appeared as an essay in some other publication during the past decade. I have rewritten all the essays, most of them substantially. My aim has been to create a real book— not just a collection of articles about vocation, but a coherent exploration of a subject that engages many of us for the better part of our lives.
I mention the provenance of these pieces partly because I believe in truth in labeling and partly because the people who invited me to write the original essays, with all the trust that implies, are valued partners in my own vocation.
Chapter II, “Now I Become Myself,” was originally given as the G. D. Davidson Lecture at Warren Wilson College in Swannanoa, North Carolina, and published by the college as a pamphlet.1 The unusual charge that accompanies the lectureship helped frame this book: reflect on your life story through the concept of vocation—“including lessons learned from disappointments and failures as well as successes”—and do so in a way that might speak to younger as well as older adults. I am grateful to my friend Doug Orr, president of the college, for extending the invitation; to Don and Ann Davidson for endowing a lectureship that invites this sort of reflection; and to the entire Warren Wilson community for receiving my words with such deep hospitality.
Chapter III, “When Way Closes,” was originally written for Weavings, a quarterly journal of spirituality, at the request of its editor, John Mogabgab.2 John, my good friend for many years, is one of the best companions a person could have along the way, and Weavings—the journal he has raised up from its infancy—is widely regarded as one of the finest periodicals of its kind.
Chapter IV, “All the Way Down,” was originally written for a special issue of Weavings on the theme of the “wounded healer” in memory of Henri Nouwen.3 Henri was a treasured friend and mentor to both John Mogabgab and me, and this chapter is testimony to the transcendent power of friendship. It explores my experience with depression, a subject I could not have dealt with so openly except for the support of friends still living and the spirit of a friend now gone.
Chapter V, “Leading from Within,” was originally given as a speech for the Indiana Office of Campus Ministries, which published it as a pamphlet.4 I am grateful to my friend Max Case, executive director, for his invitation and encouragement. Indeed, I am grateful to the many campus ministers, priests, and rabbis across the country who helped me take first steps toward my calling thirty years ago, at a time when few in the academy were willing to entertain spiritual questions, at least not in public—a situation that is, blessedly, different today.
Chapter VI, “There Is a Season,” was written at the request of Rob Lehman, president of the Fetzer Institute and my good friend and co-conspirator in vocation, to help dedicate Fetzer’s retreat center, Seasons. The Institute published this essay as a pamphlet that is placed in the bedrooms at Seasons to invite guests into reflection.5 I think of that pamphlet as Fetzer’s equivalent of the Hilton’s “pillow mints”—and I think of Rob Lehman as a pioneer in empowering so many of us to explore the complex connections between inner and outer life.
Special thanks go to Sarah Polster, my editor at Jossey-Bass. She was the first to see that the question of vocation was at the heart of many of the essays I have written in recent years and to believe in their potential to become a real book. Her skillful editing has helped bring these essays together in a fabric more tightly woven than I could have achieved on my own.
My thanks also go to the other members of the Jossey-Bass staff who have been such superb partners in publishing: Carol Brown, Joanne Clapp Fullagar, Paula Goldstein, Danielle Neary, Johanna Vondeling, and Jennifer Whitney.
Much of the personal journey I trace in this book was made in the company of, and with the support of, members of my family, past and present. I did not include them in my narrative simply because their stories belong to them alone; the only tale I know how to tell, or have a right to tell, is my own. But I thought of my family often and with deep gratitude as I was writing about the parts of the journey we shared.
To Sally Palmer, Brent Palmer, Todd Palmer, and Carrie Palmer: thank you for all the love you have given me along the way.
To Heather Palmer: thank you for the new love and laughter you have brought into my life—though I’d be grateful if you would stop reminding me to eat my vegetables!
To Sharon Palmer: thank you for your gifted editing that is vital to my vocation as a writer and for the love that sustains me as I learn how to let my life speak.
Parker J. Palmer
Madison, WisconsinJuly 1999
CHAPTER IListening to Life
Some time when the river is ice ask me mistakes I have made. Ask me whether what I have done is my life. Others have come in their slow way into my thought, and some have tried to help or to hurt: ask me what difference their strongest love or hate has made.
I will listen to what you say. You and I can turn and look at the silent river and wait. We know the current is there, hidden; and there are comings and goings from miles away that hold the stillness exactly before us. What the river says, that is what I say. —William Stafford, “ASK ME”1
“Ask me whether what I have done is my life.” For some, those words will be nonsense, nothing more than a poet’s loose way with language and logic. Of course what I have done is my life! To what am I supposed to compare it?
But for others, and I am one, the poet’s words will be precise, piercing, and disquieting. They remind me of moments when it is clear—if I have eyes to see—that the life I am living is not the same as the life that wants to live in me. In those moments I sometimes catch a glimpse of my true life, a life hidden like the river beneath the ice. And in the spirit of the poet, I wonder: What am I meant to do? Who am I meant to be?
I was in my early thirties when I began, literally, to wake up to questions about my vocation. By all appearances, things were going well, but the soul does not put much stock in appearances. Seeking a path more purposeful than accumulating wealth, holding power, winning at competition, or securing a career, I had started to understand that it is indeed possible to live a life other than one’s own. Fearful that I was doing just that—but uncertain about the deeper, truer life I sensed hidden inside me, uncertain whether it was real or trustworthy or within reach—I would snap awake in the middle of the night and stare for long hours at the ceiling.
Then I ran across the old Quaker saying, “Let your life speak.” I found those words encouraging, and I thought I understood what they meant: “Let the highest truths and values guide you. Live up to those demanding standards in everything you do.” Because I had heroes at the time who seemed to be doing exactly that, this exhortation had incarnate meaning for me—it meant living a life like that of Martin Luther King Jr. or Rosa Parks or Mahatma Gandhi or Dorothy Day, a life of high purpose.
So I lined up the loftiest ideals I could find and set out to achieve them. The results were rarely admirable, often laughable, and sometimes grotesque. But always they were unreal, a distortion of my true self—as must be the case when one lives from the outside in, not the inside out. I had simply found a “noble” way to live a life that was not my own, a life spent imitating heroes instead of listening to my heart.
Today, some thirty years later, “Let your life speak” means something else to me, a meaning faithful both to the ambiguity of those words and to the complexity of my own experience: “Before you tell your life what you intend to do with it, listen for what it intends to do with you. Before you tell your life what truths and values you have decided to live up to, let your life tell you what truths you embody, what values you represent.”
My youthful understanding of “Let your life speak” led me to conjure up the highest values I could imagine and then try to conform my life to them whether they were mine or not. If that sounds like what we are supposed to do with values, it is because that is what we are too often taught. There is a simplistic brand of moralism among us that wants to reduce the ethical life to making a list, checking it twice—against the index in some best-selling book of virtues, perhaps—and then trying very hard to be not naughty but nice.
There may be moments in life when we are so unformed that we need to use values like an exoskeleton to keep us from collapsing. But something is very wrong if such moments recur often in adulthood. Trying to live someone else’s life, or to live by an abstract norm, will invariably fail—and may even do great damage.
Vocation, the way I was seeking it, becomes an act of will, a grim determination that one’s life will go this way or that whether it wants to or not. If the self is sin-ridden and will bow to truth and goodness only under duress, that approach to vocation makes sense. But if the self seeks not pathology but wholeness, as I believe it does, then the willful pursuit of vocation is an act of violence toward ourselves—violence in the name of a vision that, however lofty, is forced on the self from without rather than grown from within. True self, when violated, will always resist us, sometimes at great cost, holding our lives in check until we honor its truth.
Vocation does not come from willfulness. It comes from listening. I must listen to my life and try to understand what it is truly about—quite apart from what I would like it to be about—or my life will never represent anything real in the world, no matter how earnest my intentions.
That insight is hidden in the word vocation itself, which is rooted in the Latin for “voice.” Vocation does not mean a goal that I pursue. It means a calling that I hear. Before I can tell my life what I want to do with it, I must listen to my life telling me who I am. I must listen for the truths and values at the heart of my own identity, not the standards by which I must live—but the standards by which I cannot help but live if I am living my own life.
Behind this understanding of vocation is a truth that the ego does not want to hear because it threatens the ego’s turf: everyone has a life that is different from the “I” of daily consciousness, a life that is trying to live through the “I” who is its vessel. This is what the poet knows and what every wisdom tradition teaches: there is a great gulf between the way my ego wants to identify me, with its protective masks and self-serving fictions, and my true self.
It takes time and hard experience to sense the difference between the two—to sense that running beneath the surface of the experience I call my life, there is a deeper and truer life waiting to be acknowledged. That fact alone makes “listen to your life” difficult counsel to follow. The difficulty is compounded by the fact that from our first days in school, we are taught to listen to everything and everyone but ourselves, to take all our clues about living from the people and powers around us.
I sometimes lead retreats, and from time to time participants show me the notes they are taking as the retreat unfolds. The pattern is nearly universal: people take copious notes on what the retreat leader says, and they sometimes take notes on the words of certain wise people in the group, but rarely, if ever, do they take notes on what they themselves say. We listen for guidance everywhere except from within.
I urge retreatants to turn their note-taking around, because the words we speak often contain counsel we are trying to give ourselves. We have a strange conceit in our culture that simply because we have said something, we understand what it means! But often we do not—especially when we speak from a deeper place than intellect or ego, speak the kind of words that arise when the inner teacher feels safe enough to tell its truth. At those moments, we need to listen to what our lives are saying and take notes on it, lest we forget our own truth or deny that we ever heard it.
Verbalizing is not the only way our lives speak, of course. They speak through our actions and reactions, our intuitions and instincts, our feelings and bodily states of being, perhaps more profoundly than through our words. We are like plants, full of tropisms that draw us toward certain experiences and repel us from others. If we can learn to read our own responses to our own experience—a text we are writing unconsciously every day we spend on earth—we will receive the guidance we need to live more authentic lives.
