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This week we talk to Parker J Palmer about finding wholeness
Parker J. Palmer, is the founder and Senior Partner of the Center for Courage & Renewal. He is a world-renowned writer, speaker and activist who focuses on issues in education, community, leadership, spirituality and social change. He has reached millions worldwide through his nine books, including Let Your Life Speak, The Courage to Teach, A Hidden Wholeness, and Healing the Heart of Democracy.
Parker holds a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of California at Berkeley, as well as eleven honorary doctorates, two Distinguished Achievement Awards from the National Educational Press Association, and an Award of Excellence from the Associated Church Press. In 2010, Palmer was given the William Rainey Harper Award whose previous recipients include Margaret Mead, Elie Wiesel, and Paolo Freire. In 2011, he was named an Utne Reader Visionary, one of “25 people who are changing your world.”
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In This Interview, Parker J Palmer and I Discuss…
- The One You Feed parable
- That wholeness is not about perfection but it’s about embracing all that we are
- His book, Hidden Wholeness: A Journey Towards an Undivided Life
- What the idea of “the Soul” means to him
- His experiences with clinical depression and the lesson he’s learned, a.k.a. “the pearl of great price”
- What “the divided life” is
- That we need BOTH community and solitude
- The voice of depression
- The important concept of, “If you can’t be in community, watch out for being alone and if you can’t be alone, watch out for being in community.”
- The idea of “The Circle of Trust”
- That sometimes giving advice to someone is like giving CPR to people who can breathe for themselves & when we give them CPR, we’re actually inhibiting their own capacity to breathe
- The importance of letting another person work their way to the answer themselves
- His book, Healing the Heart of Democracy
- What he has to say about the current state of politics
- That rather than looking at the right vs left division in politics, another view is to look at the people who think they can’t do anything politically and have given up vs the activists
- That our founding fathers really got it wrong when defining who “we the people” are
- The important role that conflict brings to our form of government
- The Five Habits of the Heart that are important to healing the heart of democracy
- The definition of “eustress” (hint: it’s the antonym of distress)
- The two ways that the heart can break
- Ways people who hold very different viewpoints can come together to find common ground
- That when it comes to ideologically contentious issues, the more you know about another person’s story, the less possible it is to despise that person, no matter how different they may be from you.
- And that the more you hear about that person, you may not change your mind, but you re-forge the human bond, ensuring that you are in right relationship with them which is more important than just being right
- The Courage and Renewal Center
Parker J Palmer Links
Michelle Spencer says
So many great pearls of wisdom in this podcast – from how depression feels to how to be in relationships to what needs to happen to fix our government. Such a breadth of amazing advice in an hour. Parker J. Palmer is a wise man with the extra gift of being able to convey information, so people can get it. Thanks for bringing him to me!
Anonymous says
It is true that for some it has to be so blatantly obvious that it cannot be ignored, but we refuse to turn a blind eye to it. Non-fiction reality disturbs people and yet fiction doom and gloom sells like blockbusters!