world religions, philosophy, books, film and life
Let Your Life Speak
November 11th, 2009
I’ve been meaning to go over what I highlighted in Parker Palmer’s book, Let Your Life Speak, for days now. Ben recommended it to me quite some time ago and he was right. I got a lot out of reading it!!
Parker Palmer is a Quaker and seem to me to be a bit more mystically based than Howard Macy. Macy is a bit more snug in his orthodoxy. For whatever reason, I’m always far more comfortable with those who aren’t so comfortable, and Palmer definitely isn’t a preacher of comfort! 
Palmer tells us: “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 intended to live up to, let your life tell you what truths you embody, what values you represent.”
Not so easy to do, is it? I don’t know about you, but I’ve been encouraged to set short term and long term goals for as long as I can remember, and this was done with what I wanted to achieve in mind. I don’t ever remember being encouraged to listen to my life. Just the opposite! I was taught to take control of my life.
Of course, here I am, 46 years old, and that hasn’t exactly worked for me. I mean, it would be nice if I was in control. But the older I get, the more I realize that “control” is a sort of modern pathology. We’ve been coming at it completely backwards for years!
Palmer says that Frederick Buechner defines vocation as “the place where your deepest gladness meets the world’s deepest needs.”
Could you even imagine having that which makes you glad meet the deepest needs of the world? Is that even possible? I don’t know about you, but I live in a world where the vocation of most people has far more to do with simply getting by than meeting personal gladness with the needs of the world! What a concept! But somewhere in you, doesn’t it sort of resonate as true? The systems of our world are falling apart because they no longer provide meaning. Life hardly seems worth living if what is ultimately meaningful to us doesn’t likewise meet some deep need within the world.
Palmer tells us that “our strongest gifts are usually those we are barely aware of possessing. They are part of our God-given nature, with us from the moment we drew first breath, and we are no more conscious of having them than we are of breathing.”
I tend to think of myself as uneducated. Yet I have a degree n Education from one of the more prominent schools in Texas. I suppose I should be proud of it, but I’m not. It didn’t take much to get the degree. I didn’t even really have to show up to classes. But since then, I’ve been studying my butt off, simply because I’m interested in the subject. People frequently tell me they are intimidated by me because I am far more educated than they are, and this always flabergasts me, because I don’t have much of formal education at all. (Being taught to teach secondary education in the public school system is a trade – not an actual education.) What education I have has been primarily self-taught and I don’t have any degrees to show for it. But since the time I was 9 years old, I’ve been exploring theology, simply because I find it fascinating. And I do tend to take my knowledge for granted. I tend to think that what I know, everyone knows. Yet, I am told repeatedly that I have a way of presenting things that would otherwise be very difficult for them to understand.
So – it makes me wonder? Did I pursue a degree in education because I was telling my life what I wanted to do with it? Or because my life was telling me what it wanted to do with me? I’m not sure the distinction is so easily determined!
Palmer says: “My anxiety about way not opening, the anxiety that kept me pounding on closed doors, almost presented me from seeing the secret hidden in plain sight; I was already standing on the ground of my new life, ready to take the next step on my journey, if only I would turn around and see the landscape that lay before me.”
Palmer says, “We must take the no of the way that closes and find the guidance it has to offer – and take the yes of the way that opens and respond with the yes of our lives.”
I guess that’s where I’m at right now. I’ve been reluctantly accepting the “no” and not it’s time to take the “yes”.
Hi Laura
The book sounds intersting and familiar to the theme of following one’s charismas- e.g. gifts.
I think it is a tantalizing struggle in life to accept inevitable disappointments and to realize opportunities thereafter. But looking back on those prior events and feeling a sense of relief that a prior outcome did not turn out as one wished at that time – too realize it was just as well is to experience grace. This was discussion I had with Fr Taylor when I was in Malawi.-his idea such self realizations are in effect the realization of grace
I would say your present gift realization is that you are entering a period of grace – to understand more clearly what happened in the past was the purpose that enabled you to experience that grace to give you your life affirming spiritual energy and to pursue those interests with alacrity and zeal!! It is the present energy to follow your charisma gifts!
Personally I would encourage you to think of that prior period when you were obtaining an education degree as a time of preparedness for those lessons on life which give you the gifts to ensure your present situation. Trying to make fine distinctions over what approach you took or not you took is secondary- or perhaps it not that simple as no doubt the author suggests.
Another aspect I find interesting is the oft found sense of self that was recognizable of old time colleagues so that they are far less surprised than you expect by what one perceives as major changes. You may find you make some big changes in your life but in the process others will not be surprised since they senses that sense of self which was you.
This aspect of grace is difficult to understand and not the more common way in which we think of the term – but I think it highly relevant to the discussion here!
Best wishes
Hi Lindsay – I thought of you and your discussion of charismas as I was reading it.
I hope I’m entering a period of grace. I suppose my biggest concern has been my lack of worldly achievement the past 10 years or so. My entire life has been dedicated to kids and husband and I have very little worldly achievement to show for it. But maybe change is in the making.
I haven’t thought about grace in a while. Which is kind of funny. I named my daughter Grace (middle name) because that is truly what she was for me. An unexpected and undeserved gift.