My first blog post on the booklet, Leading from Within, by Parker J. Palmer, may be found here.
Last time I blogged on this booklet, Parker J. Palmer had made the case that "consciousness precedes being". As I understood Palmer, the external world is influenced by how we project our spirit upon it. What does spirituality have to do with leadership? Palmer first gives a definition of a leader:
a leader is a person who has an unusual degree of power to create the conditions under which other people must live and move and have their being--conditions that can either be as illuminating as heaven or as shadowy as hell. A leader is a person who must take special responsibility for what's going on inside him or her self, inside his or her consciousness, lest the act of leadership create more harm than good.Palmer continues his discussion by observing that "Leaders Have a Shadow Side". This potential harm can come from the shadow side of leadership. Parker urges to expand our understanding of leaders beyond just leaders of nation states. Consider the classroom teacher, the clergy person, the CEO of a corporation, the potential of projecting light or ominous shadow.
Earlier this fall, I led two sessions of our Monday Night Bible study. This group is one of our stronger "small groups" in the church. They are fairly self-contained (in a positive way). Led by our music minister, this group doesn't need the encouragement and support of the pastor. The group, however, had some questions, particularly about text and canon to answer, "How did we get the Bible". So in two meetings, I shared with the group a little bit of church history and ancient history, a favorite subject of mine. While I could have been more structured in my presentation (I essentially led it without notes), my enthusiasm for the subject inspired most (if not all the class), in their own words.
One of the members of the group asked me when I became interested in history. The moment, happened, I explained in Mrs. Haynes seventh grade social studies class, which actually our first experience of history. The first day of class, Mrs. Haynes began a unit on the Assyrians, one of the earliest ancient empires. Nothing was cooler to a seventh grade boy to hear about their practice of impaling. That wasn't the first moment I expressed an interest in ancient history (I was an early reader of Greek mythology), but that year was my happiest year of my educational experience. We studied the ancient Egyptians (and learned about embalming) and studied various important civilizations. If asked that year who here best student was that year, I'm sure she would have said it was me. I look back on that experience as one of those "spiritual markers" albeit in a secular setting that led me into the ministry. She brought light into the world of a 12 year old boy in 1983.
I could contrast her with other teachers I studied under over the years. And not to pass responsibility to others, but one reason I was an indifferent student in a couple of subject areas, was indifferent teachers. One particular teacher "projected shadows" and it still hurts when I reflect upon my experience with him.
Clergy, and other leaders, suffer from a problem, Palmer says.
The problem is that people rise to leadership by a tendency towards extroversion, which means a tendency to ignore what is going on inside themselves. Leaders rise to power in our society by operating very competently and effectively in the external world, sometimes at the cost of internal awareness.This is a very dangerous place for any minster to place themselves. And that is why I'm try to work my way slowly and contemplatively through this booklet.
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