Book Report

I first read “Let Your Life Speak, Listening for the Voice of Vocation” by Parker Palmer, about three years ago. Palmer is a writer, teacher and activist. I’m re-reading it now to glean insight about finding an authentic career direction.

Parker Palmer began to question his vocation in his 30’s. At 40 now, I am at a crossroads having recently quit my full-time job. Soul-draining jobs have taken their toll on me. Though I’ve worked for some great companies over the years, I’ve learned that I need more than a regular 8-5 job in the same position with little stimulation. So I call this my time of a self-imposed sabbatical.

He says vocation comes from listening to our own life. “…the word vocation itself is rooted in the Latin for voice.”
“We listen for guidance everywhere except from within.” True for me! It’s hard to get quiet and still enough to hear your own truth. It’s also a challenge to be patient. I will distract myself by reading anything from books to blogs, yet that is other people’s experience and wisdom. Maybe I will try and put the books down for a while. Try to get in touch with guidance through prayer, meditation, and writing.

“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.” He also notes, “My life is not only about my strengths and virtues; it is also about my liabilities and my limits, my trespasses and my shadow.”
Andrea, pay attention! Awaken to your responses and to all your senses, awaken to new discoveries and use it all in your own writing.

“Vocation does not come from a voice ‘out there’ calling me to become something I am not. It comes from a voice ‘in here’ calling me to be the person I was born to be, to fulfill the original selfhood given me at birth by God.”

He speaks of coming to terms with our own limitations and fears. When doors close, pay attention to that for guidance as well. In his 40’s, Palmer experienced clinical depression. He shares his faithful reflection of what happened once he passed through the valley of depression. “At the end of that decent into darkness and isolation, I found myself reengaged with community, better able to offer leadership to the causes I care about.”

This time around, it is a little more insightful and I’m encouraged to seek my answers within, where they lay dormant. I do believe they are there and it’s time to stop looking outside, everywhere else.

The journey often requires some paths through darkness. As long as I keep moving forward, taking the next best step at the moment, I will undoubtedly arrive at a now elusive, somewhere authentic.