By Michael Kelly-Cruise for Enlivening Edge Magazine
In this video Parker J. Palmer, founder of the Center for Courage & Renewal and author of A Hidden Wholeness reviewed here, discusses with a group of educators the courage required to live an undivided life in the midst of the challenges we face.
He believes that this is not just the same courage which we experience when we demonstrate our bravery. We need today to turn up with a courage anchored in our own sense of calling and that holds true to our core values. Parker goes on to put forward the challenge of doing this in a way that serves the needs of the students, and not the system of education that has lost its bearings.
This sense of misdirection of purpose and loss of bearings is not isolated to just being in the education sector, it is happening in all sectors of society. The “StriveDrive” ideology of the attainment of stuff is directing our sense of who we are and what is needed in order to be happy and achieve success.
Parker is asking us to reflect and choose to love ourselves, those around us, our true calling in life, to the point where we turn up authentically each day as the embodiment of that love. Love can meet with resistance, and Palmer so beautifully puts it to have the courage to “love the organization into its true self”, even though it may be resisting.
What are your stories, that bring you courage to live an authentic life. Please share.
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