Table of Contents
OTHER BOOKS BY PARKER J. PALMER
The Company of Strangers
To Know as We Are Known
The Active Life
The Courage to Teach
The Courage to Teach Guide for Reflection and Renewal
Let Your Life Speak
A Hidden Wholeness
GRATITUDES
My heartfelt thanks go to several people who helped bring this thirty-year-old book back to life. First and foremost, to Sheryl Fullerton, my editor at Jossey-Bass, who always sees more in my writing than I do and who surprised me one day by proposing this project. I m ever grateful for her confidence, imagination, skill, and sense of humor.
Thanks, too, to Marcy Jackson, who read and commented astutely on the 2008 Introduction, and Sharon Palmer, who cast a keen editorial eye on the entire manuscript with her usual insight, care, and skill. Both of them helped me say what I wanted to say in the best way I know how.
Special thanks to my friends at the Servant Leadership School in Washington, D.C. The school was started in 1986 in the Adams Morgan neighborhood as an expression of the Church of the Saviour. The church, founded in 1947, was guided for decades by some of my heroes in the faithGordon Cosby, Mary Cosby, and Elizabeth OConnor.
Shortly after Ave Maria Press let The Promise of Paradox go out of print, the Servant Leadership School offered to republish it. In gratitude and with deep respect for its work, I assigned the copyright and all royalties from the book to the school. When Jossey-Bass suggested yet another republication, the folks at the school graciously returned the copyright to me.
If you want to know what kind of church the Church of the Saviour is or what kind of ministry the Servant Leadership School has, imagine Christianity at its very best, serving the least among us with profound humility and effectiveness, deeply rooted in its own faith tradition but radically open to the truth that is in others.
I am pleased that all royalties from this third incarnation of The Promise of Paradox will go to support the good work of the Servant Leadership School in the spirit of the Church of the Saviour. For more information or to make a gift to this important ministry, you may go to www.slschool.org, send e-mail to school@slschool.org, or call (202) 328-7312.
P.J.P.
INTRODUCTION TO THE 1980 EDITION
Henri J. M. Nouwen
It is a real joy for me to introduce this first book by Parker Palmer. It is the joy that grows from friendship. I met Parker for the first time only five years ago and today I can hardly think of my life and work apart from the crucial role that Parker has played in them. The many hours we have spent eating together, playing together, dreaming together, talking together, studying together, reading together, writing together, and most of all praying together, have laid the basis for a supportive, nurturing and creative friendship.
This friendship has allowed me to see the pages of this book being born from Parkers own direct struggles with life and its many options and possibilities. Parker has shown me how true it is that you dont think your way into a new kind of living but live your way into a new kind of thinking. Every part of this book is a reflection of a new kind of living in which Parker and his family have engaged.
Parkers life story contains all the elements which contribute to making a well-known scholar: he studied theology, received a Ph.D. in sociology, taught at universities, did successful work as a community organizer, and wrote many remarkable articles. But this book is not the direct fruit of all of these accomplishments. On the contrary, it is the fruit of the many questions with which Parker bracketed these accomplishments. It is born out of the courageous and often agonizing critique of his own social, educational, and religious development.
This book is indeed the beautiful fruit of contradictions which became paradoxes: the contradiction between an educational success story and the growing need for simple community life; the contradiction between acceptance in respectable circles and the feeling of alienation and separation; the contradiction between speaking and lecturing about community and the loneliness of a highly individualized suburban existence; the contradiction between speaking more and more about religion and knowing God less and less. Parker lived these contradictions and tested them with his wife and children in spite of the cautionary voices surrounding him. Living these contradictions brought him to insights, ideas, and perspectives which could have been found in no other way.
This book is important not because it is written by a good scholar, but because it is written by a scholar who dared to wonder if his scholarship really led him to the truth. It is important not because it is written by a man who knows more than most people about the dynamics of community life, but because it is written by a man who gave up a large salary and moved away from a successful career to find community. It is important not because it is written by a man who has been a consultant to many on educational matters, but because it is written by a man who kept wondering if his own education didnt do him more harm than good and who gave much of his energy to a form of education not dominated by grades and degrees. It is important not because it is written by a man who knows the Bible well, but because it is written by a man who dared to let the Bible make radical claims on his own life and the lives of those he loves.
The way this book came about is the best testimony to its value. It came out of living the contradictions even when it was hard and painful to do so. This explains why the book does not offer one sustained argument; it contains six experiments in thinking which are all very radical in intent. I cannot read these pieces without wondering about my own life and without having to deal with my desire as well as resistance to move in the direction Parker points out.
The issues that Parker discusses are basic: solitude, community, social action, political responsibility, prayer, and contemplation. They are raised in the context of the words of William Johnston: Faith is the breakthrough into that deep realm of the soul which accepts paradox... with humility. Accepting paradox with humility is the spirit that binds the quite diverse pieces of this book together. And it is the spirit that makes this book worth reading.
Parker Palmer has taught me much over the years. He has given me some very helpful concepts to work with; he has shown me how to think clearly and concisely; he has introduced me to many inspiring people and books. But most of all, he has challenged me by his own decisions to keep moving to unknown fields without apprehension or fear. He has taught me to live boldly and freely. That our many hours together can now be shared with others through this book is a source of great joy to me.
