What's the big deal about money?

"Money is not a big issue, as it relates to your character and value as a human being; it's a magnifying glass over your character, not a measure of it - making it more visible to the world's eye, through the flow of its energy, but not more valuable to God's eye. The 'value' of your growing character often must wrestle with money and what it has meant to you in the past, developing a whole new relationship with it, where it becomes servant vs. master."

-- Yours Truly

"The greed of gain (which often starts out, innocently enough, as a desire for security) has no time or limit to its capaciousness. Its one object is to produce and consume. It has pity neither for beautiful nature nor for living human beings. It is ruthlessly ready without a moment's hesitation to crush all beauty and life in its pursuits."

-- Rabindranath Tagore

"It's time for greatness and growth inward -- not for greed and growth outward. It's time for heart and idealism -- not head and ideology. It's time not just for the occasional compassionate words when they are politically correct or convey popular sentiments, but a daily commitment to compassionate action when it is hard and inconvenient."

-- Marian Wright Edelman

"The ideals which have lighted me on my way and time after time given me new courage to face life cheerfully, have been Truth, Goodness, and Beauty. . . . The ordinary objects of human endeavour -- property, outward success, luxury, wealth -- have always seemed to me a contemptible waste of time and energy."

-- Albert Einstein

"The strongest passions and most dangerous weaknesses of the human breast - ambition, avarice, vanity, the honorable or venal love of fame and glory - are all in conspiracy against the desire and duty of love and peace."

-- James Madison

"The man who has won millions with his hands and/or head at the cost of his conscience and/or heart is a failure, no matter how much of it he might give away to appease his guilt."

-- BC Forbes

"The things that will destroy America are prosperity-at-any-price, peace-at-any-price, safety-first instead of duty-first, the love of soft living and the get-rich-quick theory of life."

-- Theodore Roosevelt

"Money and wealth is neither my god nor my devil. It is a form of energy that tends to make me look like more of who I already am, whether it's greedy or loving."

-- Dan Millman

"The enjoyment of power and wealth inevitably corrupts the sound judgment of reason and the pure heart of love, and perverts its liberty and causes."

-- Immanuel Kant

I watch people carefully. I watch how they spend their time, what they pursue with their energy, what they say they pursue with their mouths while their bodies and minds are scrambling over something else, and it has become very apparent that we are seriously screwed up over the subject of money. We make it such a big deal (in fact, many make it a god), when in reality it does not take a lot of money to have a truly great life (in reality, it just takes God). And many more truly great lives could be lived if we understood that. But so many are lost in their pursuit of money and what it can acquire (instead of the more important aspects of a great life, or, more purely in the realm of money, what it can effect for good), scrambling for it with every ounce of their energy, acting on a belief that lots of it is absolutely required, and there's just never enough.

When we remember that our paradigms drive our perceptions which drive our emotions which drive our actions, it all becomes clear how this phenomenon has unfolded. A paradigm has spread in our culture that there's not enough money for our future and more is always better. It is a fear- and greed-driven paradigm.

"Inherent in today’s global economic system is the wasteful use
of resources, labor, and capital largely for the indulgence of the
desires of the wealthy vs. the genuine needs of the planet."
-- Anup Shah, in "Behind Consumption and Consumerism"

Out of this shared paradigm comes the individual perception that others are working very hard to "get more" (which is held as the same as "being good," and after all, we must "be good," and since that's not really possible we must "look good" at all costs - a perverse confusion of "goodness"), so I better, too. Out of this warped perception comes an emotion of fear (or even panic) of lack or of falling behind or ultimately "losing the game." Out of this emotion of fear and lack comes a frantic and often even unconscious pursuit of more so that I can be or feel OK, and from there the habits of greed are planted and watered by a society and economic system that depend on it.

So, how to change this? Try this on. The new "paradigm" is that God has provided everything we truly need and it is totally enough, and it is our very good mission to figure out how to best care for it and distribute it and foster its ongoing, self-sustaining growth and health in such ways that more can have truly great lives, now and even moreso in the future, and the journey to learn how to do this takes us through an intense process of first acknowledging and then giving up our fears about not enough, while being very gentle with ourselves when we fall, and recognizing that discovering our higher purpose and loving God and ourselves and each other is all that really matters. Through this lens we can individually "perceive" the world's fears and greed as what they are, waste products of the process of remembering - exhaust fumes, so to speak. We needn't be overly concerned. Out of this perception comes "emotions" of compassion and the strong desire to lend a hand with deeper understanding and forward progress, or simply to "be there" with anyone who is worried about money or having more. From this emotion comes a generosity of spirit that accepts and guides, vs. judges and tries to fix, and the "actions" that follow are radical death and resurrection experiences happening everywhere, where previously there was blind self-indulgence (like robots and zombies) - you see people simply dropping, stopping, and walking away from their buried, dead lives and rabid pursuits to take up a whole different journey of exploration and discovery - a veritable "return to the garden" where all self-concern vanishes in the face of overwhelming opportunity to be alive, to love and be loved, to truly touch the world with a light and glowing (vs. a heavy and crushing) personal "footprint."

Wicked reduction, explosion, happy landing

"Out of mental laziness, we manage the existence of others through the quality of listening we provide them, and for so many they only get our 'already, always listening' - in other words, we relate to them as the dead or fixed 'labels' we've applied to them, so that we don't have to really relate to them at all as alive, evolving, growing beings, or even give a moment's caring and genuine consideration to what they're trying to say to us."

-- Mark Kamin

"Prejudice is too soft a word. To reduce the aliveness of another human being to a concept or label, and not see them as a person, is already a horrific form of violence."

-- Eckhart Tolle, in Stillness Speaks

So, yes, we do this to each other, and regularly, without even thinking about each other much at all, or about how demeaning and insulting it is to be this way, and just imagine, for those of us who are actively exploring in this area these days, several of you with me, we also do this to Jesus regularly (yes, he who instructs us to listen with our whole hearts and love each other as ourselves, even as we kill him daily), as a form of continuous, ongoing crucifixion of him (I did this for years, listening to or about him - but not really - through the old, tired ears that were exhausted from resisting how others coldly, feebly, harshly, and often over-zealously attempted to sell him to me as a blanket or quick-fix pill or something - in other words, I listened to him as an annoying nuisance from within a sick and tired life), which stuns me into a deep, introspective silence that shakes and beckons my soul.

I have now, as a result of this awakening, committed my life to genuinely loving people as he did and does, which first requires fully and completely seeing them as ever-changing, evolving, and growing beings, into their depths, in both their darkness and their light, accepting and embracing all of it, for my own and their sake, through the complete acceptance of God's doing that for me with such totally accomodating, forgiving, patient, and relentless love. How can we do anything else, really? Well, I must honestly say that I tried everything else first, and He waited while I blew myself up and landed in His truth. This is why I have learned to so patiently wait on people as they blow themselves up. I know where they're about to land, and Who's waiting to catch them in His arms.

"The world is too dangerous for anything but truth and too small for anything but love."

-- William Sloane Coffin

"I believe that naked, unarmed truth and relentless, unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right, temporarily defeated or even unheard by the masses, is stronger than evil acting loud or triumphant."

-- Martin Luther King, Jr.

The truth will set you free.

Yesterday was another crazy day of loving, and of feeling so much of the hurt in the human psyche, so much of the agony of the human condition. Coincidentally (yea, right), I had been reading a section of a book I've read about 5 times over the years, and it touched on the very heart of it, dug deep into the infection of it, and opened it up for healing conversation. I want to share that rather long piece of writing, followed by a rather long list of quotes from last year that drive the point home. And the point, you might ask? - that forgiveness is the only answer to our pain, after identifying it clearly and feeling it deeply, ... but, in the end, we must look right into the dark, ugly heart of it, and forgive everything.

Please take a dive with me.

"Two thousand years ago, one of the greatest Masters of all time told us, 'And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.'The truth is like a scalpel, because it is very painful to open our wounds and uncover all of the lies we've been living. The wounds in our emotional body are covered up by the denial system we've built to survive, the system of lies we have created to protect those wounds from further harm. When we look at our wounds with eyes of truth, we can - for the first time, and finally - heal them.

You begin by practicing the truth within yourself. When you are truthful with yourself, you start to see everything as it is, not the way you've wanted or needed it to be. The first step in using the truth as a scalpel in your emotional body is to uncover that the past injustices that created our wounds are no longer true, right now, in this moment. You discover that perhaps what you believed was going on when someone or something hurt you so badly was never real or true. It was not 'how it was perceived.' And even if it was true at the time, it doesn't mean that it is true now. By using the truth you open the wound and see the injustice from a whole new perspective that isn't and wasn't about you at all.

The truth is relative in this world; it's changing all the time, because we live in a world of illusions. What is true right now is not true later. Then it could be true again. The truth in hell could also be just another concept, another lie that can be used against you. Our own denial system is so powerful and strong that it becomes very complicated. There are truths covering lies and lies covering truth. Like peeling an onion, you uncover the truth little by little until in the end, you open your eyes to find out that everyone around you, including yourself, is lying all the time. Almost everything in this world of illusion is a lie. That is why I ask my apprentices to follow three simple rules for discovering what is true:

1. Don't believe me.
2. Don't believe yourself.
3. Don't believe anyone else.

Don't believe me, don't believe yourself, and don't believe anyone else. By not believing, whatever is untrue will disappear like smoke in this world of illusion. Everything is what it is. You don't need to justify what is true; you don't need to explain it either. What is true doesn't need anyone's help or support. Your lies need no support. You need to create a lie to support the first lie, another lie to support that one, and more lies to support all of the accumulated lies. You create and then live in a big structure of lies, and when the truth comes out, everything falls apart rather abruptly. But that's just the way it is. You don't need to feel guilty because you're lying, or angry because others are lying.Once we open the wounds, we are going to clean the wounds of all the poison. How are we going to do this? The same Master we referred to earlier gave us the solution two thousand years ago: Forgiveness. There is no other way but total forgiveness to clean the wounds of all poison. You must forgive those who hurt you, even if whatever they did to you is unforgivable in your mind. You will forgive them not because they deserve to be forgiven, but because you don't want to suffer and hurt yourself further every time you remember what they did to you. It doesn't matter what others did to you, you are going to forgive them because you don't want to feel angry, bitter, sick, and tired all the time anymore. Forgiveness is your own mental and emotional healing process. You will forgive because you feel compassion for yourself. Forgiveness is a radical act of self-love.

Let's take an example of a divorced woman. Imagine you have been married for ten years, and for whatever reason you have a big fight with your husband over a big injustice or the ongoing recurrence of smaller ones. You get divorced, and you really hate your ex-husband. Just hearing his name, you feel a strong pain in your stomach and you want to throw up. The emotional poison is so strong that you can't take it any longer. You need help, so you go to a therapist and say, 'I am suffering so much. I am full of anger, envy, jealousy, hatred. What he did is unforgivable. I hate that man.' The therapist looks at you and says, 'You need to release your emotions; you need to express your anger, vs. hold it all in. What you need to do is have a big tantrum. Get a pillow, bite the pillow, hit the pillow, and release your anger.' You go and have the biggest tantrum of your life, and you release all of these suppressed emotions. It really seems to work for a short while. You pay your therapist $150 and say, 'Thank you very much. I feel much better.' Finally, you have a big smile on your face. You walk out of the therapist's office, and guess who is driving through town and passes right in front of you? As soon as you see your ex-husband, the same anger comes up all over again, but this time it's even worse. You have to run back to your therapist again and pay another $150 for another tantrum. Releasing your emotions in this way is only a temporary solution, albeit an important early step in your liberation process. It may release some poison and make you feel better for a little while, but it does not heal the wound for good.

The only way to heal your wound is through radical forgiveness. You have to forgive your husband for the injustice. You will know you have forgiven him when you see him and it doesn't hurt anymore, at least not to the point of harmful and hateful bitterness. You will hear his name and have minimal emotional reaction. When you can touch a wound and it doesn't hurt as much, then you know you have truly forgiven. Of course, a scar is going to be there, just as it is on your skin after surgery. You will have a memory of what happened, of how you used to be and feel, but once the wound has healed it won't hurt you as much any longer. Perhaps you are thinking, 'Well, it's easy to say we should forgive. I have tried, but it's just too hard, and I cannot do it.' You have all these reasons, all these justifications why you cannot forgive. But they are not the truth. The truth is that you cannot forgive because you learned not to forgive, because you practiced not to forgive, because you mastered not to forgive. Why? Because out of a warped sense of our smallness and powerlessness (a lie), we felt that our importance would grow when we refuse to forgive (another lie). It makes our opinion more important when we can say, 'Whatever she does, I will not forgive her. What she did is unforgivable.'

The real problem is one of pride. Because of pride, because of a misplaced sense of personal honor, we add more fire to the injustice to remind ourselves that we cannot forgive. Take your pride and put it in the trash. You don't need it. Just let go of your self-importance (as access to how important you are) and forgive extravagantly, and then ask for forgiveness. Forgive and ask to be forgiven, and then watch how the miracles explode and unfold in your life."

-- Don Miguel Ruiz, in Mastery of Love


Finding that place (from June, 2007)

"If you have a resentment you want to be free of, if you will pray for the person or the thing you resent, you will eventually be free. If you will ask in prayer for everything you want for yourself to be given to them, you will soon be free. Ask for their health, their prosperity, their happiness, and you will find freedom. Even when you don't really want it for them, and your prayers are only hollow words and you don't really mean it, go ahead and do it anyway. Do it every day for two weeks and you will find you have come to mean it and want it for them, and you will realize that where you used to feel bitterness and resentment and hatred, you now feel compassionate understanding and love."

-- The Big Book, Alcoholics Anonymous

"The choice to follow love through to its completion is the choice to seek completion within ourselves. The point at which we shut down on others is the point at which we shut down on life. We heal as we heal others, and we heal others by extending our perceptions past their limitations and weaknesses. Until we have seen someone's darkness, we don't really know who that person is. Until we have forgiven someone's darkness, we don't really know what love is. Forgiving others is the only way to forgive ourselves, and forgiveness is our greatest need."

-- Marianne Williamson, in Illuminata

"When we harbor negative emotions toward others or toward ourselves, or when we intentionally create pain for others, we poison our own physical and spiritual systems. By far the strongest poison to the human spirit is the inability to forgive oneself or another person. It disables a person's emotional resources. The challenge is to refine our capacity to love others as well as ourselves and to develop the power of true forgiveness."

-- Caroline Myss, PH.D., in Anatomy of the Spirit

"Forgiveness is the key that can unshackle us from a past that will not rest in the grave of things over and done with. As long as our minds are captive to the memory of having been wronged, they are not free to heal and love again."

-- Lewis B. Smedes

"We must be saved by the final form of love which is forgiveness."

-- Reinhold Niebuhr

The coincidences in the selection of these quotes are so numerous and crazy that I can't even begin to explain it. My point, and my plea, to those who feel touched by them is to please get to that place of "having suffered enough" so that you can let them in to support, soothe, heal, encourage, and re-claim your life.

Courage and the art of living dangerously

"The coward listens to his fears and follows them into the grave; the courageous person puts them aside and moves boldly ahead into life. The courageous person goes into the wild unknowns of life in spite of all the fears.

Fearlessness happens if you go on being courageous and more courageous with every step. That is the ultimate experience of courage – total fearlessness. That is the fragrance when the courage within you becomes absolute.

Basically courage is risking the known for the unknown, the familiar for the unfamiliar, the comfortable for the uncomfortable, an arduous pilgrimage to some unknown destination within you. One never knows whether one will be able to make it or not. It is a form of gambling, but only the gamblers know what life really is.

It is your fear that makes you a slave. When you act fearlessly, you are no longer a slave - in fact, it is your fear that forces you to make others slaves before they can make a slave out of you.

A man who is fearless is neither afraid of anybody nor makes anybody afraid of him. Fear disappears altogether.

The word courage is very interesting. It comes from a Latin root cor, which means 'heart.' So to be courageous means to live from and with the heart.

The way of the heart is the way of courage. It is to live in constant insecurity as the only real security; it is to live in love and total trust, regardless of how badly you've been hurt by life and whether there is evidence supporting that stand or whether it will be reciprocated; it is to move boldly into the unknown without guarantees of any kind.

The heart is always ready to take the risk, the heart is a natural gambler. The head is a rational businessman. The head always calculates – it is careful and cunning and full of judgments. The heart is noncalculating and very simple and straightforward in its approach, and very accepting of what is.

Your sole concern should be to take care of and protect those qualities that you can take with you when death destroys your body and your mind, because these qualities will be your sole companions.

Listening to your own heart, you will start moving in the right direction automatically, without ever thinking of or worrying about what is right and what is wrong.

Commit as many mistakes as possible, as quickly as possible, remembering only one thing: don’t commit the same mistake twice.

Trust needs great intelligence, courage, and integrity. It needs a great heart to go into it. If you don’t have enough intelligence (read awareness, not intellect), you protect yourself through doubt and fear.

Doubt is on guard; intelligence keeps itself open because intelligence knows, 'Whatever happens, I will be able to take the challenge, to respond adequately and appropriately, based on the full support of my Creator/God/Maker.' The mediocre mind has not that trust in itself or its Creator. Knowledge is a very mediocre thing obsessed over by mediocre minds.

Don’t try to understand life. Live it! Don’t try to understand love. Move into it! Then you will Know – and that Knowing will come out of your internal experiencing, rather than from externally acquired knowledge.

The whole world is full of pseudo-religious people – churches, temples, mosques, full of them. And can’t you see that the world is absolutely irreligious? With so many religious people, the world is so irreligious – how is this miracle happening? Because the religions are false. People have attempted to 'cultivate' trust. Trust has become a forced belief (often fake), not an actual experience based on awareness. They have been taught they are supposed to believe; they have not been taught to open up to Know – that’s where humanity has missed the mark.

Ongoing, recurring doubt is a disease; it is an illness of the mind. In doubt you can never feel fulfilled; in doubt you will always tremble in the uncertainty; in doubt you will always remain in anguish - divided and indecisive and over-active. In doubt you will remain in a nightmare of your mind's own making, busying yourself to your own detriment so as not to get stuck in it, digger the hole deeper by your frenzy.

Those who are courageous, they go headlong ever-forward. They search out all opportunities of danger and risk. Their life philosophy is not that of insurance companies. Their life philosophy is that of a mountain climber, a glider, a surfer. And not only in the outside seas do they surf; they surf in their innermost seas. And not only on the outside do they climb Alps and Himalayas; they seek inner peaks of grand adventure and maximum opportunities for discovery.

There are only two types of people in the world. People who want to live comfortably – they are seeking death, they want a comfortable grave. And people who want to live – they choose to live dangerously, because life thrives only when there is total risk."

-- Osho

"Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat; nor about the body, what you will put on. Life is more than food, and the body is more than clothing. Consider the ravens, for they neither sow nor reap, which have neither storehouse nor barn; and God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds? And which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature? If you then are not able to do the least, why are you anxious for the rest? Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; and yet I say to you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. If then God so clothes the grass, which today is in the field and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more will He clothe you, O you of little faith? And do not seek what you should eat or what you should drink, nor have an anxious mind. For all these things the nations of the world seek after, and your Father knows that you need these things. But seek first the kingdom of God, and all these things shall be added to you" (Jesus to his disciples in Luke 12:22-31).

So, what I have learned from my "experience" vs. just my "acquired knowledge" is that by diving deep inside myself I have uncovered, discovered, become more aware of my many "blocks" and "disguises" and "hooks" and "strongholds" that I cling to out of fear, and habitual response to my fear, that keep me from conscious connection with God. In moving courageously into deeper relationship with others, committed to genuine loving (in the agape sense), in spite of my many fears and masks, especially in those places where I am totally triggered, and committing to remove my armor, to enter into relationship naked and unarmed, to constantly fight the battle within myself to stay that way, I learn compassion for the craziness of me and my monkey mind, and find the fragile beauty and preciousness of my own heart and my deep, inseparable connection to Him. This brings me to a place of intimate connection and great empathy with other human beings, a place I genuinely revel in most of the time, where then I find "among us" the kingdom of God constantly emerging and manifesting. I have read the many arguments about the proper translation of where Jesus was actually pointing us to when he said that "the kingdom of God is within you," and I fully accept and embrace (from my experience) that the more compelling translation is "among" not just "within," - that, at least in this human life, the only experience of His kingdom we get is in committedly loving relationships with each other, in spire of circumstances, after slaying the many dragons inside each of us, our daily self-crucifixion experience. This is, indeed, a dangerous life, filled with much joy vs. a living death, filled with much dread. It is not neat or pretty - this crazy, dying life - definitely not by worldly standards, and in many cases it seems foolhardy to take such immense risks in pursuing something so totally unknowable, but in the end, after much trial and error (and having made many, many mistakes and experienced great learning that can only come through them), I have found it to be the only life worth living and the only reliable path home. I have noticed that you don't get to feel very "popular" and "successful" in the world on this path, but you do get to feel very "held" (by Him, which takes the cake) and "whole" (within yourself).

The form of leadership I most admire

"I have been asked on a number of occasions, by journalists and curious clients alike, whom I believe to be the greatest leader in America. And I usually respond with my own question: 'Are you asking for the name of the most famous leader, the most popular, or a great leader?' This usually leads to a fair amount of confusion at first, until I explain that the best leaders in the world are relatively obscure, if not totally unknown, by the masses.

You see, I believe that the best leaders out there are probably running very small or at most medium-sized companies or organizations in a small or medium-sized city or town somewhere. Or maybe they‘re running small elementary schools or small churches or intimate community forums that hold together through forces we can't even imagine. Moreover, those leaders' obscurity is not a function of mediocrity, but rather reflective of a disdain for unnecessary (if not downright harmful) attention and adulation. They also prefer to have quiet, solid, stable home lives, inspired and very internally motivated employees / followers / students, and very happy repeat clients / customers — in that order — over any kind of celebrity, notoriety, recognition, or status.

A skeptic might well respond, 'But if one of these really were the greatest leader, wouldn‘t his or her company, following, or organization eventually grow in size and stature, and become widely known for being so great?' And the answer to that fine and reasonable question would be, 'Not necessarily.'

A great company or organization should achieve its potential and grow to the size and scale that suits its founders‘ and owners‘ and employees‘ desires, not to mention the potential of its market. It may very well wildly exceed customer expectations and earn a healthy profit by doing so, but not necessarily grow for the sake of growing. And sometimes its adherence to the most rigorous integrity-based principles actually limits or even temporarily reduces the size of its following.

Unfortunately, we live in a world and a culture where bigger is often equated with better and where fame and infamy are all too often considered to be one and the same. And so we mistakenly come to believe that if we haven‘t seen a person‘s picture on the cover of BusinessWeek or in a dot-matrixed image in The Wall Street Journal, then they can‘t possibly be the best.

Consider for a moment those high profile leaders we do read about in the newspaper and see on television. Most, but not all, of them share an overwhelming desire (and seemingly a real need) for public attention. You‘ll find them in all kinds of industries, but most prevalently in politics, media, big businesses, and mega-churches. Look hard enough at them, and there is a decent chance you‘ll discover people who have long aspired to be 'known' as great leaders. These are the same people who also value public recognition over real and very intimate contact and impact. And based on my experience, you might also find that they‘ll be more highly regarded by strangers and mere casual acquaintances than by the people who work and live for and with them most closely.

The truth is, our greatest leaders usually don‘t aspire to positions of great fame or public awareness. They choose instead to lead in places where they can make a tangible, meaningful difference in the lives of the people they are called to serve, those to whom they feel closest. The challenges and consequences of their decisions are no less difficult or important than those of higher profile leaders (and sometimes they're even harder, because of the challenge to resist their egos getting stroked) even if they don‘t quite qualify for a cover story in TIME Magazine."

-- Patrick Lencioni

This writing by Patrick is very timely and beautiful for me, because I run into a number of people who would like to see me get bigger or more popular or more widely known (so that they could feel better about something they value, but might be afraid to), and I have no desire to go there. I love my life and my ministry, exactly as it is, and I know what self-image management, self-promotion, and relentless travel to sell the program does to me, and it's not pretty or worth it. What I care about most is God, myself (my capacities - my physical, emotional, and spiritual health and well-being) and my family, my closest partners and friends (who are committed to this life), and the depth of our shared journey, not the breadth of its acceptance. The most powerful "marketing" force there is in this world, as far as I'm concerned, and for those who live and speak that language, is authenticity and integrity, because it touches lives truthfully, which spreads deeply in its own time, vs. the surface-level brushfires of ego-inflamed lies. I am happy to "settle" with the truth of my life, vs. over-inflate its image so as to hide my feelings of inadequacy. I am nothing but a humble follower (and that keeps me plenty busy), and yet I know that I matter (especially in the truthfulness of my followership), and as a leader I need nothing more than this, ever.

And just as I finished this up, I found another example of leadership that I crave and find inspiring:

"There comes a point at which leadership can break down precisely because of our worldly success as leaders. When confidence turns to pride and arrogance, we lose sight of the people we have been called to serve and become consumed with following our own grand (or grandiose) vision. The way forward that moves us through this paradox is seeking to humbly follow God’s plans rather than our own, to the best of our understanding at the time, which usually confronts us to the core.

Humble leadership, grounded in the teachings of Jesus, means recognizing that what we have access to and who we are are great gifts from God, and our lives should reflect our gratitude for these amazing gifts. It requires us to be radically and creatively open to God’s guidance, grace, and presence in everything. When we lead out of such openness, God’s power and grace flow through us, with very little effort on our part.

This path is not easy. Humble leadership can be personally dangerous to the ego, in that it exposes our own deepest weaknesses, our feelings of sheer powerlessness, our darkest fears and anxiety. Our cultural need for strength and personal power infects Christian leadership with an arrogance and pride that causes them to ignore biblical teachings on humility, even while at the same time using them as a club. But a truly humble leader says to God, 'I am Yours, no matter where You call me to go, whatever You call me to do, and however You call me to be. I will seek Your will and way as I lead others to do the same, and I am prepared to give up any celebrity, position, status, or weath that I might habitually cling to and doesn't honor You, as I strive to do so."

-- N. Graham Standish, in Humble Leadership

Clearly, at least for me, the great leaders who I really admire and respect, the ones who I look up to and would be proud to follow anywhere, are NOT living lives of polished public mastery and unbridled ego celebration, where followers feel much, much better about their leaders than they do about themselves or anyone else; instead they are living lives of raw public humility and ego-self-crucifixion, in the trenches, having followed the way of all great masters who have learned how to "stoop to serve," where followers realize that they are just as worthy as their leaders of listening to and following the only voice worth following, the One who speaks to us from deep within ourselves, and seeing someone we admire and respect doing that with great humility invites us as equals to do the same. The leaders I admire look me in the eye as a brother and show me his or her own inner journey, totally respectful of mine, inviting me to walk alongside with honor, where we get to share notes and stories from the battlefield. These are the kinds of leaders I would follow to the ends of the earth, and lay my life down for in an instant. I can count the leaders in my life who are like this on one hand, but I feel so very blessed to have more than zero.

New Life

"It is worth dying to find out what life is all about ...

And we shall not cease from exploration, and at the end of all of our exploring we will arrive where we started and know the place for the very first time."
-- T.S. Eliot

"If you don't go all the way with me, through thick and thin, you won't experience and value me and what I brought you. If your first concern is to look after yourself, you'll never find yourself. But if you forget about yourself and look to me always - for comfort, for encouragement, for instruction, for a reminder - you'll find both yourself and me again."
-- Matthew 10:38,39 (The Message)

I started out in life first hearing and then reading Bible stories, singing songs about Jesus and having them sung to me. This continued into a time of my young life when I stopped listening, stopped caring, stopped believing - in fact, I started judging it all very harshly as a bunch of meaningless crap that people hid behind while they did bad things, some of them to me. As Santa took over Christmas and the Easter Bunny took over Easter, Jesus became a pathetic joke, or maybe just a meaningless ghost, because he meant nothing to me, other than being a word I had to say either respectfully or not at all around polite society and "so-called" Christians. As I became an adult I chose "not at all" and ran with that for a few decades, right off the cliff and onto the rocks. Until about 15 years ago, when I reached the end of my frantic exploring outside of me, and started the more perilous and more mystifying and infinitely more magnificent exploration on the inside, where I met him for real, and the rest is "His story." Well, indeed, I've arrived where I started, and I know the place for the very first time, and it's good to be home in a life that doesn't require my frenzied management or frightened self-projection / self-protection, just my disciplined, heart-full, thoughtful following and my devoted, loving, passionate stewardship. And I celebrate new life with you today, a special day I have taken back from fantasy and futility, and now hold in mystery and wonder.

P.S. I quote T.S. Eliot first today, because it was actually this message (the second of his above) which I read at my father's funeral back in '03, and my father was a very special someone who I had returned to after 40 years, with the experience of getting to know him for the very first time, and it was my father who actually "introduced" me to Jesus for real (and how trippy was that, given that he never spoke of him in his whole life up to the time of his death), vs. what I had heard or been sold or told. So, how perfect that the two get locked into my experience of Easter together for all time - two men who rose from the dead for me, upsetting everything I thought I knew, bringing me new life.