Whoever
walks in integrity walks securely,
but whoever takes crooked
paths will be found out.
--Proverbs 10:9 NIV
--Proverbs 10:9 NIV
This
week in my e-mails I will be reflecting on the book A Hidden Wholeness: TheJourney Toward an Undivided Life by Parker Palmer. Palmer is one of the authors who has guided
my own faith journey, and I often recommend his writings to people questioning
the direction of their lives. In this
book, he describes the costs of compartmentalizing our innermost identities and
beliefs away from the outward actions and false identities we present to
others.
In A
Hidden Wholeness, he writes,
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 truth we hold within that we cannot know the integrity
that comes from being what you are.
When our
lives become divided, our inner self and real convictions separate from our
outer selves and actions, we pay a price and so do those around us.
Palmer
provides examples of living the divided life:
- We refuse to invest ourselves in our work, diminishing its quality and distancing ourselves from those it is meant to serve
- We make our living at jobs that violate our basic values, even when survival does not absolutely demand it
- We remain in settings or relationships that steadily kill our spirits
- We harbor secrets to achieve personal gain at the expense of other people
- We hide our beliefs from those who disagree with us to avoid conflict, challenge, and change.
- We conceal our true identities for fear of being criticized, shunned or attacked.
Palmer wrote A Hidden Wholeness, about fifteen years ago when the news headlines still featured corporate scandals like Worldcom and Enron, the financial crisis was only beginning to reveal the extent immoral lending practices by the nation’s largest banks would have on the economy, and the clergy sexual abuse scandal was revealed with its horrific consequences for thousands of children. In our present time, things have not become any better. In a world of “alternative facts” where blatant deception is presented as “truth,” our culture demonstrates the consequences of people living divided lives.
Palmer uses the image of a blizzard to describe the
confusing times we find ourselves in.
The was a time when farmers on the Great
Plains, at the first sign of a blizzard, would run a rope from the back door
out to the barn. They all knew stories
of people who had wandered off and been frozen to death, having lost sight of
home in a whiteout while still in their own backyards.
The blizzard of our culture “swirls with economic injustice, ecological ruin, physical and spiritual violence.” The confusion of our times may leave us thinking there is no hope for things like “truth and justice, love and forgiveness” to guide our lives. Yet, Palmer declares we remain in “the soul’s backyard, with chance after chance to regain our bearings.” The guide rope in our “blizzards” comes in the form of “trustworthy relationships, tenacious communities of support.” Such relationships should happen in a faith community (sadly the often do not), but also come in support groups, faithful work colleagues and healthy friendships and families.
Most of all, our ultimate guide rope comes from the
One who created us and in whose image we are made. God knows our true selves, because God knows
us best of all. The God made manifest in
Jesus Christ does not stand apart from us as a punishing judge but comes near
to us offering grace upon grace to guide us back to who we were created to be. As humans, we may always struggle to discover
the wholeness God offers us, choosing to live with our actions divorced from
our deepest truths, but God remains with us along the way assuring us we can
discover ways of being that cause less pain to ourselves and others, new ways
of peace and joy.
Grace and Peace,
Chase
Chase
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