One of the truly great insights that I have often pondered comes from Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. Solzhenitsyn spent more then twelve years imprisoned in the gulag prison camps of Russia. Here is how he describes that dozen years of his life.
It was granted to me to carry away from my prison years on my bent back, which nearly broke beneath its load, this essential experience: how a human being becomes evil and how good.
In the intoxication of youthful successes I had felt myself to be infallible, and I was therefore cruel. In the surfeit of power I was a murderer and an oppressor. In my most evil moments I was convinced that I was doing good, and I was well supplied with systematic arguments.
It was only when I lay there on rotting prison straw, that I sensed within myself the first stirrings of good. Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either-- but right through everyhuman heart -- and through all human hearts. . . .
That is why I turn back to the years of my imprisonment and say, "Bless you prison!" I nourished my soul there, and I say without hesitation: "Bless you prison, for having been in my life."
The Gulag Archipelago, Volume 2, pps. 615-617
Workers at the Gulag Archipelago
Those of us who are called to lead, we have strong tendencies to see our work, our decisions, our actions as good. Others do not always experience us as such. We tend to see those who disagree with us as "bad." The world can easily become a black and white world, good and bad, divided in to those who are "with me" or "against me."
Solzhenitsyn had the grace of seeing that the world is not divided in to good and bad people. Instead, good and bad is in all people. And good people are capable of being very bad people and justifying it with very sincere arguments.
It is through suffering, and through times of silence and solitude as we reflect on our suffering, AND do this with the guiding Spirit of God, that we discover wisdom, we encounter truth about our selves and the world around us, and we discover the gifts of God.
Grace, forgiveness, mercy...
Second chances, fresh starts, new beginnings...
Freedom and transformation...
The opportunity to become instruments of grace, shalom and justice...
If and when this happens, we too, may say with Solzhenitsyn, "Bless you suffering, for having been in my life." You became for me, the time and the teacher of grace and true goodness.
May God give you EVERY EXPERIENCE YOU NEED in the season ahead, so you may become his ambassador of grace and goodness in the world around you.
Brian K. Rice
Leadership ConneXtions International
www.lci.typepad.com
