Parker Palmer on economics, morality, and meaning

As I was driving back from the library studying for my sermon on Jonah, I just happened to tune in to hear a re-broadcast of Krista Tippet’s interview with Parker Palmer on the show Speaking of Faith. This interview took place in 2008 and was aimed at evaluating the global economic downturn.

Taking his own characteristically reflective look at the state of things, I found this interview to be well worth the listen. Palmer, in my opinion, grabs onto some much deeper issues than the mathematics and economics of the situation.

Instead, he  considers how many people knew the realities that would unfold and yet blindly went forward in bad decision-making. Concurrently, he digs into our own culpability as individuals within the situation, while also asking us to consider the importance of ethics and emotional self-awareness in life and business.

Even if you do not have time to listen online to the interview, at least consider reading this fairly brief essay by Palmer entitled “Trusting Our Deeper Knowing.”

Palmer is the founder of The Center for Renewal and Courage, which aims at reconnecting our interior life with our vocational life. He is an outstanding thinker, author, and speaker whose book, Let Your Life Speak, was actually quite helpful for me in a time of leadership crisis and seeking of personal direction. I blogged about what he termed “shadow-casting monsters” in the life of a leader in May of 2008 (part 1, part 2, and part 3).