Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation cover image

by Parker J. Palmer
September 1999, Hardcover

Reader Testimonials

Let Your Life Speak has become a treasured resource for individuals and groups looking to explore the topic of vocation. Whether used for personal study or as part of a curriculum for a class, retreat, or seminar, this small book offers a compelling meditation on discovering one’s path in life. Read the selection of customer reviews below for testimonials on how it has touched its readers:

“This book is an inspiration for those feeling “the pull” – the struggle between “what society tells me I should be doing” and “what I feel I need/was born to do.” Both my husband and I could not put it down. Palmer validated our feelings of “I don't think the rat race is what life is really about...” whereby giving us the confidence to pursue major life and career changes. Read a paragraph, stop and think...and then read on....”

“This Parker Palmer book touched me so deeply that I purchased it for each of my teachers (I am head of a private school). Palmer gently leads the reader to examine one’s commitments and career path. While a spiritual book, it is not religious. I recommend it highly. It provides questions, not answers, but for these topics, at least for me, that is what is really needed.

“I got this book some time ago, when one of the professors at BC recommended it to me as a way to think about what I wanted to do with my life and of course, I never read it. However, I'm almost glad that I didn't read it until now, because at this point in my life I think I needed it more than I did when I was choosing a path.”

“Like all Palmer’s work, this one speaks to people from many walks of life, including public schools, college and universities, religious institutions, corporations, foundations, and grass-roots organizations. As a clergy person and professor of religion, I found this work to be profoundly inspiring.”

“This book has been my default purchase for people that are going through tough times, or people that are at a point of change in their lives (or should be). It is free of the “you-can-do-it-all” fluffiness. It brings a real, truthful and deep approach to life.”

“Our women’s circle is studying this book together. We are middle-aged and over but are looking at a time of growth in this next part of our life-journey. The book is helping us to let our lives speak to each other and to ourselves.”

“A component of Palmer’s depression was the misconnection between the life he was living and the life that wanted to live within him and come out. That is often a found in men and their work. So our men’s group at church is reading it together, reflecting on their own points of connection with Palmer’s story.”

“I took this book on retreat with four friends in widely various forms of Christian ministry. Over the course of the next few days, the book was passed, like a peace-pipe, from retreatant to retreatant and we each devoured it, transfixed from cover to cover. We each returned to buy several copies for family, friends, and colleagues. For anyone with an appetite to find meaning in life; for anyone who has ever struggled with ambition, self-doubt, pressure, burnout, hyper-activity and all the pressing corporate imperatives of church-life, this book is a MUST-READ.”

Want to get involved in the conversation?

Go to our Related Resources page to connect further with people, organizations, articles, and events that share Let Your Life Speak’s message of vocational discernment.
Check out the website for the Center for Courage & Renewal for more ways to explore your life’s calling with a community of trusted individuals.