Let your life speak Essay

Questions for ReflectionDuring which moments/activities do you tone of voice most alive?What argon your incurings more or less whateverone doing the right thing for the wrong reason?In what elans do you hear from God?What kinds of things most drain you? Stress you?What activities put up you the space to betroth a hop on what is going on in side you? How ofttimes do you do them?Consider the aphorism Your superior intensity level stand also be your greatest weakness. What is the connection between your strengths and your limits? Suggested activityPray by dint of St. Ignatius Prayer of Examen.See www.marshill.org/groups/hc/ Select the link titled Prayer of Examen in the Practices section.Parker PalmerLet Your indispensableity lectureChapter 2-Now I Become MyselfQuotes to think almostWhat a long sentence it can scram to become the person one has al focal points been. How often in the process we mask ourselves in faces that be non our own p. 9. We ourselves, driven by fear, too often betray true self to extend to the approval of another(prenominal)s p. 12.But inspected through the lens of paradox, my desire to become an aviator and an advertiser contain clues to the summation of true selfclues, by definition, be coded and must be deciphered p. 13.If you seek vocation without reason adequate to(p)ness the material you be working with, what you build with your life will be ungainly and may hearty put lives in peril, your own and round of those around you p. 16.In the tradition of pilgrimagehardships are seen not as accidental but as integral to the journeying itself p. 18.I saw that as an labor organizer I had never stopped being a t each(prenominal)er-I was simply teaching in a classroom without walls. Make me a cleric or a CEO, a poet or a politico, and teaching is what I will do p. 21.People manage me are raised to live autonomously, not interdependently. I had been deft to compete and win, and I had developed a taste for the pri zes p. 22. Be mother I could not acknowledge my fear, I had to veil it asthe white horse of judgment and self-righteousness p. 28.Self care is never a selfish act-it is simply good stewardship of the wholly throw I have, the gift I was put on the earth to flip to others p. 30. They decide no longer to act on the outside in a right smart that contradicts some truth to the highest degree themselves that they hold deeply on the inside p. 32. 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 receives the worlds deep take on p. 36.Questions for expressionWhat role does gaining the approval of others play in how you live your life? As Palmer recalls his childhood, he is able to uncover clues to his true self. Parents, siblings, and even spouses are great addresss of information to find out what you were like when you we re younger.What were your childhood fascinations? Were you an artist? Were you building forts in the woods? What sorts of things held your attention? Are in that respect connections between the things that fascinated you and then and the life that you want to live now?Half-truths go hand in hand with fear. In our fear, it is such(prenominal) easier to facial expression at some other person, institution, or situation and point out shortcomings than it is to bear at our own. alarm may motivate us to do the right thing for the wrong reasons.What are some of the fears that stumble you to lash out at others? Palmer says that self care is good stewardship of the only gift I have, the gift that I was placed on earth to offer others. He goes on to say that a lose of self care hurts not only the individual but others as well.What does self care look like for you? What restores you? What are the things in your life that learn your soul tired?Who are the Martin Luther King jr.s, the Rosa Parks, and Gandhis of yourlife? Who are the people that you admire so much that you seek to warning aspects of your life after them? Why these people?Learning who you are doesnt simply miserly discipline your strengths but also your limitations. Who are you? is a very broad and difficult oral sex to answer. I may not be able to split you who I am, but Ive got a list of stories to tell you who I am notFinish the sentence I could never_____ its just not me. Suggested ActivityPalmer says that clues are coded and must be deciphered. Turn a blank sheet of paper on its side and draw a straight line from the left side to the right side. The line will wait on as a chronological timeline of your life from birth until now. Place markificant acquires and events that have shaped who you are today on the timeline. Examples family of origin, deaths, births, school and work experiences, relationships, spiritual journey, great moments of joy, or great moments of sadness.Take time to s hare with one some other about what is on your timeline and why it is significant.Parker PalmerLet Your Life converseChapter 3-When focal point ClosesQuotes to think aboutThere is as much guidance in what does not and cannot legislate in my life as there is in what can and does-maybe to a greater extent p. 39.If you are like me and dont readily admit your limits, embarrassment may be the only way to get your attention p. 42.As Americanswe resist the very idea of limits, regarding limits of all sorts as temporary and regrettable impositions on our livesWe refuse to take no for an answer p. 42.When I consistently refuse to take no for an answer, I miss the vital clues to my identity that arise when way closes-and I am more likely both to exceed my limits and to do harm to others in the process p. 43.There are some roles and relationships in which we thrive and others inwhich we cease and die p. 44.It took me a long time to understand that although everyone needs to be loved, I ca nnot be the source of that gift to everyone who asks me for it p. 48. When I give something I do not possess, I give a out of true and dangerous gift, a gift that looks like love but is, in reality, loveless-a gift given more from my need to prove myself than from the others need to be cared for p. 48.Our strongest gifts are usually those we are only aware of possessing. They are a part of our God given nature, with us from the moment we drew source breath, and we are no more conscious of having them than we are of breathing p. 52.Limitations and liabilities are the flip side of our giftsa particular weakness is the inevitable trade-off for a particular strength. We will become better teachers not by trying to fill the potholes in our souls but by knowing them so well that we can avoid falling into them p. 52.If we are to live our lives in full and well, we must find to embrace the opposites, to live in a creative tension between our limits and our potentials. We must honor our limitations in ways that do not distort our nature, and we must trust and use our gifts in ways that fulfill the potentials God gave us p. 55. Questions for reflectionCan you identify a moment in your life when God used a closed in(p) door instead of an open door to guide your life in the direction it needful to go? Discuss your experience.Palmer says that embarrassment is sometimes the only way we become aware of our limitations. Identify and discuss an viscid moment that service of processed you become aware of your limitations.How does humor get used to avoid dealing with our shortcomings? In American culture, weaknesses and limitations are often viewed as things that need to be croped into strengths. Palmer seems to argue that in trying to turn our weaknesses into strengths we become something that we are not and end up living outside of ourselves. How does the idea that weaknesses should be set and honored rather than turned into strengths strike you? If our strongest gi fts are usually the ones that we are most unaware of, what typesof things do people tell you are your strengths that you feel unaware of? Suggested ActivityIdentify and write down 2 recent moments in your life. 1. A moment when things went so well that you felt confident that you were born to do whatever you were doing at the time. 2. A moment when something went so poorly that you never wanted to repeat the experience again.Break into groups of two or three people and share these moments. In the groups, begin by part one another see the strengths that made the great moment possible. After doing that, reflect with one another about the moment that went poorly. Instead of offering critiques, think about the strengths discussed in the first moment. Knowing that our strengths and weaknesses are often opposites, help each other identify if there is a connection between the strength of the first moment and the weakness of the second moment. How are they two sides of the same coin?When everyone has finished hoard back together as one group and discuss what you discovered.Parker PalmerLet Your Life SpeakChapter 4 All the Way Down*Before your discussion of chapter 4, it is very important to lay a exemplar for your discussion. Anytime people are discussing their brokenness, it must be done in a place of synthetic rubberty and confidentiality. choose the group to be attentive to not try to fix one another as you interact. If you good sense this beginning to happen, remind everyone that you are not trying to fix one another but to help one another hear. Also, be sure to communicate how important it is that what is discussed remains confidential.Quotes to think aboutI had no choice but to write about my own deepest woundI rarely rundle to him about my own darkness even in his gracious presence, I felt too sheepish p. 57.Second, depression demands that we reject simplistic answers, bothreligious and scientific, and read to embrace mystery, something our culture r esists p. 60.I do not like to speak ungratefully of my visitors. They all meant well, and they were among the few who did not avoid me altogether p. 61. imprint is the ultimate state of disconnection, not just between people but between ones mind and ones feelings. To be reminded of that disconnection only deepened my despair p. 62.I heard nil beyond their opening words, because I knew they were peddling a falsehood no one can fully experience another persons mystery p. 62. whizz of the hardest things we must do sometimes is to be present to another persons pain without trying to fix it, to simply stand respectfully at the edge of that persons mystery and misery p. 63.Functional atheism-saying pious words about Gods presence in our lives but believing, on the contrary, that nothing good is going to happen unless we make it happen p. 64.First, I had been trained as an intellectual not only to think-an activity I greatly nurse-but also to live largely in my head p. 67.I had to be forced thermionic valve before I could understand that the way to God is not up but down p. 69.One of the most painful discoveries I made in the midst of the dark woods of depression was that a part of me wanted to stay depressed. As long as I clung to this living death, life became easier light was expected of me, certainly not serving others p. 71.Questions for reflectionIdentifying our wounds is a critical part of the inward journey. phone back to the timeline you drew in the Chapter 2 activity. What are the wounds you have suffered?In what ways does shame cause you to hide who you are from others? Discuss the following statement Sometimes not having answers to some of lifes questions can be comforting. Do you agree? Why or why not?Do you feel it is important to show up when others experience hardship ortragedy? Why or why not?Discuss Palmers suggestion that no one can fully experience another persons mystery and misery.How is the phrase I know exactly how you feel a irrefuta ble statement between two people? How is it a negative statement?How do you see useful atheism in the world around you? In your life? What does the way to God is down mean to you?Palmer says part of me wanted to stay depressed. Why do you think we hold onto our pain despite the event that we want it to stop?Suggested ActivityHave soul read Job 29-13.What can we learn about how Jobs friends respond in these few verses? Read Job 48 and then Job 135.What is Eliphaz suggesting about Job in 48? What can be learned from Jobs response in 135?Parker PalmerLet Your Life SpeakChapter 5-Leading from WithinQuotes to think aboutI lead by word and deed simply because I am here doing what I do. If you are also here, doing what you do, then you also exercise leadership of some sort p. 74.Why must we go in and down? Because as we do so, we will meet the darkness that we carry within ourselves-the ultimate shadows that we project onto other people. If we do not understand that the opposition is wi thin, we will find a thousand ways of making someone out there into the enemy, turn leaders who oppress rather than liberate others p. 80.But why would anybody want to take a journey of that sort, with its multiple difficulties and dangers? Everything in us cries out against it-which is why we outdoor(a)ize everything. It is so much easier to deal with the external world, to unload our lives manipulating materials and institutions and other people instead of dealing with our own souls p. 82.Why would anyone want to embark on the daunting inner journey about whichAnnie Dillard writes? Because there is no way out of ones inner life, so one had better get into it. On the inward and downward spiritual journey, the only way out is in and through p. 85.But extroversion sometimes develops as a way to cope with self-doubt we plunge into external activity to prove that we are worthy-or simply to evade the question p. 86.the knowledge that identity does not depend on the role w e play or t he power it gives us over others. It depends only on the simple fact that we are children of God, valued in and for ourselves p. 87.A few people found ways to be present to me without violating my souls integrity. Because they were not driven by their own fears, the fears that lead us either to fix or abandon each other p. 93.Questions for reflectionPalmer suggests that anyone who is alive is a leader. He broadens the typical definition of leadership to include things like family dynamics and relationships. Discuss your thoughts on this.What monsters do you need to ride all the way down? What power that look like?What activities have you been part of in order to prove your worth or value? Palmer finishes the chapter by saying that it is possible for communities to be with one another in a way that is safe and honoring. What do you think makes communities feel unsafe?We are meant to support and journey with one another. What alternatives are there for journeying together beyond fixin g or abandoning? Suggested ActivityRead Matthew 152,10, and 11.Have someone wrap an empty box as you would a birthday or Christmas gift. Decorate the exterior with ribbons, bows, and other gift decorations.Set the gift in the middle of the room and ask people to make observations about the peignoir What can we tell about the person who wrapped the box based on the wrapping? After several minutes of observation, have someone open thegift to reveal the empty box. delivery boy observes that the Pharisees are so concerned with the exterior that they neglect what is inside. How is this true in our lives? Parker PalmerLet Your Life SpeakChapter 6-There Is a SeasonQuotes to think aboutAnimated by the imagination, one of the most vital powers we possess, our metaphors often become reality, transmuting themselves from language into the living of our lives p. 96.We do not believe that we grow our lives-we believe that we make them p. 97.We are here not only to transform the world but also t o be transformed p. 97. In my own experience of autumn, I am rarely aware that seeds are being planted p. 98.In retrospect, I can see in my own life what I could not see at the time-how the job I lost helped me find work I needed to do, how the road closed sign turned me toward terrain I needed to travel, how losses that felt irredeemable forced me to discern meanings I needed to know p. 99.There is in all visible thingsa hidden wholeness p. 99. Until we enter boldly into the fears we most want to avoid, those fears will dominate our lives p. 103.If you receive a gift, you keep it alive not by clinging to it but by passing it alongIf we want to save our lives, we cannot cling to them but must spend them with abandon p. 105.Authentic abundance does not lie in secured stockpiles of food or cash or influence or affection but in belonging to a community where we can give those goods to others who need them-and receive them from others when we are in need p. 108.Community doesnt just cre ate abundance-community is abundance. If we could learn that equation from the world of nature, the human world might be transformed p. 108.Questions for reflectionWhat season do you feel that you are currently in? Why?In your mind, what is the weirdest most obscure animal in all of Gods good creation? Why do you suppose God is so detailed and extravagant with his creation?What things contribute to the loss of imagination?In what ways do you make your life rather than listen for what God desires to make of your life?God asks that his people join him in redeeming and restoring the world. How are you joining God to redeem and restore the world? Remember that God is about details and extravagance. We can sometimes feel that the way we join God is small and insignificant compared to the way others do. But it isnt. God created you to be a gift to Him and to the world and you have something to offer. What is it?How is this process transforming you?The way of Jesus, which is the way of the cross, compels us to use our freedom and abundance for the avail of others. What does it look like for you to live for the benefit of others?What does it look like for your community?Suggested ActivityAfter discussing what it might look like for your community to live for the benefit of others, finish by holding hands in a circle and reciting the Lords Prayer. Matthew 69-13.