The Active Life Leader's Guide

Parker J. Palmer

• Publisher: HarperOne
• Year: 2011
• ISBN:
  9780062010322
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

The Active Life is Parker J. Palmer's deep and graceful exploration of a spirituality for the busy, sometimes frenetic lives many of us lead. Telling evocative stories from a variety of religious traditions, including Taoist, Jewish, and Christian, Palmer shows that the spiritual life does not mean abandoning the world but engaging it more deeply through life-giving action. He celebrates both the problems and potentials of the active life, revealing how much they have to teach us about ourselves, the world, and God.

Preparing for Session 1

If you have time, read through The Active Life before your group meets for its first session. Grasping the book as a whole will give you a deeper understanding of it as you move through each chapter with the group. After familiarizing yourself with the book, read through this Leader’s Guide, noting the structure of your sessions and the kinds of questions you’ll be reflecting on together.

Before session 1, read the first two chapters of The Active Life and work through the session 1 discussion questions on your own—without relying on the printed comments and suggested responses. You may find it helpful to use a separate notebook for your answers, comments, and questions.

At least a week before the first group session, distribute to each participant a copy of The Active Life and a photocopy of the discussion guide for session 1 at the back of this Leader’s Guide. (You may want to hand out all the Materials for Group Distribution at this time. ) Ask participants to read chapters 1 and 2 of The Active Life and answer the discussion questions for session 1 before the first meeting. Confirm time and location.

This Leader’s Guide has been created as a resource to provide all you need for reflecting on The Active Life in a group study context. However, this doesn’t mean that you and the group must accomplish or discuss everything it suggests. You may find that you don’t have time for all the questions listed. Use your judgment, and the group’s expressed preferences, to select those questions you want to focus on—perhaps at the opening of each session, as this Guide occasionally prompts you to do.

Remember to check the “Session Materials” list before each session and gather the needed supplies to bring with you. There are suggested activities for closing each session, including an alternative for groups who may not be comfortable with an overtly religious or Christian emphasis. Adapt these suggestions to your group as appropriate.

Session 1: The Paradox in Becoming Fully Alive

The Active Life, chapters 1 and 2

Session Objectives

• To understand how contemplation and action form a paradox necessary to the experience of being “fully alive”
• To explore the nature of contemplation and the nature of action as two key dimensions of spirituality and life
• To become aware of how this understanding of paradox can strengthen our individual sense of self and our place in the world

Session Materials

• Copies of The Active Life for newcomers
• Extra photocopies of the discussion guide for session 1
• A Bible for each participant, or for every two participants
• Chalkboard and chalk; or large poster paper and markers; or overhead projector and blank transparencies
• Photocopies of the discussion guide for session 2 for distribution to each group member

Opening

Welcome participants as they arrive, and make sure each has a copy of The Active Life and a photocopy of the discussion questions for session 1.

After all have arrived, introduce yourself and review the group’s scheduled time and place for future sessions. Then ask the group to break into pairs, choosing another person they don’t know very well. (If there’s an uneven number of people, complete the remaining pair yourself. ) Allow one minute per person for interviewing partners in preparation for introducing that partner to the group when you reassemble.

After each person introduces his or her partner, start your reflection time together.

Reflecting Together

1. What questions or reflections about your own life, if any, do Palmer’s insights in these first two chapters stimulate for you? Briefly describe these questions or reflections—or why you don’t have any yet.

Encourage many participants to share brief, general impressions of the book, without extending into lengthier responses that you will explore with the other questions in this session.

2. The following pair of statements is one way of representing the opposing tensions of the active life and the contemplative life:

“Don’t just stand there—do something.”
“Don’t just do something—stand there.”

In your experience, how are these statements reflected in society—including religious communities—today?

Examples include the performance emphasis in our achievement-oriented society; the assumption that busyness equals productivity, or is evidence of personal importance; understandings of spirituality that place contemplation nearer to God than action; religious emphases on personal piety without recognizing the need for service, or vice versa; and so on.

3. Palmer defines contemplation as “any way that we can unveil the illusions that masquerade as reality and reveal the reality behind the masks” (p. 17). According to this definition, what are some of the ways in which you live the contemplative life?

Possible answers might include: work, vocation, relationships, art, sport, ministry—any “visible form of an invisible spirit” or “outward manifestation of an inward power” (p. 17).

4. Palmer defines contemplation as “any way that we can unveil the illusions that masquerade as reality and reveal the reality behind the masks” (p. 17). According to this definition, what are some of the ways in which you live the contemplative life?

Possible answers might include: time set apart for meditation, prayer, or solitude; the habit of reflecting on events in order to gain a deeper understanding of them; reading; working through internal issues, with others or alone; writing for meditation or therapy.

5. According to Palmer, we should “try to live responsively to both poles of the contemplative-active paradox. But we must honor the pole of our own calling, even as we stay open to the other, lest we lose our identity, our integrity, our well-being” (p. 7).

As a help for understanding the journey of your own soul, use the following chart to identify your personal tendencies along the continuum between action and contemplation. For each set of poles, check the box along the continuum that best represents you.

Share the insights you gained about yourselves from this exercise. Consider breaking the group up into twos or threes to facilitate easy personal discussion. Ask the group to reflect on how their insights can help them understand what it means to live with paradox in the spiritual life.

6. An “instrumental” act is one taken in order to reach some predetermined end or result. An “expressive” act is one taken simply because it expresses one’s inner gift or truth, without worry over “how things will turn out” (see pp. 23–24). What are some areas of your life in which an expressive understanding of action could encourage you to take risks by relieving anxiety over results or outcome?

If necessary, review Palmer’s explanation of these two concepts and use his examples to get discussion going (p. 22)—self-expressive acts of creativity, such as writing; caring deeply for another person; joining a cause.

7. Contemplation takes place in spontaneous moments of insight as well as in structured techniques—“… life makes contemplatives of all of us, whether we want to be contemplatives or not. The only question is whether we can name and claim those moments of opportunity for what they are” (p. 26). How would you advise an action-oriented person to recognize and learn from opportune moments of contemplation?

As an example, Palmer discusses disillusionment and pain (pp. 26–27) as evidence of contemplation at work to rid us of illusions.

8. In the paradox of “contemplation-in-action,” both tensions are necessary. “When we abandon the creative tension between the two, … action flies off into frenzy … contemplation flies off into escapism” (p. 15). How can these opposing tensions work together to help us learn to “celebrate the gift of life”?

Invite participants to choose a tension and share their thoughts on how it can help moderate the opposite extreme.

9.Palmer says that we have an inner voice that sometimes tells us, “We need to accept death … or we will spend our energies building houses of cards … [Death] will sweep all our works away” (p. 20). How do you respond to this voice? Do you agree with it? Why or w...