Finding Your Voice
It is the title of Parker J. Palmer's latest and very compelling
book: "Let Your Life Speak." As the author reveals, it is an old
Quaker saying. But, as he indicates, its meaning can be so very
misunderstood. In Parker Palmer's later years, he has arrived at
a deeper, more complex, more accurate understanding of that old
Quaker admonition. For instance: "Before you tell your life what
you intend to do with it, listen for what it intends to do with
you." Wow! What a difference!

What a revelation that has been for my life, as I have often
painfully, but more accurately, listened to my own life. Like Parker
Palmer, I have concluded that one's vocation is not a decision. It
is not an act of one's will or determination. "Vocation" is rooted
in the Latin for "voice." My life, your life, every life has "Voice."
The trick is to let the Voice speak.

From the essay "Let Your Life Speak"
by the Rev. Dr. Douglass M. Bailey

Read the essay in its entirety.