Once upon a time, the story goes, a teacher traveled with great difficulty to a faraway monastery
because there was an old monastic there who had a reputation for asking very piercing spiritual
questions. “Holy one,” the teacher said, “give me a question that will renew my soul.”
“Ah, yes, then,” the old monastic said, “Your question is ‘What do they need?’”
The teacher wrestled with the question for days but then, depressed, gave up and went back to the
monastic in disgust. “Holy one,” the teacher said, “I came here because I’m tired and depressed and
dry. I didn’t come to talk about my ministry. I came to talk about my spiritual life. Please give me
another question.”
“Ah, well, of course, now I see,” the old monastic said. “In that case, the right question for you is not,
‘What do they need?’ The right question for you is, ‘What do they really need?’”
Point: The ability to give meaning to life is the essence of spiritual leadership.
Immersion in the immediate, a sense of spiritual vision, the pursuit of learning and the courage to
question the seemingly unquestionable: these are of the essence of spiritual leadership. We cannot,
and should not, attempt to lead anyone anywhere unless we ourselves know where we are, where we’
re going and what dangerous questions it will be necessary to ask if we really want to get there.
In a century that has spawned Adolph Hitler, Ferdinand Marcos and Nicolae Ceausescu, on one side,
and Martin Luther King, Jr., Dan Berrigan, Dorothy Day, Rosa Parks, Eleanor Roosevelt and Mahatma
Gandhi, on the other, the problem of spiritual leadership and the questions that underlie it have never
been more urgent or confused.
Leadership is the ability to see the vision beyond the reality and to make a road where no one has
been. Spiritual leadership is the ability to question the present in order to show the way to the greater
good, whether it is popular to pursue that good or not. The questions of leadership are organizational
ones, of course, but they are spiritual ones too. They have something to do with the structures of
society, yes, but they have more to do with the spirit of that society and the compass of its soul.
Spiritual leadership is, as the psalmist says, the ability “to be a light in the darkness for the upright.”
And it is often a lonely, lonely task. Knowing where to go is one thing; breaking the path to it is
another.
And it is breaking the path that is of the essence of leadership. It is the spiritual leader who enables us
to tell one type of leadership from another, the life-giving from the death-dealing, the eternally
significant from the culturally correct. Spiritual leadership is not an exercise in social isolation.
Spirituality and spiritual leadership have something to do with critiquing the present, with envisioning a
better future and with asking the right questions as we go.
–from "Leading the Way: To Go Where There Is No Road and Leave a Path," talk given to the National
Education Association, Milwaukee, WI
because there was an old monastic there who had a reputation for asking very piercing spiritual
questions. “Holy one,” the teacher said, “give me a question that will renew my soul.”
“Ah, yes, then,” the old monastic said, “Your question is ‘What do they need?’”
The teacher wrestled with the question for days but then, depressed, gave up and went back to the
monastic in disgust. “Holy one,” the teacher said, “I came here because I’m tired and depressed and
dry. I didn’t come to talk about my ministry. I came to talk about my spiritual life. Please give me
another question.”
“Ah, well, of course, now I see,” the old monastic said. “In that case, the right question for you is not,
‘What do they need?’ The right question for you is, ‘What do they really need?’”
Point: The ability to give meaning to life is the essence of spiritual leadership.
Immersion in the immediate, a sense of spiritual vision, the pursuit of learning and the courage to
question the seemingly unquestionable: these are of the essence of spiritual leadership. We cannot,
and should not, attempt to lead anyone anywhere unless we ourselves know where we are, where we’
re going and what dangerous questions it will be necessary to ask if we really want to get there.
In a century that has spawned Adolph Hitler, Ferdinand Marcos and Nicolae Ceausescu, on one side,
and Martin Luther King, Jr., Dan Berrigan, Dorothy Day, Rosa Parks, Eleanor Roosevelt and Mahatma
Gandhi, on the other, the problem of spiritual leadership and the questions that underlie it have never
been more urgent or confused.
Leadership is the ability to see the vision beyond the reality and to make a road where no one has
been. Spiritual leadership is the ability to question the present in order to show the way to the greater
good, whether it is popular to pursue that good or not. The questions of leadership are organizational
ones, of course, but they are spiritual ones too. They have something to do with the structures of
society, yes, but they have more to do with the spirit of that society and the compass of its soul.
Spiritual leadership is, as the psalmist says, the ability “to be a light in the darkness for the upright.”
And it is often a lonely, lonely task. Knowing where to go is one thing; breaking the path to it is
another.
And it is breaking the path that is of the essence of leadership. It is the spiritual leader who enables us
to tell one type of leadership from another, the life-giving from the death-dealing, the eternally
significant from the culturally correct. Spiritual leadership is not an exercise in social isolation.
Spirituality and spiritual leadership have something to do with critiquing the present, with envisioning a
better future and with asking the right questions as we go.
–from "Leading the Way: To Go Where There Is No Road and Leave a Path," talk given to the National
Education Association, Milwaukee, WI
AFTER THE ELECTION
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