Let your Life Speak: Book Review

While Erik and I traveled through New Zealand, I read (again) a small but insightful book by Parker J. Palmer, called Let your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation. I'd read this before; it was mandatory reading for our Christian Education class. Still, I thought I might hear the book's message differently after doing ministry for more than 6 years and as one interested in vocation.

Palmer is a writer, teacher and Quaker, not necessarily in that order. The small volume (109 pages) is a meditation on how to find one's true calling and how to live authentically. One of his main points is that instead of asking what to do with your life, one should "listen for what it intends to do with you." Vocation can't be forced by some moralistic idea of what one "should" be doing. Parker weaves general insights into the book and intertwines them with his story of trying to find his own identity and vocation.

To find one's vocation (which he seems to use interchangeably with calling), one should look back before one looks forward. Palmer believes that each person is born with "birthright gifts," some innate talents, abilities, gifts and leanings. He suggests thinking back to what you really liked to do (and did well) as a child. Think what you did before anyone told you what you should be doing, enjoying or striving toward. As people get older, Palmer says, they start to wear "other people's faces" instead of their own.

I thought about my own childhood. I liked to read. I liked to write in my journal. I liked astronomy: reading and learning about stars and planets and looking through my small telescope. I liked learning about other countries and travel. I liked putting on plays. I would take books I liked, memorize the lines, create costumes and act them out as a one-woman show. I also liked memorizing the verses to favorite hymns, which I did in church instead of listening to the sermon. I also liked talking to adults and often found it easier than relating to my peers.

What did you like to do as a child?

After identifying what one liked as a child, Palmer suggests getting in touch with one's "shadow side" and learning how to embrace one's weaknesses. The premise is that it is just as important to understand your limitations as it is to know your gifts. Palmer says, "If you can't get out of it, get into it." Which I take to mean really examining your failures and defeats, heartbreaks and wounded-ness. I thought this was helpful, but I wish Palmer would have discussed exactly what that means. Should I think about my failures and wounds on a daily basis? See a therapist? I wonder what exactly he recommends.

One of my favorite take-away lines from the book was when Palmer described the Quaker notion that "way will open" when one is troubled by what direction to go. This is often revealed by quiet sitting and prayer. Palmer said he was struggling with this. So finally he went to a trusted Quaker mentor and asked what he should do if he didn't hear or sense a way opening. The woman said she seldom heard a direct way opening. Rather, she said God often spoke to her through noticing when the way closed. And that was just as helpful for discernment.

In this small book, Palmer also discusses his lengthy bout with depression and what he learned about himself in that difficult journey. While I couldn't related directly, I found it helpful from a personal and pastoral care point of view to hear what helped and what didn't. He said it wasn't helpful when people came to his room and said, "Hey, it's a beautiful day, the sun is shining, you should go outside." Rather, he said it was most helpful when people came and sat with him, saying little. One friend came every week, with his permission, and massaged his feet in silence, then left.

Palmer's point in this book, it seems, is to connect to one's gifts and wounds for the sake of personal growth, but also for the sake of leadership. He suggest that those who "lead from within" are better leaders. Not because they are necessarily "in charge," but because it is every one's vocation to simply "be here" and do what they are called to do. It's an interesting, if alternative, way to think about being a leader. It reminds me, in the end, of Luther's belief in the priesthood of all believers and in the vocational call of all the baptized.