Month: July 2011

Un-Leadership

I’ve always wanted to be a leader. I mow the lawn and take out the trash. I pay the bills. I’ve fed the dog and picked up the poop, just like a good leader should.

But I’m no leader.

I know this because I’ve been reading blogs about the subject. I’m finding out that true leaders can write and master multi-step action plans that make them superhumanly productive. They select and nourish positive, reinforcing team members around themselves. They demonstrate unequalled zest for adventure in their personal lives. Their professional success generates surplus income sufficient to spawn multiple non-profit organizations.

Does that describe me? Nope. I’m an un-leader. Here are some blog-harvested leadership skills I haven’t quite mastered:

  • How to be a responsive person
  • How to train my brain
  • How to become a better communicator
  • How to say “no”
  • How to promote myself
  • How to become a champion
  • How to build my own “platform”

…oh…and this one…

  • How to not feel overwhelmed

See?

I’m an un-leader because I can’t shrink my to-do lists; instead, they keep growing.

I’m an un-leader because realists are less popular than idealists; they don’t draw much more of a following than flies.

Bzzzzzzz.

If I Wrote a Song Today

If I wrote a song today, there would be a verse about birds because this week I witnessed two of them, on two separate occasions, helpless and injured on the sidewalk in front of me. One young bird fell out of the nest above my head just as I walked by. I might write a second verse that would ask what else I could have done besides simply walk by.

There would be a very long verse with too many words about my family, how much they mean to me, and how much I hope I mean to them.

There would be a verse about my great friend, who this week suffered a major heart attack and who is now in the hospital following surgery. I would tell of his long and loyal relationship over many decades, how he has enriched my life and how much better I have become by knowing him.

There would be a very short verse that would ponder whether or not my job is significant.

There would be a verse about people who ride the train, legs splayed, bags on cushions meant for passengers, their bodies blocking access to the seat next to them.

There would be a verse about seeing the reflection of my face, noticing no change day by day except for the deepening creases that somehow migrated there since a picture taken a decade ago.

In between each verse would be a majestic, joyful refrain—a sort of counterpoint—expressing gratitude to God for birds, for family, for friends, for jobs, for trains and for health.

What’s in the Backyard

Just beyond the prim, tidy front yard intended for view by the general public, lies a more restricted, wilder place, a vestige of nearly-forgotten cops and robbers chases, water balloon fights and a blow-up swimming pool with a three-week lifespan before the leaks would arrive.

Backyards hold private mysteries that go undiscovered even by others within the same household. Here, a mother recalls a hedgehog that tore up the lovingly-weeded annuals. There, children observed a feral cat bear her kittens, creating the myth of fierce cat-creatures that toy soldiers would hunt for several summers. Dreams of future baseball and soccer triumphs would eventually crowd out fights between plastic soldiers clutching plastic guns.

Gradually, the forgotten green soldiers buried themselves within misplaced Lego brick fortress walls, long since concealed beneath the roots of a giant oleander bush. There, they guarded the small menagerie of plastic farm animals. A tiny replica of Trigger peered into the dirt, searching for Roy Rogers, unaware of his presence six inches deep in the dirt just beyond the fading pink fragment of hula hoop.

Another world lay buried just below this community of plastic. It consisted primarily of rusting creations: toy cranes, a windup monkey frozen by time, and a piggy bank containing 16 coins, all bearing dates prior to 1930.

And so the sediment treasures continue downward, each layer less familiar and more mysterious than the one before. Who can know what lies beneath the ancient Indian relics and buckles of explorers, and what creatures conquered and then perished in a deepening layer of sediment before human witnesses existed.

It will be our turn to lay a layer down. As the gigabytes of discarded data settle into the next layer of strata, I’m hoping for more than irretrievable bits and bytes, more than fading plastic and more than rusted scrap metal.

I’m hoping for a layer that will last: for faith well-founded, for promises well-kept, for trust well-earned, for love well-invested, for encouragement well-placed.

There’s still time to build a better backyard.

Dividing the Light

As I walk past artist James Turrell’s architectural installation, the color of the light emitted from the art constantly changes against the evolving hues of the sky. The light-splashed square opening in the artwork frames the sky above, so the interplay of light is never the same from moment to moment, from sunrise to sundown. The combinations are unpredictable.

If our lives are the sculpture, the light we generate interacts against the backdrop of the ever-changing light of the world we live in. No wonder life can be perplexing. Sometimes we can manage a chameleon-like blend with our surroundings. Other times we feel an uncomfortable clash with our environment.

Or…huh…maybe it’s just a cool piece of art.