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

ecosystem of life, to find a right relation to institutions with
which I have a lifelong lover's quarrel. Had I denied my true
self, remaining "at my post" simply because I was paralyzed
with fear, I would almost certainly be lost in bitterness today
instead of serving a cause I care about.

Rosa Parks took her stand with clarity and courage. I took
mine by diversion and default. Some journeys are direct, and
some are circuitous; some are heroic, and some are fearful and
muddled. But every journey, honestly undertaken, stands a
chance of taking us toward the place where our deep gladness
meets the world's deep need.

As May Sarton reminds us, the pilgrimage toward true
self will take "time, many years and places." The world needs
people with the patience and the passion to make that pil-
grimage not only for their own sake but also as a social and
political act. The world still waits for the truth that will set us
free -- my truth, your truth, our truth -- the truth that was
seeded in the earth when each of us arrived here formed in
the image of God. Cultivating that truth, I believe, is the
authentic vocation of every human being.

LET YOUR LIFE SPEAK

36

Notes

Chapter II
1. May Sarton, "Now I Become Myself," in Collected Poems,
1930-1973 (New York: Norton, 1974), p. 156.
2. Martin Buber, Tales of the Hasidim: The Early Masters
(New York: Schocken Books, 1975), p. 251.
3. Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking: A Seeker's ABC
(San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1993), p. 119.
4. Phil Cosineau, The Art of Pilgrimage (Berkeley: Conari Press, 1998), p. xxiii.
5. Parker J. Palmer, The Company of Strangers: Christians and the
Renewal of America's Public Life (New York: Crossroads, 1981).
6. See Howard H. Brinton, The Pendle Hill Idea: A Quaker Exper-
iment in Work, Worship, Study (Wallingford, Pa.: Pendle Hill,
1950), and Eleanor Price Mather, Pendle Hill: A Quaker Exper-
iment in Education and Community (Wallingford, Pa.: Pendle
Hill, 1980).
7. Rumi, "Forget Your Life,"' in The Enlightened Heart, ed.
Stephen Mitchell (New York: HarperCollins, 1989), p. 56.
8. Rosa Parks, Rosa Parks: My Story (New York: Dial Books, 1992),
p. 116.

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