Parker J. Palmer

The book is a deep and graceful exploration of a spirituality for the busy, sometimes frenetic lives many of us lead. Telling evocative stories from a variety of religious traditions, including Taoist, Jewish, and Christian, the author shows that the spiritual life does not mean abandoning the world but engaging it more deeply through life-giving action. He celebrates both the problems and potentials of the active life, revealing how much they have to teach us about ourselves, the world, and show more God. show less

Summary: A series of reflections on aging, living with grace and vitality as we age, and facing our deaths.

Perhaps one of the greatest unknowns that shape our lives either by denial, or conscious reflection is our own deaths. Like so much else, we have no clue what to expect until we get there. For some of us, our religious beliefs offer the hope of life beyond taking our last breath, or perhaps a return in another incarnation, or a oneness with the universe. We believe, perhaps with good show more reasons, but none of us knows. We wonder if death is going over the brink of nothingness. For Parker J. Palmer, at the end of his eighth decade, death is the "brink of everything." This work consists of collected reflections around the question both of "how shall we die?" and how consequently we live, particularly in the autumn years of our lives, a season he believes has its own beauty.

Palmer had me from the "Prelude" where he writes: "Age brings diminishments, but more than a few come with benefits. I've lost the capacity for multitasking, but I've discovered the joy of doing one thing at a time." In seven chapters, Palmer organizes his reflections and poetry around several topics. In "The View from the Brink: What I Can See From Here" he proposes that instead of asking "What do I want to let go of, and what do I want to hang on to?" that we ask "What do I want to let go of, and what do I want to give myself to?" Like Erikson, he sees that living generatively and giving ourselves to rising generations is essential to our vitality. That leads into a chapter on "Young and Old" A highlight in this chapter was a letter to a collaborator in the "On Being" program, Courtney Martin, and his observations about gender relationships. The chapter also includes one of the pithier and substantive commencement addresses I've heard or read.

"Getting Real" recounts the influence of Thomas Merton on his life and the journey from illusion to reality in his own life, from false self to true self. He describes an epiphany when a therapist observed about his perception of his struggle with depression (qualifying this as applying only to his own experience):

"You seem to image what's happening to you as the hand of an enemy trying to crush you. Would it be possible to image it instead as a hand of a friend pressing you down to ground on which it is safe to stand?"

The chapter concludes with journal reflections from a winter retreat week, which includes more Merton.

His chapter on "Work and Vocation" centers on his life as a writer. He confesses, "I became a writer because I was born baffled." It was helpful to find someone else who thinks this. I often find myself writing to find words to express an "inchoate something" that is rumbling around inside. "Keep Reaching Out" speaks to the necessity of remaining engaged with our world, which he models in how he wrestles what that means in a country led by a president whose character and values are at utter odds with his. As a Quaker, he wrestles through the question of how to be angry and yet live one's commitments to non-violence. A short essay in this section on "The Soul of a Patriot" included a succinct statement from William Sloan Coffin that expressed with precision something I've been groping for:

"There are three kinds of patriots, two bad and one good. The bad ones are the uncritical lovers, and the loveless critics. Good patriots carry on a lover's quarrel with their country, a reflection of God's lover's quarrel with the world."

We also need to "Keep Reaching In," His insights on the connection between pain and violence were thought-provoking to me, reminding me of Henri Nouwen and how wounds can become toxic or sacred to us, depending on the inner work we do:

"What can we do with our pain? How might we hold it and work with it? How do we turn the power of suffering toward new life? The way we answer those questions is critical because violence is what happens when we don't know what else to do with our suffering."

This relates to his final chapter "Over the Edge," in which he calls out the great challenge of wholeness, which is to live with and embrace all the contradictions of our lives--our noble and petty qualities--saying "I am all of the above." He reminds us that we are never other than beautiful and broken persons and to face the truth about ourselves allows us both to live and die well. As for what is "beyond," the most he will cautiously advance is that he believes that somehow body and spirit are intertwined and indivisible, whether in simply making new life possible or something more.

In this last, it is clear that this is not a book that presents an orthodox Christian view of death and future hope (although the resurrection is a marvelous expression, I think, of his intuitions of the indivisibility of body and spirit). Rather his reflections, the questions he explores in his writing, as well as the bonus downloadable music by retreat collaborator and musician Carrie Newcomer, explore how we might grow old with grace and generativity, rather than crankiness and frustration and sadness. His insights about anger and pain, and the temptations to violence seem very relevant whether we are old or young in this angry and violent culture.

I live in a place of seasons and I love the approach of each one and think each has its own beauty. Palmer helps me to see this in life, that the approach of autumn, and the winter to follow have their own beauty. Contrary to Dylan Thomas, Palmer suggests that we can go gently into the good night. He proposes that this is a season that has its own richness, that he invites us to join with him in exploring as we all approach the brink of everything. show less

This is probably the first stage in my life when I have the patience for a book like this. Not only am I in the midst of a mid-life process of discerning whether to dust off one of the career paths I set aside to raise children or to try something totally new, I've also been hanging out with seminarians more this year than ever before. The seminarians I've been hanging out with love Parker Palmer. So, after hearing them talk him up for months, I decided to give one of his books a go.

In this show more little volume of essays, Palmer speaks familiar (to me) insights in a new voice---a calm, honest, voice neither self-aggrandizing nor falsely self-deprecating. Palmer addresses the feelings that result from a mismatch between our skills and gifts and those asked for by our chosen path, including the nature of burnout, which was pretty timely for me. I also appreciate the gentle, largely ego-free way he describes his experience with depression. The book didn't blow my mind, but I did dog-ear some pages (don't rat me out to my librarian), and I suspect that I will be thinking and looking back on Palmer's words in the days ahead.

I don't find this book overly full of very quotable quotes (it seems to be more of book of concepts than of quotes), but here's one that I like:

"The insight we receive on the inner journey is that chaos is the precondition to creativity: as every creation myth has it, life itself emerged from the void. Even what has been created needs to be returned to chaos from time to time so that it can be regenerated in a more vital form." show less

UPDATE: Nearly two years ago, I read this one back to back. Apparently I like short books... and it's wonderful! It was just as good as I remembered. So much to chew on and savor!

This time, the section I wrote down came from chapter 5 - the "5 Monsters to ride all the way down" so as to lead from within:
1. Insecurity about identity and worth
2. Belief that the universe is a battleground
3. Functional Atheism - believing that ultimate responsibility rests on us.
4. Fear - of natural chaos of show more life, which leads to rigidity and rules.
5. Denial and death (and fear of failure).

This section is easy to overlook, but provides good insight in understanding the inner journey / "inner work" needed for maturity.

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ORIGINAL REVIEW:
For me, at this point in my life right now, Let Your Life Speak was wonderful. It's my favorite kind of book - concise, poetic, whimsical in only the best ways, engaging. Parker's exploration emphasizes the mystery of life and God, frequently noting paradoxes and curiosities, which I loved.

Let Your Life Speak is a reflection on vocation, how we hear from God as we determine the course of our lives. Palmer is an honest writer, reflecting on his own journey in discerning his calling and included many unforgettable stories from his life, sometimes memoir-esk, of both the dark times and humorous, yet learning, ones as well.

"Before you tell your life what you intend to do with it, listen for what it intends to do with you." Why do we decide what we do? What motivations go into big decisions? No doubt they can be tinged with selfishness. For me, (like Palmer) I have lived almost exclusively from the "oughts" of life - doing life as I "should" and following the instruction / guidance of others, rarely pausing for the briefest of moments to stop and attempt listening to my own heart or soul. For that I am impoverished.

However, Palmer does not write this book as a treatise explaining the nuances and details and reasons for his conclusions. He writes it like a song, focused on the truth in beauty buried deep within our hearts, melodiously pulling our true self out of hiding. This concept - the "true self" - though is hard to find in scripture, rarely if ever explicit. I wished he referenced scripture more, and despite falling in head over heels for this idea of the "true self," where is it in scripture?

Another frustration (or perhaps consequence of such a short book) was that he danced around the brokenness of work, but didn't fully address it. What would the single mother stuck earning minimum wage say if she read this book? "Nice idea, but impractical?" Is this idea - that your life pulls you somewhere - just a reminder for the poor that they lack the luxuries of the privileged? Genesis 3 is abundantly clear - work involves thorns and thistles - it is never perfect. Are we simply emboldening idealism? How many of us actually have the opportunity to make a living fulfilling our soul's desired vocation? Won't there always be heart-breaking disappointments? When do we recognize the thistles and press on or when do we move on, determining it as another "way closed?" He did touch on this, but I wanted more. And I guess some of those questions are just part of the listening process.

Like I said, it was a great read for me. This impetus to listening within is profound - that sometimes our deepest truth is within rather than without. This idea sounds quite a lot to me like the Holy Spirit. And yet, I have no doubt, it can easily become an arrogant practice of self-absorption, which is partly why his emphasis on community and communal discernment is fundamental. When we individualists hear these ideas, we usually apply them to myself, not ourselves. Wisdom, I believe, is usually found corporately.

If you're struggling to know what to do with yourself, whether just graduated or going through a mid-life crisis, it is highly recommended. It's a thought-provoking, insightful read.

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REFLECTIONS ON FIRST REVIEW: Since 2018, I've read quite a bit on the "true self" Palmer frequently references. (Ps. This is written in 2020.) And - the phrase commonly is attributed to Thomas Merton in reference to Jesus' oft repeated "you must deny yourself," namely the false self so the true self can emerge. This idea has become important for my understanding of faith and identifying the idols and ways my ego damage things. That said, Palmer, as far as I can remember, fails to reference scripture or Jesus at all in the book, omissions assumedly intentional, for better or worse. show less