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Books on Spiritual Growth & Leadership Development
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A Hidden Wholeness, The Journey
Toward and Undivided Life Parker Palmer Parker Palmer takes the title of this book from Thomas Merton who claimed that “There is in all things…a hidden wholeness.”[1] Parker draws on his own experiences and work with educators, clergy, politicians, community organizers, parents, doctors, lawyers, and people of other walks of life to build “circles of trust” where the shy soul can speak its own truth with conviction without denying the truth of anyone else’s soul. The first chapter offers images of integrity – “the state or quality of being entire, complete, and unbroken….unimpaired, unadulterated, or genuine state, corresponding to its original condition.”[2] Through his own stories of disclosure, Parker Palmer invites the reader to look deeply within for the dividedness of life – where we extinguish parts of ourselves – and to embrace brokenness as an integral part of who we are. The signs of a divided life are explored in Chapter 2. In Chapters 3 - 5 Palmer outlines how the soul and role in life can be reunited into a life of wholeness. Drawing on his Quaker roots, Palmer invites the reader to consult the “inner teacher,” which Thomas Merton called the true self, Buddhists call original nature, Hasidic Jews call a spark of the divine, and humanists call identity and integrity. Palmer explores the paradox of our solitary journey toward an undivided life in community – a special community of trust, a circle of trust. Palmer uses a metaphor to describe the deepest part of our being: the soul is like a wild animal. Like a wild animal, the soul is tough, resilient, resourceful, savvy, and self-sufficient: it knows how to survive in hard places….If we want to see a wild animal, we know that the last thing we should do is go crashing through the woods yelling for it to come out. But if we will walk quietly into the woods, sit patiently at the base of a tree, breathe with the earth, and fade into our surroundings, the wild creature we seek might put in an appearance.[3] Chapters 5-9 outline the preparations required to embark on the journey to wholeness and describes in detail practices necessary to create a community of trust where the soul feels safe enough to show up and make its claim on our lives. The final chapter challenges the reader to use the principles and practices developed in the book to walk the path of nonviolence. This book is a rich resource for all who yearn for greater wholeness and integrity in life. Cynthia Graham, elder, Lakewood Presbyterian Church, Jacksonville, FL
[1]
Thomas Merton, “Hagia Sophia,” in Thomas P. McDonnell, ed., A Thomas
Merton Reader (New York: Image/Doubleday, 1974, 1989), p. 506.
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