Episode 265: Let Your Life Speak | A Conversation with Jenny Richards

Vocation at its deepest level is “something I can’t not do, for reasons I’m unable to explain to anyone else and don’t fully understand myself, but are nonetheless compelling.” This description from Parker Palmer frames the journey of chaplain Jenny Richards. She says, “If there is an openness to life, then I think vocation is where we meet our desires and our love of God. They meet, and if I think it’s something I can’t not do, that’s very compelling. And it’s terrifying.” In Episode 265, Jenny joins Cynthia and Susan for a conversation about the remarkable path she’s walking, and how she came to be on it.

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Notes & Quotes:

Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) in Utah: https://www.ecsutah.org/aboutcpe
Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith, by Anne Lamott
Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation, by Parker J. Palmer
This is Why I Find Pema Chodron So Essential, Pema Chodron with Ezra Klein, The Ezra Klein Show
Women’s Uncommon Prayers: Our Lives Revealed, Nurtured, Celebrated, by Elizabeth Geitz

"My coming to faith did not start with a leap but rather a series of staggers from what seemed like one safe place to another. Like lily pads, round and green, these places summoned and then held me up while I grew. Each prepared me for the next leaf on which I would land, and in this way I moved across the swamp of doubt and fear.” —Anne Lamott

“Before I can tell my life what I want to do with it, I must listen to my life telling me who I am.” —Parker Palmer

Vocation at its deepest level is, "This is something I can't not do, for reasons I'm unable to explain to anyone else and don't fully understand myself but that are nonetheless compelling.” —Parker Palmer

Power
“When she learned that she
Didn’t have to plug into
Someone or something
Like a toaster into a wall

When she learned that she
Was a windmill and had only
To raise her arms
To catch the universal whisper
And turn
turn
turn

She moved.

Oh, she moved.
And her dance was a marvel.”
—Carol Lynn Pearson

For Women
Eternal Spirit, Earth-maker, Pain-bearer, Life-giver, Source of all that is and that shall be, Father and Mother of us all, Loving God, in whom is heaven: Awaken us with your Holy Spirit,
and preserve us from the temptation to stay comfortably asleep;
encourage us to proclaim our authenticity,
and preserve us from a false accommodation to the world;
breathe into us your breath of life, stir us up into activity,
and preserve us from the inertia that leads to complicity in our own
oppression;
open our eyes to the promises in creation, open our hearts to the love and example of Jesus, open our ears to the persistent whisperings of the Holy Spirit, and preserve us from a sense-deadened existence;
give us the confidence to engage technology
and preserve us from regarding it with fear or with too much trust;
remind us that we are made in your image, that we, too, are creators, lovers, decision makers;
instill in us the pride of our heritage,
and preserve us from excessive, crippling humility.
Above all, gracious God,
give us the grace to hear your word to us and the courage to claim and act on that inner authority; preserve us from the tyranny of the external authority that comes from the world.
Amen.
—The Reverend Margaret Cunningham (from A New Zealand prayer book)

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