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Parker J. Palmer

Parker J. Palmer Quotes

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Famous Parker J. Palmer Quotes

“The human soul doesn't want to be fixed, it simply wants to be seen and heard. The soul is like a wild animal - tough, resilient and shy. When we go crashing through the woods shouting for it to come out so we can help it, the soul will stay in hiding. But if we are willing to sit quietly and wait for a while, the soul may show itself.”

IfsWantHumansMaySoulHelpingShowsWaitingAnimalHeardWillingToughWoodsFixedShyHidingHuman SoulShoutingResilientWild Animal
Author:Parker J. Palmer
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“Wholeness does not mean perfection: it means embracing brokenness as an integral part of life. Knowing this gives me hope that human wholeness - mine, yours, ours - need not be a utopian dream, if we can use devastation as a seedbed for new life”

IfsNeedsGivingHumansMeanDoeUseDreamKnowingMinesPerfectionGive MeWholenessNew LifeParts Of LifeBrokennessUtopianDevastation
Book:A Hidden Wholeness: The Journey Toward an Undivided Life
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“Opposing what's wrong is a halfway measure at best. A rebel must also have a vision for something better, a strategy for moving toward that vision and a capacity to rally and join with others in achieving it. If the anger that drives rebellion is not transformed into the hope that inspires movement communities, it will do more harm than good.”

IfsMovingCommunityVisionAchieveMovementInspireCapacityStrategyHarmRebellionRebelTransformedHalfwaySomething BetterOpposing
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“If my life is any example, the work that youth workers are doing is very, very important. It tends to get marginalized in the church or seen as less important than being a senior minister in a large, prosperous congregation; but I don't believe that for a minute. I think this is absolutely critical work in the life of the church; and I think my path in life would have been much different if it hadn't been for my youth minister, Burt Randle, and a series of campus ministers in both college and graduate school.”

IfsThinkingBelieveHas BeensImportantDifferentSchoolLife IsChurchPathMinutesExampleYouthCollegeSeriesWorkersDon't BelieveCriticalMinistersGraduatesSeniorProsperousCampusCongregationMarginalizedGraduate School
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“If we want to grow as teachers -- we must do something alien to academic culture: we must talk to each other about our inner lives -- risky stuff in a profession that fears the personal and seeks safety in the technical, the distant, the abstract.”

IfsWantCultureGrowsStuffTeacherSafetyProfessionAliensAbstractAcademicInner Life
Book:The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher's Life
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“Perhaps, the answer is that my ravaged mind rails against the idea of God, but something deeper in me calls out as if God might answer. 'There are not foxholes,' I guess, and depression is the deepest and deadliest foxhole I've been in. It may be the 'dark night of the soul' that the mystics talk about but in depression it is not so much that one becomes lost in the dark as one becomes the dark.”

IfsMindMayIdeasSoulMightNightLostDarkAnswersDepressionDeeperRailDark NightDark Night Of The SoulFoxholes
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“Teaching, like any truly human activity, emerges from one's inwardness, for better or worse. As I teach I project the condition of my soul onto my students, my subject, and our way of being together. The entanglements I experience in the classroom are often no more or less than the convolutions of my inner life. Viewed from this angle, teaching holds a mirror to the soul. If I am willing to look in that mirror and not run from what I see, I have a chance to gain self-knowledge-and knowing myself is as crucial to good teaching as knowing my students and my subject.”

IfsWayHumansLooksSoulSelfRunningTogetherChanceTeachKnowingTeachingConditionsSubjectsStudentsWillingActivityProjectsGainsMirrorsEducationalMy SoulCrucialClassroomSelf KnowledgeAngleInner LifeHuman ActivityBeing TogetherGood TeachingEntanglementKnowing Myself
Book:The Courage to Teach Guide for Reflection and Renewal
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“The deeper our faith, the more doubt we must endure; the deeper our hope, the more prone we are to despair; the deeper our love, the more pain its loss will bring: these are a few of the paradoxes we must hold as human beings. If we refuse to hold them in the hopes of living without doubt, despair, and pain, we also find ourselves living without faith, hope, and love.”

IfsHumansPainFaithHuman BeingsLossDoubtDespairAnd LoveEndureRefuseDeeperParadoxOur LoveHope And LoveFaith HopeFaith Hope And Love
Author:Parker J. Palmer
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“Vocation does not come from willfulness. It comes from listening. I must listen to my life and try to understand what it is truly about-quite apart from what I would like it to be about-or my life will never represent anything real in the world, no matter how earnest my intentions…..Before I can tell my life what I want to do with it, I must listen to my life telling me who I am. I must listen for the truths and values at the heart of my own identity, not the standards by which I must live-but the standards by which I cannot help but live if I am living my own life.”

IfsWorldWantTryingHeartDoeI CanRealMatterHelpingValuesMy OwnIdentityListeningStandardsIntentionWho I AmVocationEarnestMy Own LifeWillfulness
Book:Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation
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“Let’s not forget that American democracy started with ‘We the People’ agreeing to work hard to create ‘a more perfect union.’ We’ve lost the idea that politics begins at home with what happens in families, in neighborhoods, in classrooms, in congregations. We called this democracy into being – and if we want to call this democracy back to its highest values, it’s got to be the us doing that calling. That’s not going to happen if ‘We the People’ don’t know how to talk to one another with civility and hold our differences in a creative, life-giving way.”

PeopleIfsKnowsWayWantGivingIdeasHardHomeHappensValuesLostDifferencesPerfectForgetKnow HowCreativeDemocracyHard WorkCallingHighestUnionsNeighborhoodClassroomCivilityCongregationCreative LifeAmerican DemocracyGiving Way
Author:Parker J. Palmer
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“Death in various forms is sometimes comforting, while resurrection and new life can be demanding and threatening. If I lived as if resurrection were real, and allowed myself to die for the sake of a new life, what might I be called upon to do?”

IfsRealSometimesMightFormDeathDiesSakeVariousResurrectionThreateningNew LifeComforting
Book:The Active Life: A Spirituality of Work, Creativity, and Caring
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“No scientist knows the world merely by holding it at arm's length: if we ever managed to build the objectivist wall between the knower and the known, we could know nothing except the wall itself. Science requires an engagement with the world, a live encounter between the knower and the known. That encounter has moments of distance, but it would not be an encounter without moments of intimacy as well. Knowing of any sort is relational, animated by a desire to come into deeper community with what we know.”

IfsKnowsWorldWellsMomentsDesireCommunityKnownKnowledgeKnowingWallArmsScientistDistanceDeeperIntimacyEncountersLengthEngagementAnimated
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