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

like mine that had no desire to disappear and every desire to
succeed and become well known.

Did I want to go to Pendle Hill, to be at Pendle Hill, to
stay at Pendle Hill? I cannot say that I did. But I can say with
certainty that Pendle Hill was something that I couldn't not do.

Vocation at its deepest level is not, "Oh, boy, do I want
to go to this strange place where I have to learn a new way to
live and where no one, including me, understands what I'm
doing." Vocation at its deepest level is, "This is something I
can't not do, for reasons I'm unable to explain to anyone else
and don't fully understand myself but that are nonetheless
compelling."

And yet, even with this level of motivation, my doubts
multiplied. One day I walked from Pendle Hill through the
woods to a nearby college campus, out for a simple stroll but
carrying my anxiety with me. On some forgotten whim, I went
into the college's main administration building. There, in the
foyer, hung several stern portraits of past presidents of that
institution. One of them was the same man who, as president
of another institution, had come out to Berkeley to recruit me
for his board of trustees -- a man who, in my imagination, was
now staring down at me with a deeply disapproving look on his
face: "What do you think you're up to? Why are you wasting
your time? Get back on track before it is too late!"

I ran from that building back into the woods and wept for
a long time. Perhaps this moment precipitated the descent
into darkness that has been so central to my vocational

Now I Become Myself

25

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