Today's quote to read and then journal about is from French Canadian Jean Vanier. Vanier founded the international movement of communities know as L'Arche. L'Arche began in France when Vanier took two handicapped adults into his home. From that day, with the encouragement of his priest/spiritual father, Vanier opened forty homes in the same town and taught the residents and assistants how to live in a community with Jesus at the center. AWESOME stuff.
"Christian leadership is to trust people so much that they be deeply listened to, not to give them an ideology, not even a theology or ideology, but to experience, to help children to experience -- I’m talking about parenthood, but I’m talking about leadership -- that they find an experience of life, of love, of God. So it’s not putting stuff into people’s heads. It’s about giving them the occasion to live a deep experience where they discover who they are and the rising up of their personal consciousness. And discover who they are.
Now, is this different to any form of leadership? I don’t know.
It’s the helping those who are led to discover how precious they are and that must mean that they should be treated with preciosity, if that’s a word, with deep respect and deeply listened to.
So what is the information that they should receive? That means that for a Christian, they should be given a deep vision coming from the Word, the story of Jesus, the story of how he was close to the poor, because all leadership is to help people to become like Jesus.
The leader, well if you want to, the abbot of a Benedictine abbey, he shouldn’t be just a person who knows how to build abbeys. He should be a man deeply rooted in prayer. He is somewhere the model. Teachers shouldn’t teach ideas but they should be a model of what it is to be a disciple of Jesus. I mean they must become somewhat a sign of Jesus. But then Jesus goes on further and not only is the leader in communion with each one and what that means to be in communion, but is also leading them to a place of liberation and salvation.
Thirdly, he must reveal or she must reveal that they are ready to give their lives. Now what does that mean? It’s not necessary that you’re going to be crucified. Giving life is to show, well, you find it in the world of education or with educators: That they are living or present to delinquents -- not for their salary -- but because they love the people whom they teach. So they are giving. To give one’s life is to sacrifice certain personal ambitions. . . .
And you see we’re now talking about leaderships where the head of the bank has huge salaries instead of giving the salaries to everybody according to their gifts. That’s how it should be. So our world has gone mad through bad leadership. And it’s not just Christian leadership. It’s leadership. And I feel that frequently in our Christian vision, we’ve lost something about being human, about parenting, about leadership….
And I believe a lot in leadership. I believe in good shepherding but I believe it is a very human reality which we have to learn. So the question in itself carries a certain deviancy. But if you, all I’d say, is that grace should always perfect nature. The grace should help us become more human, not to make us, to take us away from our humanity."
- Jean Vanier, Founder of L'Arche Communities, Interview
Video of Interview:
http://www.faithandleadership.com/multimedia/jean-vanier-belonging-and-bonding
Ciao!
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