Embracing Paradox with Parker Palmer

Parker Palmer is an teacher, activist, and writer whose work explores issues in education, community, spirituality, and social change. He and Dwight explore vocation, aging, and the paradoxes of solitude and community, life and mortality, faithfulness and urgency: How do we embrace paradox to pursue that which is life-giving?

Parker Palmer is a teacher, writer, and the founder and senior partner emeritus of the Center for Courage and Renewal, who works on issues in education, community, spirituality, and social change. He is the author of ten books, including Let your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation, The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher’s Life, and most recently, On the Brink of Everything: Grace, Gravity, and Getting Old. He holds a doctorate from the University of California, Berkeley, and his work has been recognized with thirteen honorary doctorates. 

Parker Palmer first came to Pendle Hill as a resident student in the fall of 1974, an experience that stretched into an eleven year tenure as the Dean of Studies. His time here catalyzed his relationship with Quakerism and shaped his work, thought, and writings on pedagogy and spiritual communities. This work, and his ongoing contributions to Pendle Hill, continue to have an incredible influence on the study, work and worship here on Pendle Hill’s campus and beyond.

The transcript for this episode is available on https://pendlehillseed.buzzsprout.com/
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Transcript

Parker Palmer  0:06 
Paradox is a survival concept. To be honest with ourselves about death is to become more deeply receptive to life.

Dwight Dunston  0:29 
You're listening to The Seed: Conversations for Radical Hope, a Pendle Hill podcast were Quakers and other seekers come together to explore visions of the world that is growing up through the cracks of our broken systems. I'm your host Dwight Dunstan. Today's episode is a two part conversation with Parker Palmer. Parker Palmer is a teacher, writer and the founder and senior partner emeritus of the Center for Courage & Renewal, who works on issues in education, community, spirituality and social change. He is the author of 10 books, including Let Your Life Speak, The Courage to Teach, and most recently, On the Brink of Everything: Grace, Gravity and Getting Old. He holds a doctorate from the University of California Berkeley, and his work has been recognized with 13 honorary doctorates. Parker came to Pendle Hill as a resident student in the fall of 1974, an experience that stretched into an 11 year tenure as the Dean of Studies. His time here catalyzed his relationship with Quakerism and shaped his work, thought, and writings on pedagogy and spiritual communities. This work and his ongoing contributions to Pendle Hill continue to have an incredible influence on the study, work and worship here on campus and beyond. Parker's writings have been instrumental in my own relationship to Quaker education, and his bulletin on Meeting for Learning has grounded and inspired our work on the podcast. I'm so excited to share this conversation with you.

Dwight Dunston  2:08 
Parker, it is such a wonderful, delightful moment for The Seed: Conversations for Radical Hope as we enter this conversation together. I'm so excited and anticipating with much glee the conversation that we'll move into today. And often what helps me to slow down is beginning where we begin with all of our guests by asking, what's it like being you today? What's it like being Parker Palmer today?

Parker Palmer  2:36 
What a great question. And Dwight, it's a delight to be with you. And to reconnect with Pendle Hill, after all these years, a place very close to my heart and following on my 11 year sojourn there. So to be me today, is, I imagine, like a lot of folks, you and I know, trying to find a way to hold in our minds and our hearts, the complexities of what's going on in our world, in Israel and Gaza, in Ukraine, in the US and its political life. All of that is very much on my mind as we are on this trajectory toward making decisions in the 2024 election that will very much impact the rest of the world as well as our own lives. So I guess, being me today, is sort of business as usual, a complicated mix of clarity and confusion, a complicated mix of joy and sorrow. And so to anyone who finds him or herself in that condition, I simply say welcome to the human race.

Dwight Dunston  3:49 
I so appreciate what I see as edges of clarity and confusion, or joy and sorrow that you named and I'm curious, what supports you to remain steadfast in alignment with your purpose, which you feel like you're called to do, who you're called to be in this time?

Parker Palmer  4:07 
Well, I think that there's a struggle there, you know, because there are certainly days when I feel down and out and am unable to pursue what I understand to be my own vocation. What helps me along the way is a number of things that ground me, inspire me and give me perspective and context. One of them is getting out in nature, big nature, as much as possible. I'm given a perspective that I that I don't know any other way to get except to be in the natural world. I heard a Buddhist teacher once say that if you pour a cup of salt into a glass of water, you're going to notice it and it's going to change that water and make it undrinkable. If you pour a cup of salt into the ocean, or into a freshwater lake, you won't notice it at all. So perspective for me is like that, it's like being able to put things in a holding area, where it gives you a new view, or a new experience that doesn't detach you from the problems you're holding, but somehow might open up into new leadings about where to go with those problems. Along the same lines, I do I think what a lot of friends do, I spend time sitting in silence. That helps enormously. Communing with Spirit, time spent with trusted friends, exploring things in a, in an open, honest way. Friends who, who aren't going to try to fix me or advise me or save me or correct me, but will simply cheer me into deeper speech, which is one of the things I actually learned about at Pendle Hill during the 11 years I was there. And I read a lot of poetry. Poets have this way of coming at things on the slant, which allows us to look out of the corner of our eyes at things that are hard to fathom when you look straight on. I know you are an artist, I know you're involved with music, I think visual art and music, poetry, drama, I put it all in the same category of human works that give us more sensitive receptors to what's going on in ourselves and in the world.

Dwight Dunston  6:32 
These things that support you to ground the ways that that has evolved to just in your lifetime. I know that you spoke about hope, and and also aging as well. And I'm curious how as you've been alive, been on planet Earth, Parker, how your relationship to your sense of hope has evolved, as you've grown, as you've matured, as you've aged.

Parker Palmer  6:57 
I think the first thing I want to say is that my life experience, which I've written about, has ranged from hope to despair. I feel like I'm one of the lucky ones. And I don't know any reason for this other than luck, good fortune, that all of that has played into my capacity, I guess, to not only survive, but thrive after several deep dives into clinical depression. And I never wanted to say "it was good luck," because I think that blinks the access someone like me has, to the resources that you sometimes need, or that you often need to survive devastating experiences like that. You know, when I'm not in the depths of depression, which is not just feeling sad, it's this devastating experience of feeling worthless of feeling like you don't count and could never count, of really feeling like "why go on with your life?" When I'm not in those pits of being frozen in place, hope for me is always about putting one foot in front of the other. Hope for me is again, having perspective on not only what I'm called to do, but what I have the capacity to do. Hope for me is looking around in this very room on this very day in my neighborhood, in wherever I may go this afternoon to pick up some groceries or to visit a friend and asking myself "what can I do today that will be life giving rather than just dealing?" Hope consists of, you know, understanding that we live in a tragic--what I call a tragic gap, where the distance between what we see around us, the evil really that we see around us and what we know to be possible in human terms, not because we wish it were so but because we've seen it happened with our own eyes. And I saw community happen at Pendle Hill, I saw economic sharing happen at Pendle Hill. And I've never been able to forget, nor do I want to forget, that those things can happen among real people in real time because I've lived it. But the gap between the harsh realities around us and what we know to be possible is tragic, not simply because it's sad but because it will never close. And our task is to keep putting one foot in front of the other in that tragic gap without flipping out on either side into what I call irrelevant idealism on the sort of spiritualized side of things, or corrosive cynicism. The other side of things where you just say, Well, I see how the system works, so I'm just going to game it for all it's worth. To keep putting one foot in front of the other trying to serve the common good in ways that we are gifted to do. We're really I think what we're really talking about here is understanding one's vocation in a way that engenders hope. And I've always loved the definition of vocation by a writer named Frederick Buechner. He says, the sweet spot for vocation is where my deep gladness meets the world's deep need. By deep gladness, he doesn't mean that your vocation is going to make you giddy happy all the time. The gladness is this is who I am I'm doing, who I was made to be, I'm doing what I was made to do. And that particular set of gifts that I have to offer to the world intersects with the world's needs in particular ways. Part of what drives us into despair is that we see all these needs around us, and some of us out of that spiritual idealism, somehow imagine that we're meant to serve all of those needs all the time. But that is to ignore the fact that we aren't gifted to serve all of those needs all the time. Our gifts intersect the world, our life's trajectory intersects the world at particular places. Part of the vocational quest is to find out where it is that my deep gladness in the sense of living into my identity and integrity, meet a particular set of needs in the world. And then to get to work, putting one foot in front of the other, doing the best we can to meet those needs.

Dwight Dunston  11:41 
Welcome back, we are excited for part two of this conversation with Parker Palmer. Parker, thank you so much for joining us for part two.

Parker Palmer  11:52 
Well thank you, Dwight, it's good to be back with you.

Dwight Dunston  11:55 
The last time we were in conversation was it was a different day, you were a different Parker, and invite in any reflections or noticings as you land here as we land together on what it's like being Parker Palmer today?

Parker Palmer  12:10 
That's a great question. Well, I suppose deep down, it feels pretty much the same to be me as it always has. I think no matter how old you get, there's a part of you that feels like you're, I don't know, 14, 12, something in that neighborhood. Since we last talked, I had a bit of a medical adventure and everything was fine. I came through well, but it's taken a little toll on my voice. But I'm just grateful for the good care and for the powers of human healing, and to be back in the swim with good folks like you and your colleagues at Pendle Hill.

Dwight Dunston  12:50 
Thank you. Thank you for getting back into the I don't know what are we swimming in a lake or a pool? Or is it more like a river? What would you are the ocean? Where are we swimming?

Parker Palmer  12:59 
I think it's the cosmic sea.

Dwight Dunston  13:01 
Oh right! Ha! Right, of course. One of my favorite swim, swim spots, the cosmic sea.

Parker Palmer  13:10 
It's a big neighborhood.

Dwight Dunston  13:11 
Yes, for sure, for sure. And I'm so curious where it will take us today. One of the things that's on my heart today, as we as we land together, is, I think, a conversation or curiosity around togetherness. I'm wondering if there's anything about accompaniment that you've experienced in your life recently that that you might want to share here, as we as we land together as we accompany one another.

Parker Palmer  13:41 
In our last time together, I may have quoted Ram Dass, who famously said "We're all walking each other home." I certainly feel that way these days at age 84. And I'm grateful for the fact that there are companions on the road. Accompaniment, befriending, and walking and swimming together in schools, large and small as it were, has always been an important part of my life. Equally important has been for me the practice of solitude. And I think when I was at Pendle Hill during the 11 years that I spent there, I learned a lot about holding the paradox of solitude and community in one's life. For me, paradox is a survival concept. There are important things in life where you need not either or, but both and. Solitude and community, I think, are are one such paradox. I've always been a devotee of a theologian named Dietrich Bonhoeffer who risked his life, and eventually lost his life for resisting the Nazis. A courageous Christian who was also deeply devoted to community, he wrote a book called Life Together. But in that book, he says a very interesting thing. He says, "Let the person who cannot be alone, be aware of being in community, and let the person who cannot be in community beware of being alone." I think what he meant was if you don't hold the paradox of solitude and community in your own life, solitude devolves into loneliness, and community devolves into the crowd. I think a lot of us have had the experience of being alone, and finding that it's not a rich and rewarding experience, but instead is an experience of isolation, even terrifying isolation. And we've also had the experience of being in a crowd of people, and finding ourselves more lonely than ever. If you're able to be in community, that means you have a rich sense of connectedness with others, that never leaves you, and that keep solitude from becoming loneliness, you still feel connected. Conversely, if you're accustomed to solitude, if you've grounded yourself in your own identity and integrity in solitude, then when you're with a lot of people, you're less likely to lose your sense of self in the crowd, which is where the crowd becomes lonely, the crowd becomes terrifying.

Dwight Dunston  16:35  
Yeah, there's something about the paradox that you lifted up that's certainly resonating with me, and I want to pull on some threads. I'm curious in your life, in your experience, how the theme of aging, the idea of aging, your relationship to aging, has been a guide for you and how it's supported you to to be both comfortable in in that solitude and in community. And, in On The Brink of Everything, you have a quote that says "we need to reframe aging, as a passage of discovery and engagement, not decline and inaction."

Parker Palmer  17:16 
Yeah, well, aging is such an interesting experience, I will always find it fascinating, even when it becomes difficult. And part of it is that you're facing into your own mortality in a way that most people don't face into when we're younger. Certainly at 84, I'm thinking more about the end of my life than I was at 74 or 64, all the way back down the line. What's interesting to me is how life-giving it is to face into one's own death. I know that sounds contradictory to some people. But I think it's another paradox that to be honest with ourselves about death is to become more deeply receptive to life. And I think this is why St. Benedict, in his rule for the monks said "daily keep your death before your eyes." This is a piece of advice about living the monastic life about living a life in search of God. And I actually remember running across that teaching when I was in my 20s. I remember meditating on it when I was at Pendle Hill, which was largely in my 30s and 40s. I'm sure there was a time when I was younger when that teaching struck me as morbid. But that disappeared pretty quickly. And I realized that if I became more aware of my mortality, I would be more appreciative of the gifts of life and the opportunities of life. And the fact that I wanted, if possible, to inhabit my life to occupy my life in a way that would benefit not just me, but others in a way that would manifest something of my identity and integrity. Identity and integrity isn't, sort of, a fixed commodity. It's it's an evolving point of intersection as your life encounters the world. I think for a long time, in my 20s 30s and 40s, I struggled with the question of sort of, what's the litmus test for good choices? What's one of the litmus tests, what's the plumb line for decisions you make about life? And I was tugged by the normal things that tug people in this American Western culture. Is the litmus test about you know, making your mark? Is it about becoming materially comfortable, financially successful? Is it about professional achievement? What's it about? And I think that ultimately the best litmus test I know is around the question "is this or is this not life giving for me?" Because there are some choices that one can make that are not only not life giving, they're actively death dealing. And so I think all of that is the fruit of, of daily keeping your death before your eyes.

Dwight Dunston  20:54 
One of the taglines for our podcast is "we explore visions of the world growing up through the cracks of our broken system." As you look back in time, look forward in time, and as we rest here in the present, do you see any threads of visions, or things growing out the cracks of our broken system that are that are noteworthy that you want to lift up from your perspective, from your experience?

Parker Palmer  21:22 
It's actually the cracks that indicate our system is broken, right? There are cracks there only because there's some sort of new life some sort of new truth pushing on these ossified structures that human beings create and cling to, even when they've become dysfunctional for our lives. And we could go on and on about all the broken systems. I'm one of those one of many I think, who is profoundly concerned about the stress tests that our democracy is going to be subjected to come November, and in in the build up to November. I'm one of those who seriously believes that our democracy is at risk. If people who clearly aim at some form of authoritarian government, because they don't like the emerging shape of diversity in our society, they don't like the idea of equal justice under the law, they don't like the idea of people with power being accountable for their actions. If such people were to win the election, if they were to win the struggle for who's who's in charge here. But at the same time, I see in our democracy, what I've always seen, and and what has been happening from the beginning, which is new life poking up and creating those cracks in the system, in all kinds of grassroots transformational movements, whether it's movements for liberation among folks in the LGBTQ+ community, or among people of color, it's always been the story of American democracy. It's been a struggle to keep the ship on course, even though that course has never been true north. And yet, I'm of a generation of white activists, who found the Black liberation struggle of the mid 20th century deeply instructive. Not not just the civil rights struggle in that era, but as Vincent Harding, who used to teach at Pendle Hill, he was on the faculty when I was Dean of Studies there. He used to say that this Black liberation movement began the very moment the first ship of enslaved human beings left the shores of Africa headed for these shores. He talks about this in a wonderful book he wrote called "There Is A River." I've been deeply instructed by the paradox that's been held in that movement. And it's been a paradox between the long slow work, patient work of generation upon generation upon generation of people who created cracks in the system, and grew the green shoots of hope up through those cracks. And at the same time, the true council that we are in a moment that manifests "the fierce urgency of now." We always have been, we always have been. Now there's a big paradox to hold together. Generational faithfulness, and the fierce urgency of now. Just recently, within the last 12 months, a woman whose last name I believe, was Eiffel. She retired as head of one of the the major departments of the NAACP. In her closing message in her goodbye remarks, she said, "I've read a lot of Black history. But one thing I've never read is an account of Black struggle for justice that ended with the words 'and then we gave up.'" That was such a simple way of saying, what one of the things that I've learned that being in the movement in a in a movement for justice doesn't have to do with getting results tomorrow, as much as you want them. And as much as they're needed, it's not going to happen. It has to do with being faithful to the calling, to stay engaged, and to keep witnessing to what you know to be good and true and beautiful. There is a long history of Quaker social activism and engagement that tells the same story. What should be instructive for us is that none of those stories should never end with "and then we gave up."

Dwight Dunston  26:09 
Just taking a breath on that right? No story of resistance, of liberation ends with "and then we gave up." It's true. It's just so true, I can't help but be in this smile right now, which is both awe and inspiration and just, there's grief there too, right of hints of hopelessness, or, you know, it is all just there as I contend with that statement. And it feels really powerful to just notice inside me what it brings up. So thank you for that. I want to move us to closing our time together. As an elder in our movement, I really see elders as playing a very particular role as young people and everybody in between, but the elders come in with the wisdom and an understanding of the long arc. As you just noticed the youth in your life, the next wave of folks who will support us in creating a more just world if there's any notes, or reflections you would you would share across that age spectrum.

Parker Palmer  27:14 
Well, you've rung the bell again, with me, my friend, because this whole business of building and strengthening and celebrating relationships between the elder and the younger, is, I think, one of the most important pieces of this whole puzzle. I do a lot of work with a younger generation of folks, I guess, they have experienced me as a supportive person. What I know for sure is that I have experienced them as energizing, encouraging real bearers of hope. One of the great hopes, as we move on through the year will be the rising resistance of people in their late teens, 20s 30s and 40s, to the threat of authoritarianism, which is so clear in these United States. We elders need that, because otherwise, you know, we fall we will fall into despair, especially those of us who have been political activists in our in our lives, if we haven't understood the basic principle that you never give up, we will fall into despair about all the work we did and all the hopes we had coming to naught. I would urge every older person within the sound of my voice, to reach out actively to younger people, in order to do what I call connect the poles of the battery. It lets the energy flow in both directions. So when we reach out to younger people, it's it's not in the first instance, about the elders saying, "Hey, listen up, I've got some things to tell you. Let me try to set you straight about this or that or one thing or another." It is instead a desire that's deep in the heart of most elders, I think, to learn to know that younger people have an interest in us if and when we are respectful of what they bring to the table. The opening move is not for me to say "listen to what I have to say." It is for me to say "you look at the world through a different lens than I do. You see a horizon that I can no longer see. I need to know what you see and what you hear what you sense because whatever is coming over that horizon at you is also coming at me. I just can't see it as clearly. I want you to tell me how I can support your efforts to wrap your minds and hearts and lives around what's coming." I guarantee for elders who are willing to do that, you will get a grateful response. And you will make new friends, and you will find yourself more sustained in the struggle. When people ask me, "what are your sources of hope?," the younger generation is always at or near the top of that list. And yes, I think I have things to offer them too. But let that emerge organically from the conversation. Let that emerge as they come to trust an older person like me to trust the sincerity the genuineness of my interest and become more self revelatory about what troubles them. It's just great stuff. I can't recommend it highly enough. Talk about the litmus test. Is it life-giving? Well, this one is for sure.

Dwight Dunston  31:02 
Thank you, Parker for this life-giving conversation. So grateful for your voice for your insight for your experience, the the gift that is your life and how you've chosen to live and what you've chosen to share. And it's been a blessing for me and many others, I know. And thank you. I just want to thank you.

Dwight Dunston  31:25 
Well, thank you so much, Dwight, it's really an honor to share this conversation with you. I've had a great pleasure. I'll tell you what, I hope to get my voice back in a little while here. And maybe six months down the road a year down the road, we talk again. For me it would be a great conversation to return to.

Dwight Dunston  31:47 
Well, I would love that. I would love that. I thought you were about to say you wanted to hop on the song together because you know I make music too. I thought you, I thought Parker Palmer's about to say "I'll drop a verse!" In which case I will also welcome that Parker.

Parker Palmer  32:03 
Maybe when I get my voice back. We'll give that a spin.

Dwight Dunston  32:06 
Great, great. I love it. Thank you, Parker.

Parker Palmer  32:09 
You take good care.

Dwight Dunston  32:37 
The Seed is a project of Pendle Hill, a Quaker center open to all for Spirit-led learning, retreat and community. We're located in Wallingford, Pennsylvania, on the traditional territory of the Lenni Lenape people. Many of our guests are teachers, leaders and speakers at Pendle Hill, and we host retreats workshops and lectures all year round. For a full list of these upcoming education opportunities, visit PendleHill.org/learn. This episode was produced and edited by Anna Hill with consulting from Peterson Toscano. Our theme music is the I Rise project by Reverend Rhetta Morgan and Bennett Kuhn produced by Astronautical Records. You can stay in touch by following us @PendleHillSeed on all social media platforms or by emailing Podcast@PendleHill.org. This project was made possible by the generous support of the Thomas H and Mary Williams Shoemaker fund. If you're finding these conversations meaningful, you can support our work financially by heading over to PendleHill.org/donate and please subscribe rate and review us wherever you get your podcasts. These seeds could not be planted without you.