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A review by bookish_sue
The Active Life: A Spirituality of Work, Creativity, and Caring by Parker J. Palmer
3.0
I picked up this book after reading Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation, one of several self-reflective or professional-related titles read in the "bettering" days of January.
As one might expect, much of the themes and anecdotes of The Active Life repeat those in Let Your Life Speak. Palmer's philosophy seems to be that we are by nature honest, though small-thinking people. That all people are honest I cannot accept, so this philosophy hits me as undeveloped. I nonetheless tagged several aspirational bits:
"as we act, we not only express what is in us and help give shape to thew world; we also receive what is outline us, and we reshape our inner selves. When we act, the world acts back, and we and the world are co-created." (17)
"a process of contemplation by which we penetrate the illusion of enshalvement and claim our own inner liberty" (60)
"The paradox is that failure may turn to growth, while success can turn to self-satisfaction and closure." (89)
"Right action requires only that we respond faithfully to our own inner truth and to the truth around us. It requires not that we aim at any particular outcome, for ourselves or for others, but that we act on truth as we know it, with truth as our only end." (115)
"If we allow the scarcity assumption to dominate our thinking, we will act in individualistic, competitive ways that destroy c community. If we destroy community, where creating and sharing with others generates abundance, the scarcity assumption will become more valid." (127)
"when a leader is willing to trust the abundance that people have and can generate together, willing to take the risk of inviting people to share from that abundance, then and only then may true community emerge." (138)
"A culture of isolated individualism produces mass conformity because people who think they must bear life all alone are too fearful to take the risks of selfhood." (156)
As one might expect, much of the themes and anecdotes of The Active Life repeat those in Let Your Life Speak. Palmer's philosophy seems to be that we are by nature honest, though small-thinking people. That all people are honest I cannot accept, so this philosophy hits me as undeveloped. I nonetheless tagged several aspirational bits:
"as we act, we not only express what is in us and help give shape to thew world; we also receive what is outline us, and we reshape our inner selves. When we act, the world acts back, and we and the world are co-created." (17)
"a process of contemplation by which we penetrate the illusion of enshalvement and claim our own inner liberty" (60)
"The paradox is that failure may turn to growth, while success can turn to self-satisfaction and closure." (89)
"Right action requires only that we respond faithfully to our own inner truth and to the truth around us. It requires not that we aim at any particular outcome, for ourselves or for others, but that we act on truth as we know it, with truth as our only end." (115)
"If we allow the scarcity assumption to dominate our thinking, we will act in individualistic, competitive ways that destroy c community. If we destroy community, where creating and sharing with others generates abundance, the scarcity assumption will become more valid." (127)
"when a leader is willing to trust the abundance that people have and can generate together, willing to take the risk of inviting people to share from that abundance, then and only then may true community emerge." (138)
"A culture of isolated individualism produces mass conformity because people who think they must bear life all alone are too fearful to take the risks of selfhood." (156)