Product Description

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.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #164815 in Books
• Published on: 1999-09-10
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 128 pages

Review
"Parker Palmer′s writing is like a high country stream–clear, vital, honest. If your life seems to be passing you by, or you cannot see the way ahead, immerse yourself in the wisdom of these pages and allow it to carry you toward a more attentive relationship with your deeper, truer self." (John S. Mogabgab, editor, Weavings Journal)

"An exuberant and passionate book. I was deeply moved and I cannot, nor do I want to, shake off the haunting questions that it raises for me. This book penetrates the soul, and it will definitely stir you to explore more of your own inner territory. What an extraordinary achievement." (Jim Kouzes, coauthor, The Leadership Challenge and Encouraging the Heart; chairman, Tom Peters Group/Learning Systems)

"At a time when our culture is seeking a new language for expressing the spirit in everyday life, Parker Palmer is our leading voice of clarity and wisdom. In Let Your Life Speak, Palmer continues to deepen our ways of understanding the relationships between the inner life of spirit and the outer life of action." (Rob Lehman, president, The Fetzer Institute)

"In our search for authentic vocation, this book should be the starting point and deserves a prominent place in every home, school, and college. It is vintage Parker Palmer, providing his unique insight to the interconnectedness of selfhood and vocation with eloquence and personal experience." (Doug Orr, president, Warren Wilson College)

From the Inside Flap
"Is the life I am living the same as the life that wants to live in me?" With this searching question, Parker Palmer begins an insightful and moving meditation on finding one′s true calling. Let Your Life Speak is an openhearted gift to anyone who seeks to live authentically.The book′s title is a time–honored Quaker admonition, usually taken to mean "Let the highest truths and values guide everything you do." But Palmer reinterprets those words, drawing on his own search for selfhood. "Before you tell your life what you intAnd to do with it," he writes, "listen for what it intAnds 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."Vocation does not come from willfulness, no matter how noble one′s intentions. It comes from listening to and accepting "true self" with its limits as well as its potentials. Sharing stories of frailty and strength, of darkness and light, Palmer shows that vocation is not a goal to be achieved but a gift to be received.As we live more deeply into the selfhood that is our birthright gift, we find not only personal fulfillment. We find communion with others and ways of serving the world′s deepest needs.A Compassionate and Compelling Meditation on Discovering Your Path in LifeWith 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."Parker Palmer′s writing is like a high country stream–clear, vital, honest. If your life seems to be passing you by, or you cannot see the way ahead, immerse yourself in the wisdom of these pages and allow it

From the Back Cover
"Is the life I am living the same as the life that wants to live in me?" With this searching question, Parker Palmer begins an insightful and moving meditation on finding one′s true calling. Let Your Life Speak is an openhearted gift to anyone who seeks to live authentically.
The book′s title is a time–honored Quaker admonition, usually taken to mean "Let the highest truths and values guide everything you do." But Palmer reinterprets those words, drawing on his own search for selfhood. "Before you tell your life what you intend to do with it," he writes, "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."

Vocation does not come from willfulness, no matter how noble one′s intentions. It comes from listening to and accepting "true self" with its limits as well as its potentials. Sharing stories of frailty and strength, of darkness and light, Palmer shows that vocation is not a goal to be achieved but a gift to be received.

As we live more deeply into the selfhood that is our birthright gift, we find not only personal fulfillment. We find communion with others and ways of serving the world′s deepest needs.

A Compassionate and Compelling Meditation on Discovering Your Path in Life

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.

"Parker Palmer′s writing is like a high country stream–clear, vital, honest. If your life seems to be passing you by, or you cannot see the way ahead, immerse yourself in the wisdom of these pages and allow it to carry you toward a more attentive relationship with your deeper, truer self."—John S. Mogabgab, editor, Weavings Journal

"An exuberant and passionate book. I was deeply moved and I cannot, nor do I want to, shake off the haunting questions that it raises for me. This book penetrates the soul, and it will definitely stir you to explore more of your own inner territory. What an extraordinary achievement."
—Jim Kouzes, coauthor, The Leadership Challenge and Encouraging the Heart; chairman, Tom Peters Group/Learning Systems

Customer Reviews

Stopping and listening
One thing that our world does not encourage very well is stopping and listening -- stopping and listening to each other, stopping and listening to life around us, or stopping and listening even to ourselves. This is a skill that, given our cultural conditioning, must be cultivated. That is one of the things that this book by Parker Palmer, `Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation', strives to do -- to help the reader, the seeker, to be more attentive to life.

Palmer is a well-known author in the area of vocational care and consideration. I first encountered Palmer's writing in another book, The Courage to Teach, as various of us explored the meanings of our vocations as educators in the fields of theology and ministry.

Palmer states at the outset in his Gratitudes (a wonderful substitution from the typical words Preface or Introduction) that these chapters have in various guises appeared before. However, they have been re-written to fit together as a complete and unified whole for the purpose of exploring vocation.

Chapter 1: Listening to Life, starts as an exploration through poetry and Palmer's own experience in vocation. What is one called to do? What is the source of vocation? Palmer states: `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.'

The very word vocation implies both voice and calling. Crucial to this understanding is that one must be present and attentive to hear that voice, that call.

Chapter 2: Now I Become Myself, continues, through the words of May Sarton, Palmer's self-exploration and self-discovery of the vocation not as an achievement but rather as a gift. One must be ready to receive the gift.

Many people, and Palmer is no exception, go through a period of darkness, despair, and depression before reaching a clear understanding of the vocation to which they are called. It requires courage. It requires diligence. It requires (and again Palmer uses the words of Sarton) the understanding that this will take 'time, many years and places'. It requires patience.

Chapter 3: When Way Closes explores one of the frequent problems along the vocational trail -- what happens when something stops or closes? Is it as simple as thinking a window opens when a door closes?

Sometimes it is not so simply identifiable. Our vocation sometimes propels into action or inaction because what we are doing rather than what we should be doing. Palmer says we must learn our limits, and sometimes we subconsciously force ourselves into action by closing off the past.
Palmer used the example of having lost a job. Palmer was able to discern, through reflection, that he was not fired from that job because he was bad at the job, but rather because it had little to do with his true vocation, and his heart would never be in it. His vocation required that he lose that job.

In stopping ourselves from dwelling on the past, beating on the closed door, but rather looking at where we are and where we can go from there, that our vocation opens for us.

Chapter 4: All the Way Down, deals with that depression we often face on the way. While it may sound cliche to talk about hitting bottom before being able to progress, there is a truth behind the cliche.

Depression ultimately is an intimately personal experience. Palmer explores the mystery of depression. He frankly admits that, while he can understand why some people ultimately commit suicide in their depression, he cannot full explain why others, including himself, do not, and recover (at least to a degree).

Chapter 5: Leading from Within talks of Palmer's return from depression into a world of action. Quoting from Vaclav Havel, the playwright-president of the Czech Republic, he says, `The power for authentic leadership, Havel tells us, is found not in external arrangements but in the human heart. Authentic leaders in every setting -- from families to nation-states -- aim at liberating the heart, their own and others', so that its powers can liberate the world. `

By unlocking those places in our hearts -- places that include faith, trust, and hope -- we can overcome fear and cynicism, and move to a firm grounding where we can be leader of our own destiny by following our true vocation.

Chapter 6: There is a Season winds through a treatment of the seasons of nature in relation to the seasons of our lives. We in the modern world have forgotten the basic cyclical nature of our ground of being. Decline and death are natural, yet we always flee from these and treat them as tragedies beyond understanding. We see growth as a natural good, but do not trust nature (even our own self-nature) to provide the growth we need for all.

The various chapters are remarkable in their sense of spirit and flow. For a book of only barely more than 100 pages (and small pages, at that), this book opens up a wonder of insight and feeling that helps to discern not one's own vocation, but rather how to think about discerning a vocation. This is, in many ways, a book of method, by showing a personal journey combined with other examples, principles and honest feelings.

This book can, quite simply, make a difference in the life of reader. There is no higher praise or recommendation I am able to give than that.

Thought-provoking and deep
This is a truly refreshing book. By sharing his personal story and the lessons he has learned along the way, the author points a way to discovering who we truly are i.e. who we were before we started trying to fit in.

It is an enjoyable read and very thought-provoking. He has a lot of wisdom and an unusual perspective. I'm sure I will be digesting the wisdom in it for some time to come.

Reviewer: Paul Wallis author 'Be Thou My Breastplate".
I took this book on retreat with four friends in widely various forms of Christian ministry. Over the course of the next few days, the book was passed, like a peace-pipe, from retreatant to retreatant and we each devoured it, transfixed from cover to cover. We returned each to buy several copies for family, friends and colleagues.

For anyone with an appetite to find meaning in life; for anyone who has ever struggled with ambition, self-doubt, pressure, burnout, hyper-activity and all the pressing corporate imperatives of church-life, this book is a MUST-READ.

Educator, Parker J Palemer writes insightfully and powerfully with an openness and vulnerability that totally disarm and denude the reader. So much of the well-intentioned falsity to which our ideas of 'spirituality' push us gets evaporated by the honesty and reality of this little volume - yet all is done gently and with a light and refreshing touch.

To anyone to whom 'vocation' is an important idea I would recommend this book without hesitation. Thought-provoking and potentially life-changing, this is a warm, human, gentle and acessible read. Don't miss out on Parker J Palmer's avuncular and friendly advice. You'll be glad you read it. 'Let your life speak" changed the course of my ministry. Perhaps it will do the same for yours!

Paul Wallis - author of "BE THOU MY BREASTPLATE - 40 days of giving your life to God the Celtic way." "This serene, superb...book is...a rich gift to the Church." (Phyllis Tickle)