Let Your Life Speak - 2nd Edition by Parker J Palmer (Hardcover)

About the Book

"In this honest and compelling meditation, Parker Palmer reflects upon vocation, spirit, and the life journey with a depth of insight that will touch anyone who yearns for an authentic way of standing and serving in the world. Finding one's calling is not just about finding something we can do - it is about finding what we can't not do. "Let your life speak" is a time-honored Quaker admonition to live one's life as witness to the deepest truths one knows. But as Parker Palmer explains, those words can also mean "Listen to your life and let it tell you what your truth is." Vocation, he writes, comes not from external demands but from listening to "true self" - a listening that will always call us into some form of service to others. As Palmer's many readers know, his writing has always been grounded in his own life experience; here he speaks even more vulnerably of his own times of being lost in the dark, as well as moments of "stumbling into the light," in his own quest for vocation. Though the details of his journey are singular, he draws from it that which is universal. The result is a moving and illuminating book for anyone who seeks not just a job but a calling - and companionship along the way"--

Book Synopsis

The 25th Anniversary Edition of a modern classic, with a new Introduction by its celebrated author

"Is the life I am living the same as the life that wants to live in me?" With this searching question, bestselling author Parker J. Palmer begins his insightful and moving meditation on finding our way toward meaning and purpose. As readers of many ages, backgrounds and walks of life will attest, Let Your Life Speak is an elegant and openhearted gift to all who seek to live authentically.

We find a path that's right for us by embracing what gives us life and rejecting what diminishes us, listening more closely to the voice of "true self" than to what others expect or demand of us. As we live more deeply into our own identity and integrity, we find both personal fulfillment and our place in the community to which we belong. As always, Palmer writes honestly and vulnerably about his own life, including the fumbles and failures that have marked his unconventional vocational journey. He chronicles his deep dives into depression, and his quest for "an undivided life" that would allow him to offer his best gifts to the world. The details of his story are unique, but the insights he draws from it are universal.

Let Your Life Speak offers no simplistic formulas for finding a meaningful path through life's complexities. Instead, it offers real-life experience, thoughtfully mined for insight and wisdom:

• Learn how to listen to your inner teacher and follow its guidance toward a sense of meaning and purpose
• Reframe your life as a series of "experiments with truth," learning from those that fail as well as those that work
• Understand that the doors that close behind you can offer as much guidance as those that open up
• Gain inspiration and resolve from the lives of seekers who have walked this path before you

Enjoy the wisdom, compassion, gentle humor and companionship of a master teacher in a beloved book that has helped hundreds of thousands of people find their way toward meaning and purpose.

From the Back Cover

With wisdom, compassion, and gentle humor, Parker J. Palmer illuminates a pathway toward vocation for all who seek the true calling of their lives.

"Let Your Life Speak is one of the most important books of my entire life--I recommend it to everyone. I am thrilled it is being released anew into a world that has never needed Parker's exquisite wisdom more urgently."
--KRISTA TIPPETT, President, Executive Producer and Host, On Being

"With the 25th Anniversary Edition of Let Your Life Speak, now a modern classic, Parker J. Palmer deepens his place in our age as a kind and truthful visionary, a mentor of the modern heart. Carry this book with you and you will be in conversation with all that matters."
--MARK NEPO, author, Falling Down and Getting Up and The Book of Awakening

"Let Your Life Speak changed my life when I was in my twenties. With clarity and compassion, Parker J. Palmer showed me how to trust my own wisdom, and in doing so, ignited my life's work. Parker's wisdom will guide generations to come."
--VALARIE KAUR, author of See No Stranger and Founder of the Revolutionary Love Project

"For the past two decades, Let Your Life Speak has served as a vocational compass for me, my two teenagers and my father, who now walks with the ancestors. Someday, I will pass my well-worn copy to my grandchildren as a guide. Who would think that this thin-spined book would become an Ellison family heirloom."
--GREGORY C. ELLISON, II, author, Fearless Dialogues: A New Movement for Justice

"Some books are so powerful in the way they shift lives that they emerge canonical. Let Your Life Speak is such a book, a book that made a life and death difference for me. It allowed the inner me, the true me, to be heard, felt, and appreciated. Let Your Life Speak is Parker's gift from his broken-open heart to yours. Let it break open your heart so your life may be finally, fully heard."
--JERRY COLONNA, author, Reunion: Leadership and the Longing to Belong

About the Author

PARKER J. PALMER, whose books have sold more than two million copies, holds a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of California at Berkeley and thirteen honorary doctorates. Palmer is a recipient of the William Rainey Harper Award, previously given to Margaret Mead, Paulo Freire, and Elie Wiesel. He is Founder and Senior Partner of the Center for Courage & Renewal.