Parker Palmer – Celebrating with him the Contradictions in the Christian Life.

Paul writes – Jossey-Bass has done us a wonderful service in reprinting (2008) Parker Palmer’s simply wonderful, The Promise of Paradox: A Celebration of Contradictions in the Christian Life (2 Introductions plus 145 pages of text. The book is hardcover and is 13.5cm X 18.5cm). Ave Maria Press originally published the book in 1980 while I was in my late teens and I was still years from discovering Palmer. The original introduction by Henri Nouwen remains, but has now been supplemented by an excellent 13-page introduction by Palmer.

As I read Palmer’s introduction on the eve of the Anglican Lambeth gathering, I couldn’t help think of the importance and relevance of Palmer’s notion of paradox and the Christian life. I want to a paragraph and a few additional lines of text. This sets the tone of the book.

Palmer writes [with an addition by me]:

“ …The capacity to embrace true paradoxes is more than an intellectual skill for holding complex thoughts. It is a life skill for holding complex experiences. Take for example our encounter with “the other,” with the person who sees a different reality from ours because he or she stands in a different place. To some extent, the other contradicts not only our thoughts but also our lives, and that can be threatening. If we lack the capacity to allow this to segue into a paradox – a both-and that has the potential to open our minds and hearts to something new – we will most likely fall back on our hard-wired “fight or flight” response. But if we understand the promise of paradox, our encounters with “the other” have the potential to make our world larger, more generous and more helpful…

If we are willing to “hang in there” with a country, a colleague… a child [or a fellow Anglican with a different understanding of Biblical interpretation, sexual ethics, truth, and orthodoxy] – holding the unresolved tension between reality and possibility and inviting something new into being – we have a chance to participate in the evolution of a better reality…” (Pp. xxx-xxxi).

He also reminds us:

“…When we make decisions by consensus – when we cannot proceed until everyone is willing to do so – people must learn to listen to those they disagree with in a new way. Now the question is not “How can I win the vote by persuading enough people that you are wrong?” but “How might I learn from your truth in a way that enlarges my understanding and expresses my truth in a way that expands yours?”

Under the ground rules of consensus, we are encouraged to hold the tension of apparently contradictory viewpoints – and we often find ourselves happily surprised at the new and larger truth that emerges as a result…” (p. xxxii)

The book is a collection of essays, all written by Palmer with the exception of chapter 3 (“Paradoxes of Community”), which was co-written with his first wife, Sally, in 1975 (this essay is a gem, reflecting as it does on their early years as a young couple with children, and their move to the Quaker living-learning community at Pendle Hill). The chapters are titled:

1.           In the Belly of a Paradox (In this essay Palmer engages with Thomas Merton, Marx and Chuang Tzu, and (in part) the Jonah & the Whale story).

2.           The Stations of the Cross (engaging with the inward journey in the light of the cross).

3.           Paradoxes of Community.

4.           A Place Called Community (Here, there is some explicit (though brief) engagement with the Church of the Saviour and the “New Community”). Elizabeth O’Connor has helpfully written about this community in a lot more detail.

5.           A World of Scarcity, a Gospel of Abundance.

6.           The Conversion of Knowledge.

For those who’ve come to value the Church of the Apostles in Washington DC, you’ll appreciate the quiet presence of Gordon and Mary Cosby, and Elizabeth O’Connor throughout the pages. In fact, Palmer describes the three of them as amongst his “heroes of the faith.” 

This is a book for anyone who has benefit from wisdom and insight of Palmer. I’d rate it just a little lower than his Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation, though if you’re interested in community you may well want to reverse that order.  I highly recommend it.