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

requires, we do so not only for ourselves but for the many oth-
ers whose lives we touch.

There are at least two ways to understand the link between
selfhood and service. One is offered by the poet Rumi in his
piercing observation: "If you are here unfaithfully with us,
you're causing terrible damage."7 If we are unfaithful to true
self, we will extract a price from others. We will make promises
we cannot keep, build houses from flimsy stuff, conjure dreams
that devolve into nightmares, and other people will suffer -- if
we are unfaithful to true self.

I will examine that sort of unfaithfulness, and its conse-
quences, later in this book. But a more inspiring way of under-
standing the link between selfhood and service is to study the
lives of people who have been here faithfully with us. Look,
for example, at the great liberation movements that have
served humanity so well -- in eastern Europe, Latin America,
and South Africa, among women, African Americans, and our
gay and lesbian brothers and sisters. What we see is simple but
often ignored: the movements that transform us, our relations,
and our world emerge from the lives of people who decide to
care for their authentic selfhood.

The social systems in which these people must survive
often try to force them to live in a way untrue to who they are.
If you are poor, you are supposed to accept, with gratitude,
half a loaf or less; if you are black, you are supposed to suffer
racism without protest; if you are gay, you are supposed to

Now I Become Myself

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