LeadershipConneXtions

Wendell Barry and a "Mad Farmer Mnifesto" in Election Times

It was the Tuesday night of the election, our Board meeting had ended and I walked into the office of my friend, Aaron. We talked about the early returns and our thoughts on the candidates. Aaron shared with me this poem from Wendell Barry. It is:

 Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front.

I have read it a half dozen times since then. I've reflected on it. It just really speaks to me. I hope you'll be moved by it as well. I provide the first and last stanza, but to honor copyright I've left off the middle three stanzas. The entire poem is found on the In Context website. Please visit that site.

Love the quick profit, the annual raise,

vacation with pay. Want more

of everything ready-made.  Be afraid

to know your neighbors and to die.

And you will have a window in your head.

Not even your future will be a mystery

any more. Your mind will be punched in a card

and shut away in a little drawer.

When they want you to buy something

they will call you. When they want you

to die for profit they will  let you know.

 

So, friends, every day do something . . .

Ask the questions that have no answers . . .

Put your faith in that two inches of humus . . .

 

Go with your love to the fields.

Lie down in the shade. Rest your head

in her lap. Swear allegiance

to what is nighest your thoughts.

As soon as the generals and the politicos

can predict the motions of your mind,

lose it. Leave it as a sign

to mark the false trail, the way

you didn't go. Be like the fox

who makes more tracks than necessary,

some in the wrong direction.

Practice resurrection.

 

Brian Rice

Leadership ConneXtions International

Poetry That Sustains Leadership

Maybe you are like me and don't normally associate poetry and leadership together in the same thought!

Leading From Within: Poetry That Sustains the Courage to Lead by Sam Intrator and Megan Scribner thinks there is a meaningful connection between leadership and poetry.

I have a friend, Aaron, who is passionate about poetry and who is deeply moved by its beauty and images. I have been struck by how poetry is part of his transformation process.

From time to time I read poetry, but find that I have to "work a little" to get into it, or maybe for it to "get into me." So when another friend Byron recommended this one, I thought I'd try it.

It is a collection of reflections by 93 leaders on leadership (usually a one page reflection) and then a page that has a piece of poetry that has sustained them in their leadership.

The main idea behind this book is that leaders need to keep their hearts warm and alive in the process of the challenging task of leadership. For some leaders, poetry is one way to do that.

In the preface, the authors refer to Edward Hirsch, who describes poetry as passionate, private communication from one soul to another (from How to Read a Poem and Fall in Love With Poetry).

I have found some of the poetry to be very moving, while others didn't grab me. Still, I am finding it enjoyable. I read a few of the reflections and poems each day.

Here are a few lines from Wendell Perry (Sabbaths) that I found meaningful, especially since I was just developing a new leadership session that looked at biblical images, including that of the farmer. The idea of hard work, yet trusting in God's grace and providence - this is the essence of farming.

By our ten thousand days of work.

Harvest will fill the barn; for that

The hand must ache, the face must sweat.

And yet no leaf or grain is filled

By work of ours; the field is tilled

And left to grace. That we may reap,

Great work is done while we're asleep.

Whether it is through poetry or something else, the important question is: How do you keep your soul warm, alive, responsive, passionate and engaged with life?

Brian Rice

Rilke on A Few Good Sources

For many years, I have wanted to read Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke. I just picked up a copy and have read the first two letters in it. The following quote moved me:

Of all my books, I find only a few indispensable, and two of them are always with me wherever I am. They are here, by my side: the Bible, and the books of the great Danish poet Jens Peter Jacobsen. . . . Live for awhile in these books, learn from them what you feel is worth learning, but most of all love them. This love will be returned to you thousands upon thousands of times, whatever your life may become - it will, I am sure, go through the whole fabric of your becoming . . .

I think Rilke is saying something important to us. There is a great value in going very deep into just a few core sources... And sitting with those sources for a long time... Returning to them often and revisiting their pages... Learning from them, loving them, and allowing yourself to be shaped by them.

I don't think Rilke is telling us we can't read widely and learn from a multiplicity of sources. But he is telling us that some of the best learning comes from immersion in just a small number of sources.

What are the two or three CORE sources of your learning?  What do you find yourself returning to over and over? Share your sources by clicking on the comment section.

Brian Rice

Christmas Reflection: The WORD Made Flesh

"The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us."  (John 1:14)

Incarnation.  Immanuel.  Eternal Word, with us, housed in flesh.  T.S. Elliot says:

Words strain,

Crack and sometimes break, under the burden,

Under the tension slip, slide, perish,

Decay with imprecision, will not stay in place,

Will not stay still.

The indescribable, the unfathomable, the inconceivable . . . somehow we must borrow slippery, imprecise words that crack under the strain as we use them to understand the Christmas story and to tell that story to others. Or, perhaps instead, we "fall on our knees" in wordless worship and adoration.

May you have a personal and immediate experience of the transcendent this Christmas Season. May your heart celebrate what your mind cannot fully articulate.

Brian Rice