Tuesday, October 07, 2008
Sadly, We Need A Reason
Back in August, Fred Sanders wrote about humility:
Such concerns show me for what a silly person I truly am. Being a monarch is not inherently 'unhumble' - it is how one is a monarch that is at issue. And so we return to a favoriie theme here at Blogotional - humble leadership.
Much as Sanders points out that our redemption demands humility, how much more do the gifts we have for leadership? Humility is not a curative, it is a state of being. One could argue that humility is trait most necessary for good leadership, for the leader leads to serve, not to be served.
What Lewis has done in his images of humanity as monarchs of creation is not attempt to restore a failed organizational scheme to its rightful place, rather he has chosen to attempt to redeem it, not by changing the organizational scheme, but by redeeming the individuals that fill the roles within the schemes. The kind of true redemption that comes only from being humbly on one's knees.
I wonder why our schools of leadership do not teach humility? I wonder how one would?
Technorati Tags:c.s. lewis, humility, leadership
Generated By Technorati Tag Generator
“There are three great motives that urge us to humility,” says Andrew Murray in the Preface to his book Humility. The first is that we are creatures, the second is that we are fallen, and the third is that we are redeemed.My initial reaction to reading that first paragraph was what you see as the title to this post. But then that is precisely the point that Fred was making:
Humility is not just a kind of therapy that we sinners need until we get over our sin problem. Humility is the proper posture of our creatureliness, and the state we are being restored to by Christ. Humility isn’t just the medicine to heal us; it is the food to keep us alive, the food we would be nourished on even if there had never been sin or redemption.I have been thinking a lot lately about the theme of the kingship over creation that runs throughout the fiction of C.S. Lewis. We see it in the roles assigned the "sons of Adam and the daughters of Eve" in the Narnia books, but it is most notably present in Lewis' "science fiction" classic Perelandra. I have always been somewhat uncomfortable with that theme because being a monarch seemed somehow wrong, I felt people unworthy and it lacking in sufficient humility.
Such concerns show me for what a silly person I truly am. Being a monarch is not inherently 'unhumble' - it is how one is a monarch that is at issue. And so we return to a favoriie theme here at Blogotional - humble leadership.
Much as Sanders points out that our redemption demands humility, how much more do the gifts we have for leadership? Humility is not a curative, it is a state of being. One could argue that humility is trait most necessary for good leadership, for the leader leads to serve, not to be served.
What Lewis has done in his images of humanity as monarchs of creation is not attempt to restore a failed organizational scheme to its rightful place, rather he has chosen to attempt to redeem it, not by changing the organizational scheme, but by redeeming the individuals that fill the roles within the schemes. The kind of true redemption that comes only from being humbly on one's knees.
I wonder why our schools of leadership do not teach humility? I wonder how one would?
Technorati Tags:c.s. lewis, humility, leadership
Generated By Technorati Tag Generator
