Some time when the river is ice ask me/mistakes I have made. Ask me whether/what I have done is my life. Others have come in their slow way into/my thought, and some have tried to help/or to hurt: ask me what difference/their strongest love or hate has made.

I will listen to what you say./You and I can turn and look/at the silent river and wait. We know/ the current is there, hidden; and there/ are comings and goings from miles away/that hold the stillness exactly before us. What the river says, that is what I say.

William Stafford, “Ask Me.”

“Let your life speak” is a Quaker principle. It means our actions matter. The work of our hands and heart matter. Somewhere between suffering and joy and keeping the lights on our lives speak. Ultimately, it is a privilege to let our lives speak. It is a privilege to connect work and love. “Listening to Life” in Parker Palmer’s collection of essays Let Your Life Speak situates us right in the middle of the question of just how do we let our lives speak. Because we have life and breath, we must use that privilege to speak.

Listening to life has never been more important. Listening is part of letting our life speak. Bigger than the question of work and/or vocation. Deeper than the declaration credited to Twain, “Find a job you enjoy doing, and you will never have to work a day in your life,” letting our life speak asks us to listen to the rhythm of our days, look at how we spend our hours, and take the pulse of our truth. That is letting our life speak.

I have been thinking about this a great deal the last few years. In the midst of it all. I know I am not alone in this quest to navigate the waters of a speaking life. As Stafford suggests in “Ask Me,” we must listen to the river. Having grown up on the Ohio River that is a very specific request. The river’s currents are etched deeply on my heart. The river is not silent. There is special music filled with calliopes, barges, birds, and currents. There are seasons there. I know I am vulnerable to those who live up river and responsible for those who live down river. We are all connected. The lessons of home have been learned there. The river is wise. Advice and ritual and memories and peace flow amidst it all. Letting my life speak starts at the river.