Glimmer of Hope

Source: cbsnews.com

Yesterday, I read of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s moving tribute to the victims of Auschwitz, which he was visiting for the second time. There was another quite different tribute from President Obama, his farewell speech to the people he has served for the past eight years. I read or listened to them within hours of each other. In between, I took in my daily dose of the goings-on at Trump Tower and other power enclaves pertaining to the incoming US President and his chosen few, some of whom are already distancing themselves from their master. Hopefully, they will at least put some brakes on the madness.

Hope is what we need right now – hope in the face of real global danger and the human capacity for pure evil, as Archbishop Justin Welby described it from Auschwitz. Hope is sustained by a basic faith in people, that people have goodness and wisdom in them, even in the darkest of times.

Most of us hope we can simply do a little better this year than we did in previous years. But hope is not just a matter of wanting to do a little better. “Could do better” was what we used to read in our school reports, the most damning indictment and signal of hopelessness that any child could receive. I think I would have preferred to have been deliberately and downright bad at something, than to be told that I ‘could do better’. I have often wondered if the teacher was simply in a hurry to get through her pile of reports. Could she (it was always a ‘she’ in my case) put a face to the name? And if she could, did she care enough to qualify that terse remark, a remark which can completely skew an individual’s life? ‘Could do better’, but somehow never will.. because.. who knows? And who cares? Next report card.

There is a connection to be made here between authentic teachers and genuine leaders. Both have power to a greater or lesser extent, power over people’s lives or over the future of nations. Genuine, or authentic, leaders are also innately teachers. They have authority. What is needed from leaders is not power but authority. Power is not the same as authority and it rarely brings out the good either in those who have power or in those over whom they exercise it. It is possible to be powerful and have little or no genuine authority (as with certain media and business moguls) and equally possible to have real authority but little or no power, Christ himself being the supreme example of this.

Authentic leaders embody hope because they have this Christ-like authority. They have no need to posture in any way, to adopt a public figura. They are quite comfortable being who they are, even if they are not naturally gregarious. They do not court popularity or put themselves in a position where they are obliged to return favours. They simply want the best for the people they serve, whatever form their leadership takes, whatever the power, and whatever the status it does or does not bring with it. Their authority speaks to the goodness in people and so brings hope. As the outgoing President said in his farewell speech “Democracy works when our politics reflect the decency of our people”. Authentic leaders teach hope through example, thereby bequeathing real political authority to those they serve.

Authority in leaders is often recognised as a glimmer of hope, in small gestures which speak of mercy and the loving kindness of God. They have a certain way of making eye contact. They take a certain affectionate initiative in all their encounters with people. They often have formidable powers of recall. The previous Archbishop of Canterbury could meet someone in a local church gathering and remember their name, only having met the person a number of years before on the day he confirmed them. Years later, he would greet them in a way which signified genuine recognition, saying their name in the way you do when you meet an old friend. That is authentic leadership.

In embodying God’s mercy and loving kindness, authentic leaders are bearers of hope. Hope is not the same thing as optimism. It is not conveyed through mere conviviality. It is not some passing joy, gone with the handshake. Optimism often comes with not being prepared to look at unpleasant realities and come to terms with the things, or the people, they fear – not being prepared to look them in the eye. For certain kinds of leaders, optimism is best conveyed through minimal eye contact because the optimist really has nothing to say to the person whose hand they are shaking. Eye contact makes a powerful person vulnerable to being asked questions. The slightest social exchange makes them accountable as leaders.

An optimist does not make a good leader. Authentic leaders will have looked at what people fear and felt the fear themselves, alone, perhaps as they pray or meditate. Such moments return them to their people in the deepest sense and return them to God who alone is the source of hope. Prayer and meditation return us to the place of our own innate goodness, and to where the wisdom of God indwells us as a people. It ought to be the bedrock of our politics.