AUTHOR:
Parker J. Palmer (Jossey-Bass, 1999)
REVIEWER:
Danielle Oristian York, Managing Director, 21/64
BOOK LINK:
REVIEW:
Let your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation by Parker Palmer explores the evolving intersections of values, vocation and purposes over the lifespan with warmth and wisdom. Palmer calls our attention to the skills of listening as key for exploring purpose, he states “I must listen for the truths and values at the heart of my own identity, not the standards by which I must live — but the standards by which I cannot help but live if I am living my own life.”
For those of you unfamiliar with the Quaker phrase after which the book is titled or the author, you may read this and find it existential and spiritual. And in many ways it is. These are intimate notions — purpose and identity — and the tone of this books reads as such. This book taught me as it motivated me to continue on this inner journey that informs the externalization of my identity, what I do with my skills and time — my vocation. I hope you’ll take a look and consider how the willingness to be vulnerable that enables others to do the same as they work to bring to fruition the change they want to see in the world.