Let Your Life Speak
Well, so much for consistent posting. :)
Right now, I will leave you with a selection from Parker Palmer's book "Let Your Life Speak." Enjoy.
Toodles,
m
A third shadow common among leaders is "functional atheism," the belief that ultimate responsibility for everything rests with us. This is the unconscious, unexamined conviction that if anything decent is going to happen here, we are the ones who must make it happen...It often eventuates in burnout, depression, and despair, as we learn that the world will not bend to our will and we become embittered about that fact....We learn that we need not carry the whole load but can share it with others, liberating us and empowering them. We learn that sometimes we are free to lay the load down altogether. The great community asks us to do only what we are able and trust the rest to other hands.
A fourth shadow within and among us is fear, especially our fear of the natural chaos of life. Many of us -- parents and teachers and CEOs -- are deeply devoted to eliminating all remnants of chaos from the world. We want to organize and orchestrate things so thoroughly that messiness will never bubble up around us and threaten to overwhelm us (for "messiness" read dissent, innovation, challenge, and change)....The insight we receive on the inner journey is that chaos is the precondition to creativity: as every creation myth has it, life itself emerged from the void. Even what has been created needs to be returned to chaos from time to time so that it can be regenerated in more vital form....
The gift we receive on the inner journey is the knowledge that death finally comes to everything -- and yet death does not have the final word. By allowing something to die when its time is due, we create the conditions under which new life can emerge.
Right now, I will leave you with a selection from Parker Palmer's book "Let Your Life Speak." Enjoy.
Toodles,
m
A third shadow common among leaders is "functional atheism," the belief that ultimate responsibility for everything rests with us. This is the unconscious, unexamined conviction that if anything decent is going to happen here, we are the ones who must make it happen...It often eventuates in burnout, depression, and despair, as we learn that the world will not bend to our will and we become embittered about that fact....We learn that we need not carry the whole load but can share it with others, liberating us and empowering them. We learn that sometimes we are free to lay the load down altogether. The great community asks us to do only what we are able and trust the rest to other hands.
A fourth shadow within and among us is fear, especially our fear of the natural chaos of life. Many of us -- parents and teachers and CEOs -- are deeply devoted to eliminating all remnants of chaos from the world. We want to organize and orchestrate things so thoroughly that messiness will never bubble up around us and threaten to overwhelm us (for "messiness" read dissent, innovation, challenge, and change)....The insight we receive on the inner journey is that chaos is the precondition to creativity: as every creation myth has it, life itself emerged from the void. Even what has been created needs to be returned to chaos from time to time so that it can be regenerated in more vital form....
The gift we receive on the inner journey is the knowledge that death finally comes to everything -- and yet death does not have the final word. By allowing something to die when its time is due, we create the conditions under which new life can emerge.
posted by meg @ 10:35 AM
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