I FIRST ran into Parker Palmer’s work when I was on edge – exhausted and losing the will to carry on a project.
Then I read a little parable related by this author, educator and activist.
He was in his early forties. He decided to go on that amazing programme called Outward Bound. He was in the midst of a mid-life crisis then – one of those times when the violence and terror from within start to come up.
Palmer described how in the middle of that Outward Bound course he faced the challenge he feared most.
They backed him up to the edge of a cliff 110 feet off the ground, tying a very thin rope – a frayed and stretchy rope – to his wrist and then told him to back down that cliff.
Palmer said it was when he was half-way down – lowering his eyes – that he froze.
In his words: “I have never been so paralyzed in my life, so full of physical fear. I knew I could do it if I could still keep going straight, but I could change directions. I just froze in sheer terror.”
He hung in mid-air for what seemed like a very long time before he heard his instructor holler: “It’s time you learn the motto of the Outward Bound School.”
Palmer said he will never forget the words the instructor subsequently yelled up to him – The motto of the Outward Bound Hurricane School is IF YOU CAN’T GET OUT OF IT, GET INTO IT.
And these words have been genuinely empowering for him ever since.
From that experience, Palmer wrote: “There is no way out of our inner lives, so we’d better get into them. In the downward, inward journey, the only way is in and through.”
Many of us could have been through the same kind of experience over the past weeks had we been following the political developments centred around the I Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) fiasco.
It has led to the suspension of two publications, blocking of a foreign website by MCMC and a cabinet reshuffle. Other developments, including changing the Attorney-General, had been widely shared on news portal and social media and talked about loudly in coffeeshops.
Do you feel like you are #AtTheEdge of a cliff and starting to freeze with trepidation as you look down at our nation from above – just as what Palmer had experienced in the Outward Bound course?
In a cabinet reshuffle on a fateful Tuesday morning, former DPM Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin was told he had been fired. A number of heads had also rolled in the new government lineup.
Amidst a climate of uncertainties, I was quite amazed by Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi’s statement that his appointment as the new Deputy Prime Minister was not a reward but rather a calling from God.
“This is a calling that I could not avoid. Najib and I go way back. I was his political secretary when he was Youth and Sports Minister.
“I never expected anything in return, but Allah has determined this is my destiny,” he reportedly told the press after the cabinet reshuffle.
Whether by choice of words or his own conviction, he had also said the calling was a responsibility he must shoulder “for Malays and Malaysians.”
A blog introduced the new DPM, who is also Home Minister, with assertions that he made headlines in the media over a period of three years – none for the right reasons.
I would not want to repeat what had been said, preferring to treat it as bygone, but let’s see what my pastor told me about the ways to determine God’s calling in our life, and I wish upon a star the new and old ministers in the cabinet know their calling.
Zahid has mentioned Allah and the divine intervention. Yes, first and foremost, know the Words of God and know your Holy Book and fill your mind with the words of truth.
My pastor says you must know your gifts and know yourself. God gives each one of us different gifts. Knowing what gifts you have can shape your conviction about your calling. Knowing yourself will make you confident you fit into the vocation.
However, knowing yourself is not enough – you must be willing to be used by God of all your talents and gifts to His glory. It is a total surrender.
You must know the needs of the people near and far which will push you over the edge of your commitments.
Those with a calling feel their work has an effect on the greater good and an impact beyond themselves. They truly believe their works utilise their unique gifts and talents. And that is what they are meant to do.
Coming back to Parker Palmer, who has said: “The deepest vocational question is not what ought I to do with my life? It is the more elemental and demanding Who am I – what is my nature?
That should fit in to answer the doubts of PRS president Tan Sri James Masing who has questioned the portfolios of the Sarawakian representation in the federal cabinet.
Masing has wanted a portfolio of Education to be given to Sarawak.
“What Sarawak needs now is an appropriate portfolio. The Education Minister’s post which used to be allocated to Sarawak should be allocated to us,” he said.
Let Zahid and the other newly-appointed as well as the remaining older ministers in the cabinet ask themselves: What am I meant to do? Who am I meant to be? Is it a calling? Is it a divine intervention?
As Scottish philosopher Thomas Carlye said: Blessed is he that has found his work! Let him ask no other blessedness.