My kind of pep talk.

I've been going around grumbling inside my head. "Our leaders suck and that sucks, and we can't do anything about it because everybody sucks."

Yes, I'm that articulate inside my head these days.

And outside my head?  Stunted, perhaps, by the lack of adequate vocabulary?

I haven't been saying much out loud, at least not when it comes to anything related to leaders and authorities.  Dinner table conversation in that direction has largely petered out, and not necessarily been replaced by anything more wholesome; given a conversational vacuum, the children will squabble, or talk about cartoons.  There's always the latest technical challenge from Mark's job, or what the kids' schoolwork is like, and other normal things; but there's a gap that used to be filled with "Did you see where...[political or legal or Catholic-church-related news item]?" and it's mostly empty, because who wants to ruin dinner?

Indeed, this post will also be short.

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Why?  Why do we have such bad leaders?  Why?  Why?  Why?

Even the "good" ones we have right now, or the good potential ones who might come along to replace the bad ones, well, likely they only seem good by comparison.    Add a little power to the mix and who knows what you'll get.

The answer comes back bearing either despair or hope, depending on which way the coin comes down, or is it which way we turn it:   

I, too, am a leader.  

And I know what's in myself, what I hide and what I display, what I work for and what I let fall.

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I saw a video clip of an ice tsunami yesterday:  a sheet of ice gently approaching a sloped pebbly beach, and suddenly crumbling on itself and piling higher and higher, shoving sand and pebbles out of its way, overflowing like foam, building into an unclimbable wall. 

Such is the effect of the force and weight of our small decisions, adding together.  

It's neither an absolution nor a condemnation.  It's just that however placed, we all have the potential inside us, the potential to do terrible things, at least things that feel terrible and look terrible to the inner heart of someone who depends on us.   To lead badly.  To lead directly into the abyss and to take others with us.  

Bloom where you are planted has a flip side.

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And the source of both the dismay and the hope is the apparent smallness of what I can or must do about it.

Our leaders suck, eh?  

That's a figure of speech.

Despair, the belief that everything, everyone, every system, is permanently broken, sucks too:  sucks you in, sucks the energy and light out of the room, sucks everything towards itself, creates an inflowing wind, one that's hard to push against.

But what is broken outside myself is the same kind of thing that's broken within myself, and---difficult as it is, I know something about how the little breach in me is to be repaired.   And I know, too, who looks to me.  I am a leader as well.  

So.  There's something I can do.   Now is the acceptable time.

 

Comments

[mandamum]

I was thinking about this just yesterday, as I said yet again, "What we need is not to X, but rather to live Christian marriage excellently..." and then petered out because I have had some serious reality checks this week about how badly I'm failing on that front. So how can "we" possibly live marriage excellently, when I can't even live my (lovely) marriage to my amazing husband half-way decently? But you're right, now is the acceptable time.