Leadership Confessions

On Grief and Consolation

Having lost my paternal grandfather at age 91 this past month, quotes about grief and loss are catching my eye these days.  Theologian and poet of the 17th and 18th centuries, Francois Fenelon wrote "We must have faith during the period of our grief.  We think that our afflictions will be greater than we can bear, but we do not know the strength of our hearts, nor the power of God.  He knows all.  He knows every folding of the heart and also the extent of sorrow that he inflicts.  What we think will overwhelm us entirely only subdues and conquers our pride.  Our renewed spirit rises from its subjugation with a celestial strength and consolation" (qtd in Common Prayer, 246).

What are you facing this season of life?  Perhaps you will come to find a new depth and level of strength not only in your own heart, but also in the power and presence of Almighy God. 

Seven Stanzas for Easter

In preparing for Easter weekend, I was deeply struck and moved by the vivid p0ery of John Updike.  Read it aloud slowly and let the gravity and mystery that we celebrate sink in a little deeper...

Make no mistake: if He rose at all
it was as His body;
if the cells’ dissolution did not reverse, the molecules
reknit, the amino acids rekindle,
the Church will fall.

It was not as the flowers,
each soft Spring recurrent;
it was not as His Spirit in the mouths and fuddled
eyes of the eleven apostles;
it was as His flesh: ours.

The same hinged thumbs and toes,
the same valved heart
that–pierced–died, withered, paused, and then
regathered out of enduring Might
new strength to enclose.

Let us not mock God with metaphor,
analogy, sidestepping, transcendence;
making of the event a parable, a sign painted in the
faded credulity of earlier ages:
let us walk through the door.

The stone is rolled back, not papier-mâché,
not a stone in a story,
but the vast rock of materiality that in the slow
grinding of time will eclipse for each of us
the wide light of day.

And if we will have an angel at the tomb,
make it a real angel,
weighty with Max Planck’s quanta, vivid with hair,
opaque in the dawn light, robed in real linen
spun on a definite loom.

Let us not seek to make it less monstrous,
for our own convenience, our own sense of beauty,
lest, awakened in one unthinkable hour, we are
embarrassed by the miracle,
and crushed by remonstrance.

—John Updike, “Seven Stanzas At Easter,” (Telephone Poles and Other Poems, 1964)

Annunciations of One Sort or Another In Most Lives

I came across this poem in my advent reading this morning and have been captivated by the reminder that we are always free to say NO to God, but at what cost?  What might we miss out on?  What would Mary have missed?  What might God be inviting you to participate in today that you won't want to miss?  

Poem: The Annunciation by Denise Levertov

We know the scene: the room, variously furnished,
almost always a lecturn, a book; always
the tall lily.

Arrived on solemn grandeur of great wings,
the angelic ambassador, standing or hovering,
whome she acknowledges, a guest.

But we are told of meek obedience. No one mentions
courage
The engendering Spirit
did not enter her without consent. God waited.

She was free
to accept or refuse, choice
integral to humanness.

Aren't there annunciations
of one sort or another in most lives?
Some unwillingly undertake great destinies,
enact them in sullen pride,
uncomprehending.

More often those moments
when roads of light and storm
open from darkness in a man or woman,
are turned away from
in dread, in a wave of weakness, in despair
and with relief.
Ordinary lives continue.

God does not smite them.
But the gates close, the pathway vanishes..

She had been a child who played, ate, spelt
like any other child - but unlike others,
wept only for pity, laughed
in joy not triumpf.
Compassion and intelligence
fused in her, indivisible.

Called to a destiny more momentous
than any in all of Time,
she did not quail,
only asked

a simple, "How can this be?"
and gravely, courteously,
took to heart the angel's reply,
perceiving instantly
the astounding ministry she was offered:

to bear in her womb
Infinite weight and lightness; to carry
in hidden, finite inwardness,
nine months of Eternity; to contain
in slender vase of being,
the sum of power -
in narrow flesh,
the sum of light.

Then bring to birth,
push out into air, a Man-child
needing, like any other,
milk and love -

but who was God.

 

Ah But Do You Pray When Getting Dressed?

Readers of this space know that I'm experimenting with fixed hour prayer these days and loving the depth and richness I find in some of the prayers that the Church has prayed through history.  Today, I came across a prayer that the Celtic Christians said when getting dressed (which, I suppose is as good a time as any to express vulnerability!) 

I am giving Thee worship with my whole life,
I am giving Thee assent with my whole power,
I am giving Thee praise with my whole tongue,
I am giving Thee honour with my whole utterance,
I am giving Thee love with my whole devotion,
I am giving Thee kneeling with my whole desire,
I am giving Thee love with my whole heart,
I am giving Thee affection with my whole sense,
I am giving Three my existence with my whole mind,
I am giving Thee my soul, O God of all gods. 

Why not try a prayer of your own this morning that includes both adoration and dedication - maybe even while you're getting dressed!

Doctrinal construct or Emerging Reality (Depends on your Age)

As an elder-statesmen of the church in North America today, I love Gordon MacDonald.  I had opportunity to meet him in a smaller teaching environment this past Nov and I thought he exuded the kind of wisdom and graciousness and measured discourse that I want to have when I'm in my 70's (if the Lord is gracious).

So it was with interest that I read MacDonald's take on the recent discussions on heaven and hell, stirred up by Rob Bell's book.  His perspective is one that whispers wisdom and reminds us that the issue of our eternal destinies isn't as distant as some of us who are younger like to think...

 "I am listening to the new swirling debate on heaven and hell and take note that most of the voices are those of younger generation people. Wait until they reach my age and the stunning awareness that Heaven, and whatever hell is, are just over the horizon (and there's no detour). Eternity is not a doctrinal construct to me. It is an emerging reality. Like so many of my friends before me, I am headed into it in the not-too-distant future." (from http://www.christianitytoday.com/le/currenttrendscolumns/leadershipweekly/leavingpeace.html?start=3)

I think he might be on to something that I have certainly observed in my work with those who are older or dying and who have a unique gift to give us - the gift of perspective on life.  When we are willing to receive it - either in our youth or more likely as we age, we too come to think of heaven and hell not as abstract concepts, but as very present possibilities for us.  And standing at that cross roads where two roads diverge, to paraphrase my favorite poet Robert Frost, might make all the difference in this discussion.    

It Takes No Courage to Criticize

I'm a big fan of the show Dragon's Den (CBC).  It's where entrepreneurs come to pitch their ideas to 4 wealthy investors who either choose to put their own capital in or they tank the idea (hence the US version's name: Shark Tank).  

I'm more than a little sad to hear that Brett Wilson, known as "the dragon with a heart" is leaving the show next season (the irony for the show's most prolific deal-maker is that he couldn't get his own deal with the CBC done).  The dragon who has made 60 deals on the show (and papered about half of them), made a brilliant statement on getting in the game versus sitting on the sidelines in a recent interview with Macleans:

It's easy to say 'no,' it takes no courage, no brains and no wallet to criticize.  Criticism comes free.  Action comes at some cost..." (March 21, 2011, page 14)

For anyone who has been in business or ministry and has experienced frustration at the hands of naysayers, there's a least some comfort in the knowledge that win or loose, you've marched down the road less taken.  And for Wilson and perhaps for you, that makes all the difference.   

"Some Other Just Ones" A Poem by Steven Heighton

The printer who sets this page with skill, though he may not admire it.

Singers of solo expertise who defer and find harmonies instead.

Anyone whose skeleton is susceptible to music.

She who, having loved a book or record, instantly passed it on.

Whose heart lilts at a span of vacant highway, the fervent surge of acceleration, palms of the tires.

Adults content to let children bury them in sand or leaves.

Those for whom sustaining hatred is a difficulty.

Surprised by tenderness on meeting, at a reunion, the persecutors of their youth.

Likely to forget debts owe them but never a debt they owe.

Apt to read Plutarch or the Sacred Scriptures with the urgency of one reading the morning news.

Frightened ones who fight to keep fear from keeping them from life.

The coffee barista who, no matter how long the line, will not rush the masterful pour.

The small-scale makers of precious obscurios—pomegranate spoons, conductors’ batons, harpsichord tuning hammers, War of 1812 re-enactors, hand-crank for hurdy-gurdies.

The gradeschool that renewed the brownfields back of the A&P and made them ample miraculous May and June.

The streetgang that casts no comment as they thin out to let Bob the barking man squawk past them on the sidewalk.

The two African medical students in Belgrade, 1983, who seeing a traveler lost and broke         

took him in and fed him rice and beans cooked over a camp stove in their cubicle of a room and let him sleep there 

while one of them studied all night at the desk between the beds with the lamp swung low.

Those who sit on front porches, not in fenced privacy, in the erotic inaugural summer night steam.

Who redeem from neglect a gorgeous, long-orphaned word.

Who treat dogs with sincere and comical diplomacy.

Attempt to craft a decent wine in a desperate climate.

Clip the chain of consequence by letting others have the last word.

Master the banjo.

Are operatically loud in love.

These people, without knowing it, are saving the world.

Source Notes: My friend Brent Unrau passed this along to me.  I thought it a beautiful way to begin the new year.