Servant Leadership

There is a call that must be answered. We can try to ignore it by overworking, over achievement and self indulgence but the beckoning continues. We can plead that our resources are limited but the summons persists. We can appeal that the physical or emotional barriers in our lives make it impossible but the invitation will not be dismissed. We are called to serve others. We do not have to abandon our lives and lifestyles to answer it but we must respond with direct action. Serving the needs of others connects us to our common bond. It allows us to go beyond the narrow range of daily activities to a place in which we feel fully human. We have the ability to become servant leaders.

Servant leadership is a philosophy of compassion. The phrase was derived from the work of Robert Greenleaf in 1970. Centers from The School of Servant Leadership in Washington, DC to The Greenleaf Center in Indiana and countless other schools around the country have risen to the call of the leader as a servant. It is a philosophy that, when embraced, calls the individual to community. Mercy and justice become overriding concerns. Competition yields to cooperation. Servant leaders not only nurture but embolden others. Their compassionate mission welcomes the poor and the wealthy, the prisoner and the executive, the mourner and the celebrant. They erase the distinctions that divide us and provide a vision of an interconnected human family.

Starting out on a path of servant leadership requires only that we pose the following questions to ourselves:


• How can I spend more time other people?

• How can I bring some joy into the situation that faces me?

• How can I listen with greater intensity?

• How can I share my love?

The behaviors will follow the questions. We will find that we are engaged in the most meaningful and enriching times of our lives. It takes some effort and some courage but it can be done regardless of who we are. This is the way of spiritual living. It is what every religion tells us to do. We have not yet realized what we profess to believe until we rise to follow the call.

Holy Saturday ~ Developing An Ability To Grieve

I wrote last year about the darkness of pathless places. Holy Saturday brings us here, as it always does, to look into the depth of emptiness. Why? Most of the contemporary Christian churches diminish or just ignore this day. We crowd it in to a passion play and move quickly to the happy ending. It is hard enough to deal with the tragedy of death and horror of the ordeal of Jesus’ path. It makes it even worse to have to sit and wait, in the unrelenting darkness of grief that comes with Holy Saturday. We just can’t seem to come to terms with it.

Our culture cannot tolerate or honor sustained grief. We demand that the business of it move along and get done. Our patience with those who suffer wears thin and we want them to “get over it”. This inability to allow grief to process is powerful force that plays a major role in much of the depression and chemical dependence that I treat every day in our outpatient clinic. It lies at the bottom of unresolved emotions and unfulfilled actions that have been repressed in a desire to make people believe that “everything is okay”.

We do not always have to be left with comforting words. Sometimes we have to be joined in silence and allowed to wail. There comes a time when the harsh reality of pain, loss and suffering must be experienced. Lincoln understood this as he gave his address at Gettysburg. Whitman grasped it as he wrote “O Captain! My Captain!” A writer named Adolofo Quezada lost a young adult son and lamented his “dreams forever unfulfilled”. After a near breakdown, he came to believe that if he allowed himself to let go and experience all that comes of grief, then and only then, would he find the comfort of new life.

Keeping Quiet ~ by Pablo Neruda

Now we will count to twelve
and we will all keep still.

For once on the face of the earth
let's not speak in any language,
let's stop for one second,
and not move our arms so much.

It would be an exotic moment
without rush, without engines,
we would all be together
in a sudden strangeness.

Fishermen in the cold sea
would not harm whales
and the man gathering salt
would look at his hurt hands.

Those who prepare green wars,
wars with gas, wars with fire,
victory with no survivors,
would put on clean clothes
and walk about with their brothers
in the shade, doing nothing.

What I want should not be confused
with total inactivity.
Life is what it is about;
I want no truck with death.

If we were not so single-minded
about keeping our lives moving,
and for once could do nothing,
perhaps a huge silence
might interrupt this sadness
of never understanding ourselves
and of threatening ourselves with death.
Perhaps the earth can teach us
as when everything seems dead
and later proves to be alive.

Now I'll count up to twelve
and you keep quiet and I will go.

Pablo Neruda (1904-1973), "Keeping Quiet"
Extravagaria (translated by Alastair Reid)
Jonathan Cape, London, 1972, pp.27-29