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If even a sliver of the virtue of humility grows out of the ground of my soul today, it is only because I am old enough to be well acquainted with the overpowering effects of sin, the realities of personal limits and liabilities, and the corrosive effects of perpetual accomplishment. Beyond that it is because I have slowly(!) come to appreciate the grandeur of God and my place before him as a small child.
"The way of the Christian leader," wrote Henri Nouwen, "is not the way of upward mobility in which the world has invested so much, but the way of downward mobility ending on the cross. … It is not a leadership of power and control, but a leadership of powerlessness and humility in which the suffering servant of God, Jesus Christ, is made manifest."
Nouwen's words drip with mystery. They make little sense in the life where planning, promotion, creativity, and charisma seem to mean everything. But this is the direction for the leader who lasts and who, in the end, may not produce large institutions but will eventually produce great saints.
Productive Compassion
If I were forced into silence, I would wish, secondly, that people would see the evidence of compassion as a product of my soul work. Compassion: the ability to identify at heart level with the vulnerabilities, fears, and sorrows of others. And to identify in such a way that one is not paralyzed but energized with great love.
An e-mail came to me this week from someone who wished to know whether or not they would really be welcomed in our congregation if certain secrets in their life were revealed. "I don't want to be somebody's project," this person wrote.
Those words bored into my soul because I realize how easy it is to slot people, as projects, into programs and bypass the taxing experience of authentic identification with struggle.
I'll be frank with my opinion. The larger world is not picking up the signals of compassion from the branch of Christianity of which I am a part. While Nicholas Kristof of The New York Times often applauds our movement for its far-flung programs in AIDS, home building, hospitals, and disaster response, we are not known as compassionate people as we do these things. All our good efforts are covered by the sense that we are proud, angry, and vindictive in our selective approaches to those needing some form of redemption.
I don't want to be perceived as a hard person with an accusatory message who occasionally does good deeds. Much better to be perceived as the wounded healer who exchanges his bandages with the one who has none to offer back.
Steadfastness, Not Stubbornness
If I were to live in total silence, I would wish, thirdly, that spiritual formation would produce steadfastness in me. Steadfastness is not stubbornness, nor is it a resistance to change. Instead it is a ceaseless embrace of certain purposes and commitments from which one will never retreat.
Steadfastness means reliability of character, fulfillment of promises, faithfulness to key relationships, and (most important) living in obedience to Jesus.
Such steadfastness has not been a part of my nature. If it is part of me today, it is because I have had to acquire it. The impulse to quit, to avoid, to cut and run comes naturally to me, and were it not for some mentors and a very strong wife who challenged me to face this, I have no idea where I'd be today.
It was in the process of spiritual formation that I faced down the "quitter's gene" that lives in me. Through rebuke, through the inspiration of the lives of the biblical greats (and the saints beyond them), and through the encouragement of my personal community, I acquired something of the discipline of steadfastness. Today I like to think that I'm a pretty good "sticker," but without the continuous restoring of the soul, it just wouldn't have happened.
