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In A Hidden Wholeness, Parker Palmer reveals the same compassionate intelligence and informed heart that shaped his best-selling books Let Your Life Speak and The Courage to Teach. Here he speaks to our yearning to live undivided lives-lives that are congruent with our inner truth-in a world filled with the forces of fragmentation. Mapping an inner journey that we take in solitude and in the company of others, Palmer describes a form of community that fits the limits of our active lives. Defining a "circle of trust" as "a space between us that honors the soul," he shows how people in settings ranging from friendship to organizational life can support each other on the journey toward living "divided no more." This paperback edition includes two new and useful features. Circles of Trust is a DVD containing interviews with Parker J. Palmer and footage from retreats he facilitated for the Center for Courage & Renewal (www.CourageRenewal.org). Bringing the Book to Life, by Caryl Hurtig Casbon and Sally Z. Hare, is a reader's and leader's guide to exploring the themes in A Hidden Wholeness. The DVD illuminates and illustrates the principles and practices behind circles of trust. The guide includes questions that connect the DVD to the book, offering "a conversation with the author" as well as an engagement with the text. Together, these features give readers new ways to internalize the themes of A Hidden Wholeness and share with others this approach to sustaining identity and integrity in all the venues of our lives. Inspired by Palmer's writing and speaking-and challenged by the conditions of twenty-first century life-people across the country, from many walks of life, have been coming together in circles of trust to reclaim their integrity and help foster wholeness in their workplaces and their world. For over a decade, the principles and practices in this book have been proven on the ground-by parents and educators, clergy and politicians, community organizers and corporate executives, physicians and attorneys, and many others who seek to rejoin soul and role in their private and public lives. A Hidden Wholeness weaves together four themes that its author has pursued for forty years: the shape of an integral life, the meaning of community, teaching and learning for transformation, and nonviolent social change. The hundreds of thousands of people who know Parker Palmer's books will be glad to find the journey continued… (more)
User reviews
A Hidden Wholeness is a rope for the moral blizzard of contemporary life. It makes the courageous claim that integrity is all-important in a morally-slippery world. It is the best book I have read this year.
I have been a fan of Parker J. Palmer since the mid-eighties when his book on the spirituality of educators, To Know As We Are Known, was recommended. Much of Palmer’s work in conferences and books is with educators. A Quaker, Palmer writes gently about the deep springs of human living.
A Hidden Wholeness begins with examples of the divided life. Dr Palmer then likens the soul to a shy deer needing solitude and genuine care to embolden it to emerge. But the soul, the true self, is needed for is regenerative powers. “When we catch sight of the soul, we can become healers in the world.” On our solitary journey in community, we can find our hidden wholeness and life more fully.
Palmer invites us to read this beautifully designed book reflectively. Each chapter begins with a quote inviting us to look below the surface and gain insight into how we might reconcile the opposites we see around us; opposites which have come into existence through confrontation. Integrity, on the other hand, works by non-violence and integrity, “sitting in the woods with each other” waiting for the “shy soul to show up”.
The wisdom of Parker Palmer is a rope guiding us sure-footedly home.
© Ted Witham
Palmer's work has influenced my life in many ways, and this book provides a good overview of key ideas and practices.