The Essence of Leadership

 “A true leader has the confidence to stand alone, the courage to make tough decisions, and the compassion to listen to the needs of others.  He or she does not set out to be a leader but becomes one by the quality of his or her actions and the integrity of his or her intent.  In the end, leaders are much like eagles…they don’t flock, you find them one at a time.”  Author unknown

I found this quote handwritten in a file I reviewed yesterday of my writings from 1997.  Along with an event last week that required me to process my thoughts from different perspectives, this quote caused me to reflect on what it meant to me and the history of my leadership roles which first began in 4th grade when I was elected class president.  Even at the age of nine, I learned that truth and integrity mattered both in intent and action.  I went on to be appointed editor-in-chief of my high school newspaper and remembered with a smile, a student who wrote a dissertation on his vacation and I had to drastically edit it curtailing his wish to name everyone he had met.  He was very upset with me, but he went on to be the editor the next year.  I also remembered running for senior class President, losing by a few votes even though my track (we had a year-round school with three tracks or groups in school with one out), was not given the opportunity to vote because they were out of school  during the voting.  I decided not to object, biding my time before running an editorial before the next year’s class elections, in which I pointed out that everyone should be provided the opportunity to vote to ensure a fair election.  The senior class advisor, a social studies teacher, who had told the year before I had lost, let me know personally with a subdued face that all four tracks would vote in future class elections.  The elected president, Natalie, did a great job and it ended up I was very busy with senior activities including the newspaper while working as a part-time secretary for a State Farm agent.  So, it all worked out.

My next leadership role was as President of the University YMCA student board.  While serving as the incoming president my junior year, I sat on a Board of Trustee search committee as one of the two student representatives to choose the next General Manager.  I opposed the committee’s decision to select an employee already working at the YMCA, arguing for several hours, because I knew that he was a liar and could not be trusted based on my experience with him, as well as stories told to me by other staff members.  I had to work with him during my term as president and it was challenging.  To make a long story short, two years after I graduated, he was finally removed because he was using funds that needed  trustee approval without seeking it.    

I thought of another leadership experience while at the YMCA because of events this week.  The student vice president, Kim, who graduated top of her journalism class was very smart, very outspoken and very opinionated.  I was intimidated by her and felt she was dominating the board, so I decided to have a side conversation telling her that she needed to tone it down so others would not be affected.  I was apprehensive about having the conversation.  After I said my piece, she looked at me, smiled, and said “I am going to be me.  Your job as leader is to manage me.”  I suddenly knew that she was right.  Her intent had always been positive, and the issue was within me because I was intimidated, and I needed to be more assertive in directing the conversation, but not by controlling her.  So, going forward, I leveraged her intellect and passion while making sure everyone had the opportunity to participate and the entire board benefited.  She was one of my bridesmaids seven years later.  I have to also add the previous board president, voluntarily resigned from the board when he realized he wanted to still run the board and that his anger with me because I would not date him had become a problem.  A number of years later when I saw him he admitted his enthusiastic support of the General Manager had been wrong and I was right in my opposition.

I have been pushed out of Bible studies, writer’s groups, jobs and other groups because the leader sees me as a threat to their expertise and agenda because I am creative constantly thinking outside of the box.  These leaders lacked the personal insight to evaluate their own emotions, confidence in their vision, or the leadership skill to leverage my intellect and creativity, my goodwill, and my perspective as I learned to do with Kim in order for the entire group to benefit.  What is sad, is that the actions of some of these leaders have been especially damaging to me.  A leader should always work to bring out the best in people, not by constantly praising them, but to challenge them and provide the opportunity for them to grow.  The leader of the memoir group pushed me out of her class this week because I read a blog entry on my vision of God. She had designed her program according a formula that she felt would allow an unprofessional writer to record their memories for their children and it did not include a reflection on God.  She angrily told me, you are confusing them (the other writers).  What I would have said to each writer to think about as they started writing – what are the lessons you learned in your life as you tell your story that you want to share with your family?  And how did your life shape who you are and where you are going from here?   Steven Covey in his Seven Habits includes the statement – begin with the end in mind.  And for me, my purpose in writing is to share my journey to know God and how it influences my future going forward. 

In conclusion, what I have discovered about me, is I cannot support a leader who lacks the characteristics in the quote on the essence of leadership.  I expect leaders to make some mistakes, but I judge them by the quality of their actions and the integrity of their intent.  But I would also add I evaluate them on their ability to self-reflect and improve their leadership skills.  I expect them to keep the best interest of who they are leading in the forefront of their thoughts and actions, always learning while achieving their objectives.   This reflection reminded me to strive to do this also as I move forward in my life.

 

 

Bars on Our Windows, Locks on Our Doors

 “I discovered windows one afternoon and after that, nothing was ever the same.” 

― Anne Spollen, The Shape of Water 

“Your gift will unlock doors that you prayed for God to open.” 

― Yvonne Pierre, The Day My Soul Cried: A Memoir

Today after another emotional week for me spent evaluating my thoughts and feelings, I sat down and looked through an old folder of correspondence from 1996-1997 to prepare to write today’s blog entry.  As I looked at my words, I was amazed at how my dreams and thoughts have expanded years later, but still are rooted in fundamental truths.  I had been thinking earlier today about how our minds can be prisons limiting our thoughts and actions, as well the physical prisons of our environments.  I saw in my folder I wrote a note in 1997 to myself concluding with the following, “Roberta, my neighbor, commented that people who have lived in East St. Louis and move to small towns, put bars on their windows.  This is evidence of the evil that grows in our environment.  We must no longer think of safety in terms of locks, but rather the absence of locks.”   

When I began my journey of writing in my blog SacredSouls almost seven years ago in February of 2014, my first entry was titled the Road Not Taken and ended with the following.  “God has provided me many blessings, but I am in a fork in my life where the unpaved and paved paths meet.   The beauty of the unpaved path calls to my heart and I can no longer deny it.  This is the beginning of my journey.  I trust in God that the unpaved path is my destiny.”  Similar to my words in 1997, my thoughts in 2014 were just beginning an exploration of my experiences over the last thirty years.

My blog has been a tool for processing my thoughts and emotions based on my past and current experiences, so that I could understand my life and God’s role in it and to provide healing.  And I thought perhaps by publishing my thoughts in a blog, I could help others along their life journey. In writing, I let my mind wander, writing about whatever came to me.  Some entries focused on a very personal experience and emotion from the past or present.  And some were of how I saw God in my life and in creation.  And then I noticed that it was building to an image of God and who I am as a child of God.  And underlying it all, were symbols of birds flying between earth and heaven, unlocked from their cages.  To understand that symbolism of that image, I need to explain how I differ from many other people, but maybe others can learn from my thoughts and experiences, although they have different gifts.

As an INFJ mystic, (less than 1 percent of the population is classified in this category within the Myers-Briggs), I process the world very differently.  Susan Storm in a Close Look of the Mystic writes that brain scans by the neurologist Dario Nardi show a very unique brain activity for the INFJ.  She writes “INFJs enter a “zen-like” brain state when they are tasked to envision the future or solve a complex problem. Nardi conducted EEG brain-wave tests that showed that INFJs, when presented with a novel or complex problem, would harness all neocortex regions in order to “realize” an answer.”  As an INFJ, I would say based on my experience with this, I am not only realizing an answer from within, but also from a field of consciousness in which I am part.  I have experienced states of mind that while I am in it, I draw thoughts from the universal with can have positive and negative energy or thoughts.  While I am immersed in it, I know when I come out of that state, I will not remember individual thoughts, but will be left with an impression which will guide me in the future.  And in my everyday normal experience, I usually do not remember many details unless I write them down immediately. But if I experience an event that triggers emotions from a past trauma, the details can become very vivid.  

In addition, due to trauma in my twenties and thirties, my mind learned to escape the physical, emotional and mental boxes placed around me to abuse me.  I escaped with what I refer to as breakthroughs which made me aware of other “realities” within a field of consciousness which others were not conscious of as well as underlying truths.   Most psychiatrists classify my experiences that I have described as pathological, isolated to my brain requiring antipsychotic drugs.   A few years ago, I read an academic article on transpersonal psychology titled Psychosis or Spiritual Emergence ago which confirmed that my experiences should be viewed as part of a larger field of consciousness and treated in a supportive, loving environment.  For years, I had resisted psychiatrists classifying my mental states within DSM models instead reframing my mind as a gift that needs to be managed.  A lesson I actually learned from a communication professor who had a license plate “reframe it.”  By reframing my mental experiences, I learned to step outside of them analyzing them in a positive light which enabled me to manage my mind.  My counselor Pat years ago told me I could control my mind, but she also understood it would be a learning process over time.  I knew this would involve practice and therefore, risk.  This ran counter to the messaging by the psychiatrists that I could never control it because it is an involuntary cyclical chemical reaction.  But I realized this “chemical” reaction occurred under stress often connected to a metaphysical event.  I found psychiatrists dismissed this as nonsense.  But now I know as an INFJ, I am skilled in recognizing patterns, especially those in human thoughts and emotions.  And it has been said we see “the pattern of the pattern” within our own minds and can project how those patterns can play out in others.  I also see my insights as sometimes revealed by God through the field of consciousness which is not bound by what we know as sequential or Kronos time.    

The reason I am sharing this is to explain, my mind has experience working outside the normal mental boxes most of us operate in that we do not even realize we are in.  And as a consequence, I can see how paradigms and beliefs within our individual and collective psyche affect our behaviors, and why I challenge how other people think.  I was listening to a podcast with Dr. Illia Delio who is a nun with PhDs in theology and in science this week, and she talked about the fact that the reality is we operate in a quantum world there is no normal, only chaos.  And she said our quest to get back to normal will be our undoing.  This statement is a paradigm shift and the implications are tremendous.  I cannot even begin to contemplate at her intellectual level the ramifications.  But I know that to change and adapt, we must first recognize this reality to change our thought processes and resulting actions. 

Also, because I am an INFJ primarily driven by introverted intuition or analysis of perspectives, and because of my ability to transcend consciousness, I can experience multiple perspectives without being completely married to one.  Allowing me to go to the most abstract level  to summarize detailed thoughts.  That is why I say God is love.  God is the whole.  God is eternal.  Dr. Delio would state it in even higher terms.  She states God is a mystery.  The rest is our imagination and that is very hard for most people to accept.  But if you can accept that our thoughts or imagination is the basis for what we create, together we can become anything we imagine if we love, and provide hope and faith.  That is mind-blowing.

Which circles back to what I originally wrote in 1997 about people leaving a violent city for a safe town, still feel the need to put bars on the windows to protect themselves. Fear and trauma have lasting impact on our ability to trust others and imagine positive outcomes.   Because I have been told I am psychotic and because I have been abused for my thoughts almost physically losing my life, sharing my thoughts is not easy because rejection opens up trauma feelings that I cannot be loved or accepted for who I am.  I relived this trauma again this week after sharing one of my blog posts with a group writing memoirs I had trusted.  My blog entry elicited anger from the leader whose resentment had been building because she felt I was resisting and challenging her authority, expertise, and structure as well as purpose for writing a memoir which I found limiting and not applicable to me.  And although it was made clear I was not welcome in that group, like my other experiences, it will only strengthen my resolve to break open mental, physical and emotional prisons - by taking each bar off window by window, and lock by lock from each door holding us in.   Even if it takes an eternity.

 

Thoughts on a Movement of God

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.  Romans 15:13

It has been another tumultuous week with Trump refusing to acknowledge the election results and the virus raging through the country. But there was respite with the decisive results of the election, a vaccine closer to distribution, and positive news from the Supreme Court hearings on the Affordable Care Act.  And I realized that God’s grace and timing has been at work through all of it.  This has not been solely a human battle, but one fought on a spiritual level where the enemy seeks to kill, steal and destroy our joy by dominating our consciousness with fear and rage.  But with love, faith, hope, joy and hard work we will prevail. And although I know that God gifts and directs our path individually, today I pictured a flock of birds rising together in formation in the sky.  I thought about what my priorities need to be in this ongoing spiritual battle, and I considered the role of my church.   Although individual churches and denominations have their strengths within their congregations, I thought the following elements for a movement based on God should be in place to thrive and grow.

A universal love for God, each other and creation supported by an uplifting worship service that renews and strengthens the spirit within us so that we can spread the love and joy of God to others.  A study of the Bible which deepens our understanding of God and directs our spiritual journey as a disciple of Jesus. An understanding that we are not destined to be sinful, but need to be self-aware and reflective knowing that we are accepted and loved as a child of God. A ministry that recognizes that as humans we can be broken and hurt both emotionally and physically by others, and we need healing through the presence of prayer and the witness by others of God’s love.   A collective movement that addresses poverty, discrimination, and environmental issues not isolated to a single church or denomination but is in solidarity with all who fight for social justice.  And a universal prayer focus that sustains both individuals and the church.

 

 

 

The Freedom of the Holy Spirit

“It's not about finding ways to avoid God's judgment and feeling like a failure if you don't do everything perfectly. It's about fully experiencing God's love and letting it perfect you. It's not about being somebody you are not. It's about becoming who you really are.” 

― Stormie Omartian, The Power of a Praying Woman

I am an INFJ on the Myers-Briggs personality profile, referred to as the mystic. I am a person who sifts through perspectives evaluating my emotions and actions, as well as understanding the possible perspectives and motives of others.  I am always seeking a deeper truth, but it can be exhausting. Another INFJ I know refers to it as the monkey brain – constantly swinging from one idea and perspective to another with a focus on understanding the whole.  In addition. I was raised by a mother who lived in the 1950s generation that judged women on their social manners and appearance, and the perfection of their household and children.  I learned as a child the importance of not making a mistake.   During my childhood we did not attend church consistently and I never learned verses from the Bible.  At the age of ten I went through confirmation, rote memorizing creeds without understanding.  And I practiced rituals, including taking communion weekly confessing our sins before God.  This experience left me spiritually empty and for years I never felt the need for God until I was thirty when I experienced a crisis.  What did stay with me from my childhood was the beautiful Christmas celebrations at home when I was very young.  My parents would attend Christmas midnight mass and ring the sleigh bells and play music upon arriving home.  As a consequence, I moved through my life without a faith in God, but loving the joy of Christmas.  

We often do not recognize the impact of the societal norms of our generation until later in life, and how it affects our image of God as either punitive or loving.    In the last thirty years in my journey to know God, my perspective has changed, and I have come to believe that our focus must be on a loving and universal God or Christ, as well as a follower of Jesus of Nazareth.  I believe as the Franciscans Richard Rohr and Ilia Delio do, that the concept of original sin “first put forward by Augustine in the fifth century but never mentioned in the Bible is damaging.” (The Universal Christ, p. 61).  Richard Rohr points out that the creation story within Genesis is about beauty, and Genesis 1:31 says, “And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good.”  He also discusses the harm of theology that explains the crucifixion was required to pay a price for our sins before a perfect God. This creates an image of a judgmental God needing atonement, instead of a loving and forgiving God who does not require perfection. 

 

It is evident as human beings we have done a lot of damage to each other, and as a consequence that pain reverberates through generations.  But I would ask is it better to raise a child believing they are destined to be sinful needing atonement before God?  Or to raise a loving human who will sometimes make mistakes that can have consequences, but can be forgiven and who is accepted as they are by God?   Is it healthier to provide an environment where a child is loved, and taught how to understand their own emotions while reflecting on how their actions can affect themselves and others?  Can a child feel loved, if they don’t feel accepted without perfection?  We live in a society of human judgment.  Is it also necessary to be judged by a punitive God?  

 

I also know that when I was damaged, the witness of the love of God and acceptance by others was the healing force in my life and I am forever grateful.  I have also learned in the process of my healing not to dwell on guilt of my own past actions that had consequences and sometimes hurt others, but to do better.  This is to know the forgiveness of God. My emotions, actions and reflections will never be perfect, but God does not require perfection and what is in my heart cannot be hidden.  I know God’s grace and favors are constantly at work in my life.  And I smile now when he sends gentle reminders through others to do better. I know God loves and accepts me as I am and does not require atonement.  My focus is to spread the joy and healing power of God’s love to others.  This is to walk in the freedom and power of the Holy Spirit.