Leadership Qualities

     Every day an unrelenting stream of messages appear in my email boxes and Facebook feed. Some of them proclaim support for a particular candidate; far too often they simply demean a candidate and those who support them; eroding any possibility for meaningful exchange of ideas. Very rarely do we seriously consider what one ought to look for in a candidate for high office. We seem to settle for sound-bite prattle instead of thinking through what we desire from the person who seeks public office. We ought to carefully consider what character traits best meet the demands and responsibilities generated by positions of great responsibility. Often our discussions focus on a few narrow issues. Sadly often the issues we spend so much time wrangling over either come up infrequently or the person has little ability to effect substantive change regarding the issue which enflames our passions. What character traits qualify an individual for public service?

     We need honesty in the public domain. We need office holders who will speak candidly with the public, and each other. Difficult problems need full disclosure and straightforward discussion concerning possible solutions. Dissembling disqualifies. Candidates are not the only ones who must embrace honesty. We must be willing to face difficult decisions and not penalize candidates that speak honestly with us.

     We need statesmen and stateswomen.  A statesman puts the nation above party. A stateswomen seeks office to solve difficult problems and understands that doing the right thing may result in personal or party loss. A statesman takes the long view, recognizing that intractable problems requiring incremental progress over an extended period of time.

     We need men and women who will partner with and work with individuals from the other party. We must demand progress instead of posturing. Party wins often levy a considerable burden on the nation. Meaningless votes delay meaningful action. Working together requires cooperation and a willingness to engage in compromise. We must learn to get along to move along.

     We need public servants who fully understand and are committed to the concept of protecting the resources of our nation, both natural and human. We’ve been blessed by an unusual abundance of resources, which with appropriate management will enable continued growth and prosperity. We must not needlessly squander or abuse these great assets. Natural resources do not comprise our only responsibility. We need leaders who fully commit to encouraging all members of our society to reach their full potential. This requires a wide array of programs designed to open doors, not shut them. Education, health, and employment opportunities must reach all sectors of our nation. Our leaders must work to end marginalization of peoples, incorporating them into full partnership.

     We need leaders who value kindness. Most of us do not place great value on kindness; however, it is much more powerful and strong than we realize. Kindness indicates strength and depth of character. Kindness helps ease interactions and the highly competitive political world of the twenty-first century we should embrace those things which help.

     Of course this simple list does not solve all problems or address all issues. It does give us a few things to measure potential leaders by. If we spend more time looking for leaders with the ability to lead instead of those who demonstrate party purity and a proclivity for parroting key phrases in the form of sound-bites we might see more progress in problem areas.

A Gentle Gag

     The green field reaches for the horizon stretching tautly across gently undulating hills. Golden bales of hay glow in the late afternoon sun as they cure in near patterns that hint of a larger order to the world. Off to the west the newly painted roof of my barn gleams as it glances over the hill. Cattle

gaze contentedly as they ruminate bovine thoughts unseen behind large, liquid blinking eyes. Some cluster under a copse of Live-Oak trees while others dip into the tank raising dripping wet noses when slaked. Two white caliche ruts follow the neat ordered fence as it marches between field and pasture to the field-stone farmhouse. Pale and tender prim-roses cluster pastel pinks and yellows, nodding in the gentle afternoon breeze. Resting on a small hill its broad porches reach out in welcome, embracing the coming eve. A larger knoll lifts its bulk showing off rippling rolls of tawny wheat waving in the breeze sweeping up its flanks. A clear rill meanders down the shallow valley between hills over and between ancient rocks discarded by a slowly retreating glacier. In shallow pools languid fish troll for nymphs hoping to reach the ecstasy of a twenty-four hour maturity.

     All is well ordered in my spread. Visiting neighbors nod their approval when strolling my fields on occasional business. They appreciate the disciplined effort to bring order from disorder. Ours is a community which values restrained order. Building success season by season we carefully develop and execute a plan based on long-term experience. Departure from established norms raises eyebrows and concerns in an interlinked community such as ours. What happens on one place often oozes under fences and down streams so we keep a watchful on each other. I bask in the glow of quiet approval as we lean on a fence gazing out over relaxed cattle. Community binds us together. But I never share the real beauty of my land.

     Follow the track past the barn and around this knoll behind the house and you find another fence bordering the edge of the field with its full heads of grain. Just past the fence a dark forest stands, silent sentinels guarding the wild country. Wear sturdy clothes and tough boots. Tough clothes fit for pushing past and through tangled woods and clambering over fallen timber.

Once through the dark woods you enter a rugged domain. Here among steep defiles and churning streams real beauty flourishes. Here true wild-flowers grapple for preeminence. Strew about in reckless profusion they flourish amid the mossy boulders. This land, raw and rugged climbs up toward distant mountains. Streams plunge down steep defiles pounding themselves into mist amid jumbled dark wet basalt slabs. In this country, dangerous and primitive, I find vistas that satisfy a deep primal urge to explore and see. Standing on the edge of precipice looking into the roiling vapors I loose myself fighting an urge to lean over and descend, pin wheeling into the deep unknown. Despite the dangers I find my boots, muddy and scarred perched on the edge while I look deep into the mists hopeful of what I might find.

     It is here that I occasionally meet the old shepherd. He shows up unexpectedly, staff in hand wrapped in a worn red blanket with his sheep scattered behind him. Ancient and ageless, he wanders among the familiar hills as if they were one. I don’t fully understand him. He never says much; often staring deep into the mists in long silence. When he does speak it is frequently in short, cryptic messages that often do not make sense until much later. Of all the wild things, he’s the most wild of all, yet in many ways the most gentle. At once familiar with and at home in these rugged wild reaches

he clambers easily from rocky prominence to steep trail. Despite his craggy appearance and demeanor his hands deliver tender ministrations to his often confused and hurting charges. Somehow he and these most weak animals survive and thrive in this desolate, unhospitable, place. I’ve grown to cherish our time together, wandering the bleak regions to which I’m drawn.

     My neighbors would not approve of wandering in such dangerous places. Yet, despite the peril, I’m drawn to the vistas and the company. Here amid the deserted, untamed hills I find great beauty and in the company of the old shepherd safety, as he knows the dreadful dangers. I know my community eschews such explorations. They view such forays into the uncharted expanses unproductive at best and perilous in general. And while there is peril, with a steady guide such explorations open breathtaking outlooks which astonish and reward.

     

Unawares

     Teaching often catches me unawares. Little moments creep up and surprise me with a sudden plunge into a depth unseen. With no advanced notice I find myself gasping in surprise at a startling revelation. Perhaps this is what keeps me coming back. Humans are marvelously intricate and subtle and each day I watch as seventy-odd young people unpack some new bit of data. Sometimes they look at me, hoping I kept the receipt in order to get their money back. But more often, they joyfully examine this new thing; turning it this way and that as they seek to fit it into their growing body of knowledge. Occasionally, and these moments are teaching at its most sublime, they unveil a new insight an unexpected vista spreading out before us in pristine beauty.  In those moments, the relationship is not one of teacher and students. It shifts and we become fellow explorers on an amazing journey of discovery together. This happened to me recently.

     I use debate to help my eighth grade American History students review for chapter tests. Aside from covering the material in an enjoyable format, I get a chance to help them develop reasoning skills. They initially balk at the requirement to eschew emotion and argument, but as the term passes they find great joy in developing a good, logical argument. Some of them find particular pleasure in marshalling facts into an unassailable formation. A few discover that they enjoy public speaking. And everyone hungers for the chance to be one of the judges and make decisions. They hear about the debates while they are in seventh grade and savor their arrival at this plateau of ability. Once the students understand how debates work, I enjoy this time almost as much as they do. Our most recent debate centered on the Treaty of Paris which ended the American Revolution; specifically the requirement to return Torrie property to its rightful owners. I set up the scenario so that one team represents a Torrie family which had fled to Canada and returned after the Treaty of Paris only to find another family had moved in and occupied their land. The other team represents the occupying family.  Each team argues from the standpoint that they alone should occupy the land; however, the judges frequently develop some sort of creative way to solve this problem. These debates usually take about three days of class-time. In the most recent event I learned something new.

     Like all other history teachers, I continually harp about the need to carefully examine primary source documents, holding them up as the holy grail of historical thought and accuracy.  This day, the team which represented the occupying family came in loaded for bear. I could tell from their demeanor, their excited whispering, their heavily underlined, circled, and annotated papers that something was afoot. They spoke first and very quickly unveiled their discovery. The Treaty of Paris did not “require” the returning of the property! I was a bit surprised as we normally teach about the requirement for returning of seized property. It is, after all, a generally agreed upon interpretation of the treaty.  Well, this group had taken the time to read the pertinent section of the treaty and had uncovered some very important language. I quote directly from the treaty, “It is agreed that Congress shall earnestly recommend it to the legislatures of the respective states to provide for the restitution of all estates, rights, and properties, which have been confiscated…” Those pesky words, “…shall earnestly recommend…” Frankly I was surprised and had to look it up in order to make sure, but there it was in black and white, a new wrinkle that changed my view. The other team and I struggled momentarily to reorient ourselves to this new bit of data.

     My students had done it to me again, surprised me with excellent scholarship that refreshed my own view of history. I reveled in the moment as the tables turned and the teacher found himself the student. This is history at its best when the historian peruses some dusty tome and uncovers a bit of data that enhances our understanding of how our world assumed its current shape. Aside from the changes I will now need to make in my presentation of the Treaty of Paris, I now have more color to add to the next chapter on the Articles of Confederation. You see that language reflects the prevailing view of our nation at its birth. Under the Articles of Confederation we struggled with an almost powerless central government and here was the result. “Congress shall earnestly recommend.” Our own government was powerless to make its own citizenry do the right thing and return that which was stolen. I love learning, it often catches me unawares.

      

A Reclamation Project

     I teach Junior High and it is my casual observation that Jr. High is a brutal place; which coincides with my memories of Jr. High. Do not misunderstand me, I enjoyed Jr. High. It’s just that I was a badly behaving pill who failed to consider the feelings of those who traveled the halls of my little world with me. I lived in a world that revolved around me, my wants, and my desires. Now that I’m older I can better hide the more misanthropic urges that frequently vie for control of my mind. I do not think the current crop of Jr. High students is any worse, or better, than we were. Age and experience tend to scuff off our more negative behaviors, leaving us better able to interact with those on our shared journey. Additionally, I now look back on fifty-four years of life and that changes things. Now as I talk with my students I marvel at the breathtaking simplicity of their decision making and judgement.

     Most of my students view the world in simple black and white with no shades of gray. Their view, one of youth and optimism, varies greatly from mine. They enjoy the luxury of few seriously grievous errors. Most, though not all, raised in observant Christian families have yet to endure either great private failure or deep personal tragedy. Cocooned in a carefully orchestrated world, they rarely rub elbows with those who differ or embrace a divergent world-view. In some ways they enjoy swimming in a homogeneous sea, one where all the reefs are carefully marked, the tides checked, and all sharks de-fanged. They can afford to be quick to judge. And so they do, heedless of what such judgments portend.

     The view back from fifty-four is quite different. I look back over a path strewn with mistakes, errors in judgment, bouts of selfishness, and moments of compromise. I clearly remember thinking ill of those whose lives were marked by personal failure, detours into self-absorption that visited hurt and shame on those around them. Then, a few short years later, I found that my life also skewed off glide-path into the tall trees. I discovered that sin lurked just ‘round the corner, waiting in the shadows for an opportune moment. Through painful experience my own weakness became apparent to all near me. Soon the wreckage of poor personal choices cluttered my road. I could ill afford to point an accusing finger. Now all I could do was to slink into the rear and hope that no one noticed my presence. But God has yet a different view.

     Much to my great joy, God views me through the lens of His son. While I look back in chagrin and shame, He looks back at the opportunity to show grace and compassion. My mistakes are His opportunities. My failures are His victories. My deep and secret shame is His full and abounding joy. He did not turn me out or take the opportunity to humiliate me. Rather, He took all the sorrow and sin and bent it into something new, something grander and better than I had ever conceived. Casting all my sins as far as the East is from the West, He forged a bright future out of the dark slag of my then present. So now His reality colors how I see my past, present and future.

     So today, when my students say or do things that cause me to cringe, I take comfort in God’s reality. I rest easy in the surety of His marvelous ability to make old things new. And even though they roll their eyes when I tell them, I remind them to be gracious with one another, to be kind in word and deed, to make room for those who they think are odd or mistaken about one thing or another. I share with them the fact that when they arrive at the ripe old age of fifty-four they will be very glad for God’s grace and how it has worked in His reclamation project of their lives.

I have enemies...

     I have enemies. There are certain people of Iraq who would slay me without much thought or perhaps with joy. As a soldier I did things that incurred long-lasting wrath. I have local enemies, those few I avoid; who wronged me somehow, who I hurt through negligence or self-centeredness. Anger and hatred these sore spots on my soul linger, a canker or blight on my nature. And speaking honestly, I fear I allot them space in the dark corners of my heart where they skulk, occasionally spewing out in an unreasonable response to some minor slight or transgression. They lurk there, slowly diming with the erosion of passing time and regenerative effects of the Holy Spirit. But these are pernicious weeds, always ready, always threatening a resurgence. Despite my long familiarity and comfort with these sinful emotions, I daily seek God’s blessing for my enemies.

     In many ways I do this in a self-congratulatory fashion, drawing comfort from complying with God’s injunction to pray for those who hate me. Each morning I mumble through this portion of my prayers with very little thought or care. Doing so generates a nice warm feeling of self-righteousness. Precious little in our culture encourages such behavior or any real attempt to excise these unabating sins. In our country we seem to fully embrace a culture that endorses hateful divisive speech and emotions. In all aspects of our lives messages that encourage us to demean our opponents bombard us. This black and white, love and hate, friend and enemy, outlook simplifies our lives. Either you think and act like me or you are the “other”, and as an “other” I’m free to disparage, demean, disregard, diminish, and despise you and those who bear any semblance to you. If you fall into the “other” category, you are an enemy and I need not give you serious consideration…or the time of day. Unfortunately, as Christians, this outlook slips in, almost unnoticed. Without realizing it, we often handle issues in the same way the world does. As I pray and mediate, this issue continually bubbles up, how do I learn to love my enemies?

     How do I learn to love those who malign, misrepresent me, of falsely accuse me? As I grapple with this issue, seeking some sort of resolution, a method of changing my heart and mind, I face a growing conviction that my viewpoint is wrong. I look at people as my enemies without considering how God looks at them. I want it to be okay to just “pray” for my enemies. You know the kind of prayer I’m talking about, a few quick words muttered in the early morning as we wait for the coffee to finish perking. In I John 4:7-21, John “the beloved” lays out the preeminence of love. In this rich passage full of grace and truth we find thee key nuggets; God first loved us, perfect love casts out fear, and when we abide in love we abide in God.

     The first illuminates my need to reorient my view. God love me first. He did not start loving me when I began to feebly love Him. This means He loves those I count as my enemies, no matter their spiritual state. He views them with the same love and concern He lavishes upon me. They are His children, my brothers and sisters. The second speaks to my comfort level.

     I find those who disagree with me disquieting. I often avoid them out of fear of confrontation. As long as I avoid them, I easily bin them in the category of enemy. Again, God pushes me out of my comfort zone by reminding me that His love gets rid of fear. I let my anger and hurt drive the quality and content of my relationships with those who might be the “other.” In fact, God’s love will not allow me to consider them the “other.” Indeed they are my brother or sister. The third speaks to my position.

     If I claim to be a Christ-follower, a Christian, I must abide in love. I have to learn to love the “other.” Hatred has no place in my view of others. God loves them and so must I. As long as I embrace the language of disrespect and encourage the demeaning of others I’m far from the Lord. I must learn how to engage the “others” in my life. God seeks them. He loves them with all His heart and calls me to do the same. This is hard for me as it requires patience. I’d much rather keep them far away, but God calls me to come over to where He and they are and engage in love. I fear that frequently I’m like the older brother in Luke 15, sitting outside fuming because the father loves that rotten scoundrel.  The story ends with the older brother outside, sitting on the stoop, refusing to love the “other.” And out in the cold, away from the party, is not where I want to be.