5 practices for adaptive leadership

The speaker at our chaplains' conference writes on adaptive leadership, an idea that Heifitz has developed, to make our leadership less personality oriented and technical, and more responsive to complex problems of organizations. Parks presented her concept of 5 practices to put into motion leadership when we are faced with complexity:

1. The practice of acknowlegement--seeing what is, and what we might become, getting out of cultural comfort zone to include more students/faculty/administrators and diverse opinions and contexts in our campus ministry.

2. The practice of discernment--helping students and young adults to use critical thought processes to ponder: what is; what is needed; what should be shed; what we need to atune ourselves to; exploring possibilities; incorporating new patterns; then embodying our new knowlege.

3. The practice of the hearth--incorporating both motion and stability, Sabbath in time and space; contemplation and action in renovating ourselves and our organizations.

4, The practice of the table--based on the fact that we become a group when someone brings food; sharing at the table, both receiving and giving (Benedictine type of hospitality).

5. The practice of the commons--helping our students to connect to the fabric of life through service in community, helping their initiation into suffering and wonder.

As you can tell these are fascinating topics and I have not been able to flesh them out very well in this short blog. Sharon Daloz Parks is a Quaker who is very spiritually grounded in her concepts of learning and leadership. It was wonderful to have her presentations at his conference. She reminds me of my therapist in Lexington--centered and wise. Her book Leadership Can Be Taught, I highly recommend. She has a couple of others that are good as well.

Jazz Mass July 13

 

The Feast of St. Benedict (transferred) will be celebrated at Mission House (203 East 4th St in Lexington) with a Jazz Eucharist on July 13. Come join the young adult musicians and bring a picnic and your lawn chair at 6 pm.

Chaplains' conference

I am headed to Seattle for the Episcopal Campus Ministry conference.
Our guest speaker wrote a book on ministry with young adults, so it should be a good conference. I will see some friends there, including Michael Fincher, Chaplain at UCLA and Liz Stedman, chaplain at Northwestern.

Forgiveness

Tomorrow's gospel is the story of a prostitute who washes Jesus's feet with her tears and dries them with her hair. Simon the Pharisee is outraged about who she is, and her uncleaness touching Jesus. Jesus uses the opportunity to teach about forgiveness. The prostitute's sins were forgiven, so much more so since she had so many of them, but even so, the Pharisee did not see his own sins, which also were forgiven. Had Simon known his own forgiveness, maybe he would have been able to see the forgiveness that the prostitute had too.

None of us do anything to merit forgiveness in God's eyes, yet we require all manner of apology, contrition, punishment, and worse, sometimes death, before we will forgive others. It is a form of arrogance that we do this, because, if God in God's wisdom and mercy forgives each of us, who are we to hold other people to a higher standard than God?

It is a dilemma, and the way we have set up society, that we often require proof of another's contrition in order to restore our relationships. I know I have sought another's apology before being able to have the breadth of heart and generosity of spirit that allows me to forgive easily. Countryman says that our own lack of forgiving can be traced to our not accepting that God has already forgiven us too. That, yes indeed we need forgiveness and that it is offered free for nothing.

What would it mean if each of us accepted our forgiveness? It would mean we could admit freely our lack of meeting our own standards, be truthful about ourselves and about the hurts and anger we have sustained from the actions, thoughts and work of others. Once we accept this outpouring of God's love, we come to accept ourselves with all our warts, and we also become converted to have the mind of God, that is, to see the world as needing forgiveness. We see that we can be instruments of God's peace and forgiveness in the world, being authentically who we are, forgiven in our own humble human state.