Let Your Life Speak
by Parker J. Palmer
Chapter II
"Now I Become Myself"
Copyright ©2000 by Jossey-Bass Inc., Publishers
San Francisco, CA

went against a growing sense that teaching might be my voca-
tion. My heart wanted to keep teaching, but my ethics -- laced
liberally with ego - -told me I was supposed to save the city.
How could I reconcile the contradiction between the two?

After two years of community organizing, with all its finan-
cial uncertainties, Georgetown University offered me a faculty
post -- one that did not require me to get off my white horse
altogether: "We don't want you to be on campus all week long,"
said the dean. "We want you to get our students involved in the
community. Here's a tenure-track position involving a mini-
mum of classes and no requirement to serve on committees.
Keep working in the community and take our students out
there with you."

The part about no committees seemed like a gift from
God, so I accepted Georgetown's offer and began involving
undergraduates in community organizing. But I soon found
an even bigger gift hidden in this arrangement. By looking
anew at my community work through the lens of education, I
saw that as an organizer I had never stopped being a teacher --
I was simply teaching in a classroom without walls.

In fact, I could have done no other: teaching, I was com-
ing to understand, is my native way of being in the world.
Make me a cleric or a CEO, a poet or a politico, and teaching
is what I will do. Teaching is at the heart of my vocation and
will manifest itself in any role I play. Georgetown's invitation
allowed me to take my first step toward embracing this truth,
toward a lifelong exploration of "education unplugged."

Now I Become Myself

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