On the Brink of Everything

Grace, Gravity, & Getting Old

Parker J. Palmer

• Publisher: Berrett-Koehler Publishers
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN: 9781523095438
• eBook ISBN: 9781523095452
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Management
• Index: Business

"This impassioned book invites readers to the deep end of life where authentic soul work and human transformation become pressing concerns." — Publishers Weekly
2019 Independent Publisher Book Awards Gold Medalist in the Aging/Death & Dying Category
From bestselling author Parker J. Palmer comes a brave and beautiful book for all who want to age reflectively, seeking new insights and life-giving ways to engage in the world. "Age itself," he says, "is no excuse to wade in the shallows. It's a reason to dive deep and take creative risks."
Looking back on eight decades of life—and on his work as a writer, teacher, and activist—Palmer explores what he's learning about self and world, inviting readers to explore their own experience. In prose and poetry—and three downloadable songs written for the book by the gifted Carrie Newcomer—he meditates on the meanings of life, past, present, and future.
With compassion and chutzpah, gravitas and levity, Palmer writes about cultivating a vital inner and outer life, finding meaning in suffering and joy, and forming friendships across the generations that bring new life to young and old alike.
"This book is a companion for not merely surviving a fractured world, but embodying—like Parker—the fiercely honest and gracious wholeness that is ours to claim at every stage of life." —Krista Tippett, New York Times-bestselling author of Becoming Wise
"A wondrously rich mix of reality and possibility, comfort and story, helpful counsel and poetry, in the voice of a friend . . . This is a book of immense gratitude, consolation, and praise." —Naomi Shihab Nye, National Book Award finalist

Notes

Prelude

1. Kurt Vonnegut, Player Piano (New York: Dell Publishing, 1980), 84.

2. Leonard Cohen, “A Thousand Kisses Deep,” The Leonard Cohen Files, http://tinyurl.com/y9bkha66.

3. Dylan Thomas, “Do not go gentle into that good night,” in The Poems of Dylan Thomas (New York: New Directions, 1971).

4. William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience (New York: Cosimo Classics, 2007), 18.

5. These words were famously spoken by Truman Capote to put down other writers’ work. See Quote Investigator, http://tinyurl.com/y8grfr55.

6. Online Etymology Dictionary, s.v. “Levity” (accessed January 13, 2018), http://tinyurl.com/ybbbyjrv.

7. G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy (New York: Simon & Brown, 2016), 95.

8. Leonard Cohen, “Tower of Song,” The Leonard Cohen Files, http://tinyurl.com/yaosaqzr.

9. “Invocation” from Shaking the Tree by Jeanne Lohmann. Reprinted with permission from Fithian Press, a division of Daniel & Daniel Publishers, Inc.

10. Some of these essays first appeared on the On Being Studios blog. A list of my On Being posts from October 5, 2014, onward is at http://tinyurl.com/ybwmhkbe.

I. The View from the Brink: What I Can See from Here

1. Cambridge Dictionary, s.v. “Brink” (accessed January 13, 2018), http://tinyurl.com/y8npy22z.

2. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Holmes-Pollock Letters: The Correspondence of Mr. Justice Holmes and Sir Frederick Pollock, 1874–1932, 2nd ed. (Belknap Press, 1961), 109.

3. Courtney E. Martin, “Reuniting with Awe,” On Being (blog), March 6, 2015, http://tinyurl.com/ybdjhwa9.

4. Florida Scott-Maxwell, The Measure of My Days (New York: Penguin Books, 1983), 42.

5. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, s.v. “Thomas Aquinas” (accessed January 11, 2018), http://tinyurl.com/npo9d4u.

6. “The World: Love” from Czesław Milosz New and Collected Poems: 1931–2001. Copyright © 1988, 1991, 1995, 2001 by Czesław Milosz Royalties, Inc. Reprinted with permission from HarperCollins Publishers, and Penguin Random House Ltd.

7. William Butler Yeats, “The Coming of Wisdom with Time,” Bartleby.com, http://tinyurl.com/hu9thkt

8. Emily Dickinson, “Tell the truth but tell it slant—(1263),” Poetry Foundation, http://tinyurl.com/hh2cm5w.

9. Saul McLeod, “Erik Erikson,” Simply Psychology (2017), http://tinyurl.com/7svu5fu.

10. Lucille Clifton, “the death of fred clifton” from Collected Poems of Lucille Clifton: 1965–2010. Copyright © 1987, 1989 by Lucille Clifton. Published by BOA Editions. Reprinted with permission of The Permissions Company, Inc., on behalf of BOA Editions, Ltd., www.boaeditions.org, and Curtis Brown, Ltd.

II. Young and Old: The Dance of the Generations

1. Oliver Wendell Holmes, “The Voiceless,” in The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes (New York: Houghton, Mifflin, 1900), 99.

2. Nelle Morton, The Journey Is Home (Boston: Beacon Press, 1985), 55. See also “Nelle Katherine Morton Facts,” Your Dictionary, http://biography.yourdictionary.com/nelle-katherine-morton.

3. Howard Thurman, The Inward Journey (Richmond, IN: Friends United Press, 2007), 77.

4. Courtney Martin, Do It Anyway: The New Generation of Activists (Boston: Beacon Press, 2013).

5. Parker J. Palmer, The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher’s Life, 20th anniversary ed. (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2017), 26.

6. Mohandas K. Gandhi, Gandhi: An Autobiography—The Story of My Experiments with Truth (Boston: Beacon Press, 1993).

7. Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet, trans. Joan M. Burnham (New York: New World Library, 2000), 35.

8. Terrence Real, I Don’t Want to Talk About It: Overcoming the Secret Legacy of Male Depression (New York: Scribner, 1998).

9. “The simplicity on the other side of complexity” quoted in John Paul Lederach, The Moral Imagination: The Art and Soul of Building Peace (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2010), 31.

10. Diane Ackerman, A Natural History of the Senses (New York: Vintage Books, 1991), 309.

III. Getting Real:...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• With Gratitude
• Prelude
• I. The View from the Brink: What I Can See from Here
• II. Young and Old: The Dance of the Generations
• III. Getting Real: From Illusion to Reality
• IV. Work and Vocation: Writing a Life
• V. Keep Reaching Out: Staying Engaged with the World
• VI. Keep Reaching In: Staying Engaged with Your Soul
• VII. Over the Edge: Where We Go When We Die
• Postlude
• Notes
• About the Author