by Joan Mitchell, CSJ
Parker Palmer testifies in his book Let Your Life Speak that it is entirely possible to lead a life other than one’s own—to do only what spouses, parents, or society expect, to pursue success or satisfy ambition.
In our cyber age it’s easy to find reason to dismiss a dream before we try. Online forecasts show too many lawyers. Or, studies show the capacity to learn a language plummets after 40. Perhaps that is why the film Hidden Figures is so inspiring. It celebrates three African American women who achieve their dreams in the face of racism, Jim Crow laws, and stereotypes of women.
The three women, Katherine G. Johnson, Dorothy Vaughn, and Mary Jackson, each a gifted mathematician, meet as they work as human “computers” for the forerunner of NASA. They are part of a staff of black women who compute by hand the flight trajectories male engineers’ request. They prove irreplaceably inventive in the push to get an American into space.
More than six decades have passed since the Second Vatican Council opened the window of renewal and pushed Catholics to catch up with the modern world. The council invited all of us lay folks, the people of God, to feast at the table of the Word, listen for the Spirit stirring in the world, and accompany the poor and afflicted in their joys and sorrow, griefs and anxieties. It called us to put our personal faith and love into action in our here and now.
Palmer insists we must listen to our lives telling us who we are. We must recognize the gifts we irrepressibly embody and share. “Before I can tell my life what I want to do with it, I must listen to my life telling me who I am. I must listen for the truths and values at the heart of my own identity, not the standards by which I must live—but the standards by which I cannot help but live if I am living my own life.”
How do I answer, especially as a Christian? Teach. Parent. Heal. Invent. Negotiate. Act with compassion. Work for justice. Welcome the stranger even if they are immigrants.
- What life can you not help but live?