WHO PUT YOU IN CHARGE? Reflections on Leadership

A Sermon by James Ishmael Ford
16 February 2002

The Text

The ancient sages were profound and subtle
Their wisdom was unfathomable.
There is no way to describe it.
All we can describe is their appearance.

They were careful
As someone crossing an iced-over stream.
Alert as a warrior in enemy territory.
Courteous as a guest.
Fluid as melting ice.
Shapeable as a block of wood.
Receptive as a valley.
Clear as a glass of water.

Do you have the patience to wait
Till your mud settles and the water is clear?
Can you remain unmoving
Till the right action arises by itself?

The sage doesn’t seek fulfillment.
Not seeking, not expecting,
She is present, and can welcome all things.

I am having a wonderful experience as an intern supervisor. Suzanne will have to speak for herself in this matter, of course. But, me, I’m having a hoot of a time. Along with all the rest of what we must do together, we try to sit down for an hour every week to analyze what’s been going on, what it might mean, and how we might improve things next time around.

I also get to tell her to do stuff, like read certain books, and then to be prepared to discuss them. Now my friends can only hope I read what they think I should. But poor Suzanne must actually read the books I give her. Of course, she is a graduate student, and she is taking classes, and our denominational ministerial credentialing process in fact requires she reads hundreds of books. And I would be crueler than I am if I didn’t keep that in mind. So, in fact, I’ve only required her to read one book so far in our intern relationship.

That book is the Tao Te Ching. I’ve alluded to it on any number of occasions in our time together. It’s an ancient Chinese text, one of the source documents of the Taoist faith, an indigenous Chinese religion; one might say the earth-centered tradition of Chinese culture. It’s a collection of eighty-one brief poems; as the story goes collected by a gatekeeper at the Great Wall before he would allow the old librarian Lao-tzu to pass on and out retiring to the west.

Without a doubt the Tao Te Ching is a central book in my spiritual life. I re-read it at least in significant part every year, and have for thirty years and more. I don’t think it contains all the secrets of the universe. I even disagree with some of its premises. But, I do believe, it comes close to saying what’s what in the world. It speaks of the nature of wisdom, it talks about human relationships, and it describes in some detail the "hows" and "whys" of leadership.

There is so much suffering going on in the world. This war that is gathering is only the violent tip of a vast iceberg. On Thursday I was helping Jackie Colby and her crew at our Newton Food Pantry. One of the workers was telling us about her neighbor, a poor Russian immigrant, living a precarious existence right here in Newton. She’d fallen, and her lower denture was shattered. And a new one is not coming, not for a long time, maybe not ever.

Our co-worker at the Food Pantry told us this woman was grateful people had brought her soup, food she could eat. The old woman exclaimed to our friend how lucky she felt. In our relative affluence, we can forget that getting soup can be lucky. To notice such a thing can be horrible. It can break the heart. Knowing this small anecdote is about an event here in our town this last week; can be devastating.

And of course what goes on out in the world is even worse. The sadness and hurt all around us is so terrible it might be overwhelming. We might want to turn away from it. We might want to pretend it isn’t there. But we can’t. We can’t. Too much depends upon us, upon you and me, and upon Suzanne. This world of sadness and hurt, which is also a world of possibility and dream, demands action, demands leadership.

As my part of our shared enterprise of helping to take this bright, no this brilliant young woman who has decided to dedicate her life’s energy to the service of the world, and particularly through our old and precious liberal faith, is to give her the best tools I can. This is part of our work as a teaching church, as a congregation that has taken on the task of helping in the preparation of our future religious leaders. Giving the best we can.

Well, like for us Unitarian Universalists, Taoists often say start with the real. Of course this is itself a daunting enterprise. We have to open ourselves to a universe that is vast, much bigger than our senses ever tell us, a universe in many ways simply incomprehensible.

In the first chapter of the Tao Te Ching we hear.
The Way that can be told
is not the eternal Way.
The name that can be named is not the eternal Name.

The unnamable is the eternally real.
Naming is the origin
of all particular things.
Free from desire, you realize the mystery.
Caught in desire, you see only the manifestations.
Yet mystery and manifestations
arise from the same source.
This source is called darkness.
Darkness within darkness.
The gateway to all understanding.

Out of the nameless source all things spin. Named they include you and me, Saddam Hussein, Kim Il Jung and George Bush, cats and rats and dogs and cows and motes of dust and the Milky Way. But the naming only happens in our human minds. This naming is powerful and useful, but not in any ultimate sense true.

The world is in fact in flux, not just the world of physics, but the world of relationships, the world we occupy, the world with shoddy and well-made artifacts, the world with good and evil choices. Apparent opposites in real life situations are frequently simply two points on a wave in the sea, at the top a crest, at the bottom a trough. Now this, now that; but always profoundly connected. Even good and evil are inescapably connected. And because of this it is essential to know how these seeming opposites in fact create each other.

Here we find lessons from the Tao Te Ching. In the twenty-first chapter, slightly modified from Stephen Mitchell’s translation.

The sage keeps her mind
always at one with the Way;
that is what gives her her radiance.

The Way is ungraspable.
How can her mind be at one with it?
Because she doesn’t cling to ideas.

The Way is dark and unfathomable.
How can it make her radiant?
Because she lets it.

Since before time and space were, the Way is.
It is beyond is and is not.
How do I know this is true?
I look inside myself and see.

What we need to live successfully in the world is to understand how opposites rise and fall and their essential commonality. Real life, as many of us often observe, is rather more like a dance than anything else. We need to learn the arts of leading, of following, and of course of knowing when to sit one out.

As we come to see both aspects of reality, the differentiations and the commonalities then we create that binocular vision which allows our actions to be more skillful, more helpful, more in tune with what is. Seeing into how we truly are profoundly interconnected and at the same time how we differentiate is essentially learning the dance.

If this is true, as I believe it is, then we also need to reorder our priorities, even our ethics. Action and in-action are pared, at one moment action is called for, while at another in-action, or perhaps better, non-action is the right thing. We need to understand how rest and action are crest and trough.

So many things flow from this realization of our true relationships with each other and nature. For one: we need to always look to the here and now, and not appeal to some future time or place. Reason is revealed as important, terribly important, but not sufficient to solve all our problems. We need to bring our minds our hearts and our bodies to the present moment.

Another of the lessons we can glean from the Tao Te Ching: all moral codes, all moral codes are contingent; we really do live in a world of situational ethics. We never know enough. The compass is always a bit wobbly. So, we desperately need always be open to other points of view, hearing, seeing as many perspectives as possible.

Finally, just in case this is not obvious from what has been said so far, in all this there is no separation between our ideals and our actions, we are what we do, the spiritual and the material, like energy and matter, are in fact, one thing.

In the sixty-seventh chapter we are told
Some say that my teaching is nonsense.
Others call it lofty but impractical.
But to those who have looked inside themselves,
this nonsense makes perfect sense.
And to those who put it into practice,
this loftiness has roots that go deep.

I have just three things to teach:
simplicity, patience, compassion.
These three are your greatest treasures.
Simple in actions and in thoughts,
you return to the source of being.
Patient with both friends and enemies,
you accord with the way things are.
Compassionate toward yourself,
you reconcile all beings in the world.

Simplicity, patience and compassion. The old motto, "Keep it simple, stupid" is in fact a profound spiritual truth. We often try to churn up more than there is, when just letting what is be, can often be enough. Also we need to take long views. Sure, a hungry woman right now needs soup. So give it to her. But, we also need to look to a world where such a thing is unthinkable. And work toward that, knowing it is probably planting and cultivating a tree the fruit of which we will never see.

And in all of this, we need to feel compassion. We’re always talking about the family. You, me, George, Il Jung, Saddam, Osama; we’re all in this together. We don’t need to like each other; we may even need to stand up to one or another of the family, sometimes perhaps with violence. We live in a glorious but also a terribly dysfunctional family. Still, we always have to remember whatever action we take that we’re talking about doing that with a member of the family.

So, what does leadership look like from this perspective of family, of dance, of crest and trough in the great sea? There are any number of verses in the Tao Te Ching describing the way of leadership. Here I would like to hold up just one more of those brief chapters, this one the fifteenth.

The ancient sages were profound and subtle
Their wisdom was unfathomable.
There is no way to describe it.
All we can describe is their appearance.

They were careful
As someone crossing an iced-over stream.
Alert as a warrior in enemy territory.
Courteous as a guest.
Fluid as melting ice.
Shapeable as a block of wood.
Receptive as a valley.
Clear as a glass of water.

Do you have the patience to wait
Till your mud settles and the water is clear?
Can you remain unmoving
Till the right action arises by itself?

The sage doesn’t seek fulfillment.
Not seeking, not expecting,
She is present, and can welcome all things.

I find the ordering of advice significant, so Suzanne and all among us who have the obligation in these difficult times of taking on the responsibilities of leadership, that might be worth noticing. First, a note pointing out the philosophy of it all is elusive. So notice, but don’t waste your time trying to put everything into boxes. Observe the messy and be prepared to live in a world that isn’t going to be what you expect or want or think should be.

Be open to the world. Glorious and so beautiful it can be hard not to weep at the sweetness of it all. And so awful, hunger and suffering stalking the world, where children are left without families, the aged without support, the needy without a hand to reach out. This is the world that calls for our hands, for our caring, for our doing, for our leading.

Then some words on how to do, how to act, how to be in this dynamic and mysterious universe. First, be careful. Be as careful as if you are walking along black ice. Be as careful as you would be crossing over a frozen river. Similarly, remember all the unpleasant connotations in the image of a soldier in enemy territory. Lives depend upon your actions. Open your eyes. Open your ears. Smell. Taste. Let your touch tell you the ten thousand messages it can. Be aware.

But also, always, everywhere, be on your best behavior. Be like a guest, because you are. Everyone, the whole glorious universe, is setting out a banquet, and not only should you show up, but you should be grateful. And in all this meet people where they are. When cancer has riddled a body don’t pretend it’s the flu, when someone’s child has taken off for college remember the hope and anxiety, when someone’s child has entered the army, remember it all. Shape to the situation; don’t bring your own opinions of should or could. Be present.

Allow yourself to be like that block of wood, just there, ready to be cut, ready to be shaped by the situation and the need. Receptive as a valley, all things flow toward you and your care and your motherly compassion receives the need. Of course, to do this successfully you need that clarity; you need to be as clear as that glass of water.

This reveals how you avoid being a doormat, or a victim. Suzanne, you have chosen a path of giving. We call it leadership, but it is all about giving. In reality we all have, everyone who tries to walk a path of authenticity, have taken on a way of giving, of openness, of caring. So, how do you avoid being destroyed by this?

At the same time as you are acting and giving, you need to know that clarity. You need, in your own way, to discover how to let the mud settle, how to let your own thoughts and fears and assumptions settle to the bottom. They don’t go away, these things are part of what makes us up, but they don’t need to be stirred up into our everyday life, they can be the sediment at the bottom of the glass.

In that stillness we all can find, we do discover the right thing, a right thing to do. We do this as we let go of what we think should be, and open ourselves to what is. Be present, welcome all things, and then the world truly is yours.

So, Suzanne, read that little book I gave you. Reflect on it. See how its passages inform you in your own way, with your own history, and with your strengths and weaknesses and dreams and possibilities. This path is sometimes called the watercourse way. Consider this as possibly the way of authentic leadership. Maybe this is true for all of us. Perhaps.

Amen.