Quote

One of the hardest things we must do sometimes is to be present to another person's pain without trying to fix it, to simply stand respectfully at the edge of that person's mystery and misery.

Parker J. Palmer

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Parker J. Palmer
Trying
Stand
Respectfully
Things
Pain
Edge
Another
Edges
Persons
Hardest
Person
Misery
Without
Mystery
Sometimes
Present
Must
Simply

More quotes by Parker J. Palmer

Image
I want to learn how to hold the paradoxical poles of my identity together, to embrace the profoundly opposite truths that my sense of self is deeply dependent on others dancing with me and that I still have a sense of self when no one wants to dance.
Parker J. Palmer
Image
Every good teacher and every good parent has somehow learned to negotiate the paradox of freedom and discipline. We want our children and our students to become people who think and live freely, yet at the same time we know that helping them become free requires us to restrict their freedom in certain situations.
Parker J. Palmer
Image
Is the life I'm living the life that wants to live in me?
Parker J. Palmer
Image
Although there are some enormously gifted lecturers and preachers who do create community with oratory, I like to do anything I can to engage my students with each other, with me, and with the subject. And the subject, I think, always has to take prominence.
Parker J. Palmer
Image
You are much more likely to have a holy experience in a quiet, focused, and communal context than you are when you are being entertained.
Parker J. Palmer
Image
When someone says 'I'm so disillusioned', I say 'Congratulations! You've lost another illusion.'
Parker J. Palmer
Image
My favorite topping is one that a lot of people don't like. I love anchovies.
Parker J. Palmer
Image
When you are with young people, it is almost inconceivable that things wouldn't arise that you'd have to respond to, such as someone wrestling on the bus. And how you handle that, how you respond to that, how you deal with that is a lesson to the people you are on the bus with.
Parker J. Palmer
Image
Afraid that our inner light will be extinguished or our inner darkness exposed, we hide our true identities from each other. In the process, we become separated from our own souls. We end up living divided lives, so far removed from the truth we hold within that we cannot know the 'integrity that comes from being what you are.
Parker J. Palmer
Image
... the stranger is not a threat but an opportunity to grow in my view of reality, to grow in my own sense of possibility
Parker J. Palmer
Image
Opposing what's wrong is a halfway measure at best. A rebel must also have a vision for something better, a strategy for moving toward that vision and a capacity to rally and join with others in achieving it. If the anger that drives rebellion is not transformed into the hope that inspires movement communities, it will do more harm than good.
Parker J. Palmer
Image
Our deepest calling is to grow into our own authentic self-hood, whether or not it conforms to some image of who we ought to be. As we do so, we will not only find the joy that every human being seeks--we will also find our path of authentic service in the world.
Parker J. Palmer
Image
Good teachers join self and subject and students in the fabric of life.
Parker J. Palmer
Image
Spirituality is not primarily about values and ethics, not about exhortations to do right or live well. The spiritual traditions are primarily about reality...an effort to penetrate the illusions of the external world and to name its underlying truth.
Parker J. Palmer
Image
Before you tell your life what you intend to do with it, listen for what it intends to do with you. Before you tell your life what truths and values you have decided to live up to, let your life tell you what truths you embody, what values you represent.
Parker J. Palmer
Image
Here, I think, is another clue to finding true self and vocation: we must withdraw the negative projections we make on people and situations - projections that serve mainly to mask our fears about ourselves- and acknowledge and embrace our own liabilities and limits.
Parker J. Palmer
Image
The highest form of love is the love that allows for intimacy without the annihilation of difference.
Parker J. Palmer
Image
I am not sure that any sight or sound on earth is as exquisite as the hushed descent of a sky full of snow.
Parker J. Palmer
Image
The inner life of any great thing will be incomprehensible to me until I develop and deepen an inner life of my own.
Parker J. Palmer
Image
Students want to know, Are you painting by the numbers, or are you really present as a human being to what you are doing and is it coming from inside of you? So I would ask teachers this question: Do you have a wellgrounded personal experience and conviction concerning whatever it is you are trying to teach?
Parker J. Palmer