Pigeonhole Times #1.

So a few weeks back I received an amazing email from a friend.  She’s a fantastic writer and her emails always make my desk-job workday more enlightened.

{email}

I'm talking to Ellie about this right now, but I have to share this with the group because it's priceless.  There have been several country-wide protests (hartals) lately called by the opposition party.  The opposition leader, Khaleda Zia, announced she was going on a hunger strike for--wait for it--six hours.  Some people might consider a "six hour hunger strike" as "the time between lunch and dinner," but what do they know?

I love it.  This is classic Bangladesh politics: histrionic declarations of self-sacrifice/martyrdom matched only by tone-deaf self-absorption.  A six-hour hunger strike is like the bastard child of Gandhi and Marie Antoinette.

Does anyone know what happened to that guy who went on a hunger strike in India to end corruption?  I bet he starved to death.

Love,

Ellie’s friend

It was so funny that I decided I should send it on to my coworkers.  However, I work at a Christian organization and thus felt iffy about the email’s reception if it included the word bastard.  So, I decided to hit up my best-friend-at-work-website, thesaurus.com.

The best part was when a coworker walked up to ask me something, and this was definitely on my screen:

Thankfully it was a cool/young/hip coworker who wasn’t horribly offended by my depravity and we mostly just fell into a fit of muffled cubicle laughter.

Oh cubicles and the privacy from which you deprive us….

Christ-20!

The Jesus said to his disciples, "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me..."

 The Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 16, verse 24 

Today and tomorrow I'm spending my workday at the Global Leadership Summit hosted by the Willow Creek Association.

When I told Charlie about it the conversation went something like this...

E: Oh, by the way, you don't have to drive me to work on Thursday and Friday.  I'm going to this 'Global Leadership Summit.'
C: What is that, like a G-20 Summit, but for non-profits?
E: No, it's actually like a Christian leadership conference.
C: Oh.  So it's like a Christ-20 Summit.
E: I'm totally calling it that now.

I've been highly skeptical of the whole ordeal - although I am intrigued by some of the speakers (Michelle Rhee, Howard Schultz included).

I think the crux of my skepticism lies in the title of the event.  Global Leadership Summit.  It's not just an issue I have with this summit.  I felt this frustration during the 'Teaching as Leadership' workshops with Teach for America and throughout college extracurriculars.  My criticism lies in our society's idolatry and obsession with leadership.

Leaders are placed on a pedestal.  Leadership courses pervade almost every professional development curriculum.  Leadership has been set as the watermark of achievement for most employees across the majority of work sectors.

Now, of course I don't think there's anything wrong with training good leaders.  I recognize the high value and importance of raising up strong management.  However, my bigger question is...

...what of the followers?  What of focusing on right living instead of taking command?

As mentioned, I am deeply appreciative of a sound, capable superior.  In spite of the leadership frenzy, I think the number of solid leaders are very few and far between in all aspects of society.  I also recognize that we all lead and all follow in different seasons, and that we are often in a position where following and leading run together concurrently in our roles in life.

However I think there's some level of sickness and perversion of reality and responsibility when we berate everyone with messages to 'lead' and encourage no one to 'follow responsibly.'  I think this distortion of focus permeates the Church, political system and society as a whole in our country.

What of the idea of a Global Follower Summit, instead?

Sign me up.

The Sankofa Bird's Implications

I am on my way

I am on my way

I am on my way back to where I started

I had the pleasure of attending Bonnaroo this year.  I’ve never been hugely into the ‘music scene,’ but have thoroughly enjoyed dipping my toes into the water over the past year or two.

One of my good friends led me to a favorite Bonnaroo discovery, which was ‘The Head and the Heart.’  Today, while embracing this new-found love, I was reflecting on the general theme of the folksy, nostalgic ‘Down in the Valley’ and found myself mentally withdrawing to a course in African American Religion with Professor Ivory.

I-Man (aka Professor Ivory) emphasized the theme of time in African American Religion, particularly the concept of time in which ‘We walk backwards into the future…’

This summer has been full of family visitors which unfurled conversations between Charlie and I on our past, our history and how it affects our future.  I’ve also been led to reflect on our pre-marital counseling, which was invaluable – mainly because we spent a huge amount of time talking about our family histories and the remnants from them which we carry into our future together.

I’m prone to agree with I-Man and resonate with the theme that we do always carry our past with us, and we’d be well-served to ‘keep an eye on it’ and be aware of how the traits of our parents, grandparents, sibilings and our formative experiences are constantly feeding into our perceptions of future encounters.

But what of the core concept in ‘Down in the Valley’?  Are we all just ‘on our way back to where we started?’  Is everything fully cyclical, or is there some breakaway from our past? 

Of course we’re not going to take the exact path as those in our past.  Families and individuals are always shifting and moving in different directions.  I’m inclined to believe, though, that we’re moving more in the direction of our past than we realize.  Of course the manifestation of ‘moving into our past’ could look at face value to be very different than that of our predecessors.  But, if we dig deep enough, I bet we’d find that we’re chasing things that are similar to/ (or perhaps completely different) than our family, but that’s very motivated by what we inherited from them.

Anyway, I’d definitely say you should listen to ‘Down in the Valley.’  The sweet melancholy, impeccable harmonies and nostalgic themes will linger in the back of your mind; if we share any similar musical taste you’ll be totally okay with it.

In the words of Spock/{I-Man} ‘Live long and prosper {SCHOLARS}!’