I recently reviewed both the books displayed above (click to find them on Amazon) for Christian Century magazine (link takes you to the review). Doing so provided an opportunity to remember my own life as a teaching life. Hence, I started the review with a personal anecdote and ended it with an application from my own life.

The decision to include a bit of self into the review reflects my belief that no reading can be totally objective and that transparent subjectivity can be a good thing–if done with respect and love for the author.

What do you think of the practice of injecting a little piece of the reviewer’s own life into the review of another book?  I did the same thing at the beginning of my review of Mennonite in a Little Black Dress. Is this helpful? Does it seem intrusive? I can imagine some people might view it as arrogant or solipsistic–the same way some critics view the memoir genre itself.  I’d love your opinion on this matter, since I have reviewed a lot of memoirs here and hope to continue. Please help me become a better reviewer by reflecting on what you appreciate–or not –in reviews as you read them.

Each of the six chapters in this book reveals important turning points in the life of the author.  In Chapter I we learn that in his youth Parker took guidance from external heroes and tried to live up to their moral and ethical genius rather than listening to the voice calling his own soul into being.

In Chapter II the author shares the introduction to letters to his granddaughter with this inscription: “Perhaps these notes will help you do sooner something your grandfather did only later: remember who you were when you first arrived and reclaim the gift of true self.”  This chapter also contains some of the most insightful reflections on the author’s own childhood.  He wanted to be a pilot and ad man when he grew up.  Instead of just scoffing at these early dreams, Parker shows how his calling to be a writer and a teacher actually grew out of them.

Chapter III shares the wisdom Parker learned from a Quaker mentor Ruth.  Vocational guidance can come from doors that close behind us even more than from paths that open before us.  We learn that Parker was fired as a graduate student on a project at Berkeley in the 1960′s.  And, in one of my favorite stories, he discovers in a clearness committee meeting (a Quaker practice for listening to the voice with the help of others) that the main reason he was attracted to a job offer to be president of a small educational institution was to see his picture in the paper with “president” underneath it.

Chapter IV comes at the apex of the book’s structure and tells the story of the dark night of the soul, Parker’s walk with depression–what helped, what didn’t–and the blessings wrestled from the experiences.  The image of his friend Bill coming by to visit, taking off Parker’s shoes and socks and massaging his feet–the only part of his body that still had feeling–lends radiance to a period filled with darkness.

Chapter V focuses on leadership in a way that few other treatises on this subject do.  Leading from within requires knowledge of both shadow and light in the soul of the leader.  The goal of the wise leader is service to the community.  Parker uses his experience in Outward Bound when he learned to lean back into the empty space, rappelling down a cliff.  The advice the frightened climber got–”if you can’t get out of it, get into it!”–makes a great mantra for leadership.

Parker concludes this small book with a tall subject:  the four seasons.  Treating each season as a metaphor, he weaves together the gifts received throughout the other chapters in the book.  The doors that closed behind him become the Autumn revery on the hidden wholeness in all things. He describes personal losses, and the clarity gained by them, in the winter season.  Spring brings with it “humus,” decayed vegetable matter, that he likens to the humiliations earlier shared with the reader. He ends the book with a meditation on the abundance of summer.

I decided, upon this re-reading, that Parker Palmer is to literature what Vivaldi is to music.  Each season perfects the last one and prepares for the next.  Only a Midwesterner could have probed the pleasures and pains so deeply of autumn, winter, spring, and summer–in that order. Only a citizen of the world could tell the stories in so universal a way.

I fear this capsule summary violates the spirit of the book, which should be read slowly, lectio divina style, biting off small amounts and chewing them.  Each page is bathed in silence, and the reader will do well to reflect in silence about her or his own life, not only at the end, but throughout the book.

I selected autobiographical tidbits from the book in part so that I can end this review with questions.  In a clearness committee meeting, no one gives advice.  No one asks rhetorical questions.  Each person asks some question to the wild animal soul of the other person.  The person poses the question, often about a vocational choice.  Three or four other people hold the spirit of the questioner in the light, to use a Quaker saying.

If Parker were to consider the vocational choice of writing a memoir, here are a few questions I might ask.  As it turns out, they are questions any memoir writer could use, and that is why I call this book a memoir writer’s memoir:

• Who were you when you first arrived?  What were the signs of the shape of your soul?
• What did you aspire to?
• How did you choose your mentors?
• What contributions did your father, mother, siblings make to your life?
• What did teachers and parents praise you for?
• What did they disapprove?
• Were you a golden child, class clown, outcast, other?
• What gifts from your childhood do you want to give to your granddaughter?  To yourself? To others?

These are just the questions for Volume I, Parker.  So you just might have to live another 70 years to get to Volume VI!

Apparently, the broadcast about illusion and reality in our current economic crisis, which included Parker talking about depression in his own life, cheered many people.  Funny how truth does that–in just the paradoxical way that Parker himself explains better than anyone I know.

Here is a Parker Palmer story from the transcript of the Bill Moyers Journal broadcast that has helped many people who, like myself, have known depression:

Parker: “I got tremendous help from a therapist at one point, in one of my depressions, who said to me, “Parker, you seem to keep treating this experience as if depression were the hand of an enemy trying to crush you. Would it be possible to re-image depression as the hand of a friend trying to press you down to ground on which it’s safe to stand?”

The exchange between Bill and Parker that follows is one of the most honest depictions of the dark side of the inner life that you are ever likely to see on television. Be sure to check out the blog posts after you watch the video.  Notice how many of them appreciate this short segment about depression.

I have written about Parker’s important book, The Courage to Teach here before, when I was preparing to teach a workshop on reflective writing, but I have not written about him as a memoir writer.  His books all contain philosophical and social reflection, but they ring most true in their many personal narratives–often moments of self-deprecation, doubt, and fear.

Despite the fact that I have been a fan and then a friend of Parker’s for many years, I never placed him in the category of memoir writer until I began to notice–duh!– that even his most highly evolved political and social discourse finds its roots in questions and experiences from his own life.  Interestingly, Parker is seldom described as a memoir writer.  He is called author, spiritual teacher, educator, and activist.  It’s time to explore what he contributes to the field of memoir writing.

I will write more in future posts about several of Parker’s memoirs.  Until then, you can find more video, speeches, and interviews at the Center for Courage and Renewal website.

I regret that I never met John Fetzer before he died.  But I meet his ideas every day.  He loved to learn and to help others learn.  He read voraciously and talked with scientists, philosophers, theologians, and ordinary people who had extraordinary experiences.  He was especially interested in metaphysics.  “Love is the core energy that rules everything,” he wrote in the 1970′s.  Our mission today, ” to foster awareness of the power of love and forgiveness in the emerging global community,” is based on his vision.

So how does the founder’s vision connect with the upcoming workshop?  First of all, it is just one set of gatherings within the context of our organizational learning philosophy.  In the last four years we have offered employees the opportunity to attend workshops on science, spiritual practices, and wellness.  This short series will be just one more opportunity for those with an interest to meet with others equally curious.

Secondly, it allows me, a teacher at heart, to practice the art that first called me.  One of my mentors and friends, Parker Palmer, has long been involved in the work of the Fetzer Institute.  His definition of teaching will guide me:  To teach is to create a space in which the community of truth is practiced.  Here is his classic text.

I will describe the workshop as I continue to reflect on how to begin it.

Since it is time to go to work, I will conclude and pick up from this point tomorrow.  I want to get to work early enough to spend at least a little time in the meditation room, practicing what I hope to live today.