Laying It All Down…
…for a little while
I. Friends, it’s time for me to take a Substack sabbatical, as I did a year ago. In the eleven months since my last break, I’ve posted forty-four Friday essays. So I’m going to spend August off the grid, returning on Friday, September 4 with a new post.
To help me lay down my work, I’m posting a poem by Lynn Ungar, one of my favorite poets. It’s hard for me to stop working, in part because I love what I do—and I’m beyond grateful that I can still do it at age 87. If you, too need encouragement to take a break, maybe this poem will help.
No one has ever accused me of being as “lovely” as a flower, so I’m not “going to the fields” in hopes of sprucing up for a beauty contest. My aim is to change the dance, to alter my daily routine enough that I might shake some new thoughts and feelings loose. Every time I take a break—even going out for a brief walk after a couple of hours at my desk—I find something fresh rising up in me, new energy, a new perspective, the blooming of a new idea.
II. One of the root causes of our obsession with work is the sad fact that our culture values “doing” over “being.” We believe that we must earn the right to be here by working hard—and, even sadder, that our personal value depends on the work we do.
Think I’m exaggerating? Ask elders who can no longer work whether they feel valued. Even more damning, look at the way religious and political right-wingers devalue “the other” by claiming that certain groups are “lazy and shiftless,” forever “freeloading off the benefits we hard workers pay for with our taxes.” That’s a white supremacist lie, of course. The truth is that millions of the people whom we “other” must work harder just to keep their heads above water than do privileged folks like me who can afford to take more than a day or two off.
Millions of MAGA Christians seem to have forgotten their own tradition’s claim that everyone is made in the image of God, no matter the work they do or their net worth. Every human being is sacred—which means worthy of reverence and respect—a claim that leads the Christian tradition to put ultimate value on acts of solidarity with those in need.
MAGA Christians would do well to follow the Biblical admonition to “consider the lilies of the field,” not just in relation to “the other” but to themselves. Their conviction that others are lazy and worthless comes from the fear that they themselves are worthless: that’s how projection works. But they, too, are sacred beings—unless they choose to desecrate the gift of life they’ve been given by devoting themselves to resentment and hatred.
III. For years, I took work breaks only when I was so exhausted I had little choice in the matter. Even my Dad, a hard-working child of the Great Depression, told me that “the only difference between a rut and a grave is dimension.” And according to my doc, letting myself get worn down to a nub at my age is—how shall I say?—a dead end.
Fortunately, I’ve learned that lying fallow for a while enhances my ability to live well and do the work I love. Not only does it yield new ideas, it gives me a chance to refine and correct my outworn convictions and self-delusions. Staying busy—as this workaholic culture urges us to do—makes it impossible to understand what’s going on within and around us, which is one of our reasons for overwork: we don’t want too look too closely at the madness we might find “out there” or “in here.” The result is a nightmare array of personal and political pathologies.
Kurt Vonnegut wrote a short story about an authoritarian regime that forced an electronic “brain disrupter” on people who seemed likely to have sustained critical thoughts about the world around them—thoughts that might lead them to push back on the powers that be. How is this fictional dystopia any different from the madness of the moment in which we are living?
The MAGA regime declared early on that the way to take American democracy down was to “flood the zone with s _ _ t” in order to keep people distracted from what’s really going on. When we’re obsessed with the algae-ridden Reflecting Pool, or the tarp that still covers the restored name of the Kennedy Center, or the latest of POTUS’s outrageous lies, we lose sight of things that really matter; e.g., immigrants innocent of any crime who, along with their children, are suffering as we speak from inhumane treatment in America’s for-profit Cruelty Camps.
IV. As may be clear by now, I won’t leave politics behind during my month-long break. I won’t because I can’t. No matter where I go or what I do in August, I’ll be breathing the same air everyone else breathes, air that is killing off lives, values and aspirations I care about.
The air we breathe is polluted by more than the forest fires that rage up north and industries deregulated by those who ignore climate change for the sake of profit. It’s polluted by the toxic cloud of ignorance and indifference that lies behind this presidency, by the books MAGA loyalists are burning, by the stench of corruption and the death of long-established norms around voting rights. Mississippi is burning again right here in the U.S.A.
So I’m not imagining a Stop-the-World-I-Want-to-Get-Off sabbatical. I’ve tried that in the past, and somehow the world kept on spinning. I’ll stay offline as much as I can while I’m on leave, and spend more time talking with trees. But I’ll keep inhaling our shared air, hoping to breathe it out in better shape than it was when I took it in.
Might it be that taking time out to penetrate the haze within and around us could turn out to be a revolutionary act in itself? That’s possible, it seems to me, if we can return to our work having lost a few more death-dealing illusions, touched a few more life-giving realities, and gained new energy to work for a world that conforms more closely to Dr. King’s vision of the Beloved Community.
V. The midterms are now three months away. Both major political parties are in disarray, with POTUS’s party slouching closer to tyranny every day. More than any moment I can remember in nine decades as a citizen, this is a moment when much depends on We the People having the wit, wisdom and will to rebalance power.
In 2018, Michelle Alexander reminded us—to quote a paraphrase by Rebecca Solnit—that “we are not the dam trying to stop the river; we are the river that they are trying to dam, and whatever they build we will overtop it and flow in in the end.”
Every river has a headwaters, and it’s time to return to mine for a while. I need a refresher course in the origins of the flow of my life and where it was meant to go. I’ll miss those of you who visit this page and leave me with the reassuring feeling that the waters of love, truth and justice are rising. But the river will flow on while I sit on the bank for a while, and for that I am grateful.
P.S. If you enjoy my Friday essays, you might enjoy my 2018 book, On the Brink of Everything: Grace, Gravity and Getting Old. A Revised and Updated 2026 Edition will come out in September. With a re-publication like this, pre-orders really help a book along. If you’d like to place one, please click HERE, then on the bookseller of your choice. Thanks!
• “Parker J. Palmer is one of our wisest minds and lives and one of my greatest mentors. There is no one I’d rather eavesdrop on as he ponders ‘the brink of everything.’” —KRISTA TIPPETT (founder of On Being Studios, author of Becoming Wise)
• “Parker J. Palmer is the most integral and wholehearted teacher of our age. Here is a deep reflection on aging that offers a master’s earned view of the large and the small and how we’re all vital threads woven together by life. It will stir your soul and bring you closer to everything.” —MARK NEPO (author of The Book of Awakening)
• “Parker J. Palmer has been a mentor and midwife to countless young people in my generation, including me. My greatest aspiration is to journey through life and arrive at the brink as Parker has, with humility and faithfulness, and pockets full of gems.” —VALARIE KAUR (author of See No Stranger)
[NOTES: Lynn Ungar’s books are HERE. My 10 books are HERE and HERE. The Center for Courage & Renewal is HERE. I post on Substack every Friday, as time and energy allow. Free as well as paid subscriptions will always have access to everything I post.]
I don’t think Parker Palmer is a lily; I think he is a tree. Merton once described trees as living things that stand in one place, firmly rooted as they take in the toxins of the world and release life giving oxygen in exchange. I think Parker is that kind of tree. His roots run deep, his foliage (in the form of his writings) is abundant and offers shade as well as nourishment. He even lets us climb higher toward the sun. Thank you Parker, know that your communities hold you in their hearts as you renew.
Parker I love your writing so very much and am grateful. Keep telling us the truth. And in the meantime, I am sending blessings upon blessings for a quietly fruitful time away. May each of your days be filled with wonder and grace.