Paying the price

Spiritual leaders understand that commitments come with a price....and they are willing to pay that price, whatever it may be.

Yesterday I had the opportunity to meet and visit with a retired BYU professor, Dr. Neil J. Flanders, who gave a speech at BYU on August 13, 1999 entitled The Search for Moral Harmony.

As I have pondered on his counsel I have been reminded of some words that are not only worthy of memorizing and pondering, but that should also be written upon the heart and lived by every leader who desires to be a spiritual leader and make a difference for our diverse learners.

The first are the lyrics of the song The Impossible Dream from the movie, The Man of La Mancha:

To dream the impossible dream

To fight the unbeatable foe

To bear with unbearable sorrow

To run where the brave dare not go

To right the unrightable wrong

To love pure and chaste from afar

To try when your arms are too weary

To reach the unreachable star

This is my quest

To follow that star

No matter how hopeless

No matter how far

To fight for the right

Without question or pause

To be willing to march into Hell

For a heavenly cause

And I know if I'll only be true

To this glorious quest

That my heart will lie peaceful and calm

When I'm laid to my rest

And the world will be better for this

That one man, scorned and covered with scars

Still strove with his last ounce of courage

To reach the unreachable star

The other words come from a letter written by Archbishop Tutu to Tim Wise, the author of White Like Me: (you can visit Tim's site at: http://www.timwise.org/ )

"You do not do the things you do because others will necessarily join you in the doing of them nor because they will ultimately prove successful. You do the things you do because the things you are doing are right."

Thomas Merton words provide similar counsel:

Do not depend on the hope of results. You may have to face the fact that your work will be apparently worthless and even achieve no result at all, if not perhaps results opposite to what you expect. As you get used to this idea, you start more and more to concentrate not on the results, but on the value, the rightness, the truth of the work itself. You gradually struggle less and less for an idea and more and more for specific people. In the end, it is the reality of personal relationship that saves everything.

Last of all is a scripture that comes from an epistle written by Mormon to his son, Moroni, found in the Book of Mormon:

"And now, my beloved son, notwithstanding their hardness, let us labor diligently: for if we should cease to labor, we should be brought under condemnation; for we have a labor to perform whilst in this tabernacle of clay....." Moroni 9:6

And added words by Albert Einstein to ponder: "Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds"

Spiritual Leaders Have A Cause--A Cause That Will Cost Something

Spiritual leaders have a cause--a belief in something greater than themselves and something they are not only willing to die for, but also to live for---no matter what the cost.

Great minds have causes. According to John C. Maxwell, people with a cause pray, risk, plan, observe, sacrifice, expect, and unite more than the ordinary person.

If one's cause is only personal ambition, it will be impossible to think outside of the box. Yet, thinking outside the box is absolutely essential if our diverse learners are going to be served.

I had a principal who told me that his goal was to become a superintendent. Once I knew this I knew that he would never do what it would take to make a difference for the diverse learners in our school who happened to be about 80% of the school population. Why? In order to become a superintendent he would have to focus his attention on pleasing higher up people and being liked by people. He was liked, and he even did some good things, but his ambition but a lid on what he could have done if his cause had been bigger than his own ambition.

Being committed to a cause, though, no matter how worthy that cause may be, comes with a price. John C. Maxwell says in his book, Be All You Can Be, that commitment to a cause goes through four stages:

Stage One: The world recognizes one's commitment

Stage Two: The world will be annoyed by one's commitment

Stage Three: The world will question one's commitment

Stage Four: The world will test one's commitment

Maxwell goes onto to say that one will come to a commitment to a cause crossroad when a choice will need to be made---a choice that will require a decision that will cost something. That cost may be a friendship, one's popularity, one's security, scorn from others, etc. It will be an all or nothing decison. Yet, that decision will be the turning point for the cause and when one can truly start to make a difference

It well may be said of a leader who is willing to make this kind of commitment the same as what was said of Esther in Esther 4:14,..."and who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom for such a time as this?"