HEED. LEAD. LOVE.
Caught up as howl fights howl tribe by tribe,
one million species quiet go extinct.
Too much just "me" too little "we" describe
a planet and democracy so kinked.
How smart we've been these past one hundred years--
Amazon Prime, no God, the bomb and such.
Yet all we've won has come at cost so dear:
in balance, faith, and soulful human touch.
Now systems giv'n by God are overreached.
Humanity cries out for leaders new.
To rally wealth and people to the breach,
to do what only gifted leaders do.
Servant leader, can you hear Creator’s cry?
“To Me, beloved, first. Then fly. Fly. FLY!”
Rising Leader,
It is winter in Minnesota. Trees and fields are cloaked in white. In our backyard, the fox is in her foxhole. Treetops shelter squirrels as they snuggle in their nests. Flocks of people and birds have headed south for the winter– though many of both still remain. Even now in the centerpoint of winter, life thunders on. Just this morning, a family of deer ambled along the treeline out by the shed. A gaggle of wild turkeys sprinted across the road. Two down-jacket-clad women walked past me along a forest trail, talking up a storm, mist-clouds lingering in the air.
Life. From season to season, from generation to generation, from sea to shining sea and from continent to continent, it pulsates. A continuous, rolling, generative explosion, bursting all around us. Is this not the work of our Creator God?
“You alone are the Lord.
You have made the heavens,
The heaven of heavens with all their host,
The earth and all that is on it,
The seas and all that is in them.
You give life to all of them
And the heavenly host bows down before You.”
-- Nehemiah 9:6
If God is in all life emergent, the love energy that flows through all people and things, then God is our Creator. He conceives us, births us, and nurtures us. Which makes me wonder– do we pay enough attention to the maternal nature of God? Perhaps it’s time for us to widen our God-concept. For it is written: “God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply…” (Genesis 1: 27). Yes, God made all people– women as well as men– in His own image. Humanity in all its male / female complementarity is made by God, to be like God. God is fertile. God is plentiful. God is protective. God is ever-caring. These descriptions sound mother-like, don't they?
Once we sense gifts of motherhood as well as fatherhood in God, we begin to see a bigger, more complete Creator. As we do, we are not changing Him– we are changing ourselves. As we probe the depths of God’s love and care for all life, we begin to care more deeply too.
But God gave us free will. For too many decades, we humans have abused that freedom to plunder the planet. Nuclear powers have tumbled recklessly from hate to demonization to war. Too often, in our tribalism, in our embrace of autocrats, we have acted in ways that weaken democracy. Caught up in our small circles of care, too often we have failed to respond to the critical life-giving needs of so many around us. Given freedom, all too often we have done the small and selfish thing. How much different it would be if leaders of goodness all around the world were to ask each day, “What would Creator God do?”
Rising leader, you are our future. Your God-concept impacts your ethical formation. Will you look at the world as a mother would her children? Life is exploding all around you– look how bountiful, how threatened, how vulnerable, how worthy it all is. God has made us His creation’s stewards. He calls out for leaders to rise up, to come to the aid of all life. To run to those in need. To save our world for our children’s children’s children. Are you ready to respond?
Next week, we will consider God’s immanence– His presence in all people and things. And what it means for leadership.
“As a mother comforts her child, so will I, God, comfort you; and you will be comforted over Jerusalem.”-- Isaiah 66:13
WIth love for life,
Tom
(For past letters and songs go to: TomMohr.com. To add people to the mailing list, click here.)
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