The Flower
This has been a hard week to work in the world of immigration. To put it bluntly, I am exhausted and weary. Executive Orders regarding immigration seem to be coming at lightning speed and it is challenging to stay on top of them. Add this to barrage of needs and requests and it feels a bit overwhelming. The heaviest weight of the week though comes from Christians who insist on defending indefensible actions from a Christian perspective.
How do we lead in hard times? Some leaders choose to be angry about everything and be loud all the time. Some leaders choose to ignore the world around them and stay focused on the small world around them they can control. I don’t want to fall into either extreme. I want to be the one who is willing and able to speak up when a voice is needed but at the same time, I don’t think my voice is the one needed every time. So, when we do choose to speak out? This week I have chosen to speak out.
In the reading this week I was reminded, “To be effective in a multicultural, multinational, globalized world, leaders must be agile and realize that their first job is to find out what’s going on in their own context and make sense of it!”[1] This was great advice and I don’t know if I was already doing this before I read it or if reading it changed what I was doing. When the Executive Orders came out, I sought out my local contacts who could fill me in on what this meant for our community. In our community alone, forty-five recently arrived (legal and vetted) refugees had their money that was promised to them taken away leaving them without a job, or the ability to pay rent. Taking in all the information I was able to discern quite readily how this will affect us locally and how many families need others to stand in the gap.
A second lesson learned from this reading is to approach the situation with humility. I have had so many Christians want to argue with me about fiscal responsibility while neglecting responsibility of caring for the least of these. The author writes, “humility is powerful because it allows you to treat others well and with respect. Humility is real, not perfect. It inspires trust and helps to build bridges as you try to connect the dots between who you were, who you are, and who you are becoming.”[2] Am I willing to approach each interaction with the humility it needs? I hope so, but I am wearing thin. I am reminded of the need for grit. Duckworth writes, “Grit has two components: passion and perseverance.”[3] I have the passion. This week I need the perseverance.
For grit to sustain me over the long-haul, and I do see this being a long-haul I realize the need for margin. There is a need to balance work-life and home-life even when much of work-life happens from the home. Thankfully, when I left Kenya a few years ago I realized the need to keep margin in my life and to keep myself from falling into the American trap of structing every hour of my day. One of the articles states, “I discovered margin is the space between my load and my limits. Its significance lies in its purpose: a space for relationships.”[4] Since I had already built margin into my schedule, I am able to fill it this week with building relationships. I am meeting with a few of those people who might disagree with me and disagree with the topic I am choosing to be vocal about. It almost seems that if I disagree and am vocal against something our President does then it is a personal attack against themselves. There seems to be something inherent about Trump supporters and the need to defend him for each decision he makes.
One of the brilliant aspects of this book was the artwork and pictures of nature interspersed throughout the articles. I find it is always helpful for me to get outside and see God’s beauty in everything around me when I get stressed. Hutchinson adds that it is a helpful way to manage burnout and mental acuity.[5] This is why I garden. Being in my garden helps me find creative ways to play in the dirt and watch the beauty of a flower unfold. The challenge I find myself in right now is my garden is frozen over. Though my garden is a frozen tundra, the artwork presented was simplistic and a reminder that I can find beauty in even the smallest things if I take the time to notice. As I wrap up this busy day, I want to take the time to notice them.
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[1] “Illuminaire,” Illuminaire, 2024, 29.
[2] “Illuminaire,” 44.
[3] Angela Duckworth, Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance, First Scribner trade paperback edition (New York London Toronto Sydney New Delhi: Scribner, 2018), 56.
[4] “Illuminaire,” 78.
[5] “Illuminaire,” 55.
About the Author
Adam Cheney
I grew up in California, spent five years living along the beautiful coast of Kenya and now find myself working with refugees in the snow crusted tundra of Minnesota. My wife and I have seven children, four of whom have been adopted. I spend my time drinking lots of coffee, working in my garden, and baking sourdough bread.11 responses to “The Flower”
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Adam, your reflections on leadership in hard times and the balance between speaking out and maintaining humility really resonate. You mention the need for margin as a space for relationships and the importance of finding beauty even in difficult seasons. How have you seen this practice of margin tangibly affect your ability to sustain both passion and perseverance in your advocacy work over time?
Glyn, (with a ‘y’)
Quite simply, the answer is because I am still in it. When I lived in Kenya I moved there with a more utilitarian mindset regarding a garden. Everything I planted had a purpose and usually that was to be eaten. Along the way, I began to need and to crave beauty. In such a spiritually dark area, I craved all that I could find that was beautiful. So, I slowly began to plant simply for the sake of beauty. That change in my gardening changed the way I saw the world. I began to see beauty in the places I had not noticed before.
Adam, I hear your frustration and weariness and don’t really have a question today. In 1999, my husband was working for an org. that re-settled refugees. All their people were frozen out after 911, which obviously was an atrocity, yet the collateral damage was also real and painful for innocent people. I will be praying for you and the work that has become much harder in this time of transition. In the meantime, I also pray that you find a way to recover from the weariness. God bless you.
Diane,
Thank you for your support and concern.
Thanks for your honest post Adam. I think its brilliant and courageous that you are using your margin this week to meet face to face with people with whom you disagree. How is it going? How I you holding your margin in those spaces as well as finding time to process these more intense conversations with God or a trusted friend?
Ryan,
I have two hard conversations this weekend and early next week. I have intentionally scheduled these meetings around other friends that are more life-giving and give me a place to relax. This way, I can enter into these harder meetings with a healthy perspective.
Adam,
Thank you for your words. Thank you for the passion you have for working with immigrants. I pray that God provides you the perseverance needed as we know this is going to be a long battle.
God I ask thank you for the passion Adam has for working with the least of these. I am so thankful that he sees each person as beautifully created in your image. Lord please provide Adam the perseverance that he needs to continue to speak up for those who do not have a voice. Please be with his family as he creates time in the margin to love on them. While flowers are not going to be blooming anytime soon in Minnesota, I would ask that you might help him to see something else in your natural creation that would renew his soul.
Adam – Not a real deep leadership question, but what is your favorite flower(s) to grow?
Jeff,
Great question! The picture above is from a tulip bulb I bought in Oxford at the market when we were there. I bought a dozen different bulbs and planted them here. I love that tulips are some of the first flowers to fight off winter and usher in a new fresh season. I also love a perennial called “bleeding heart.” Every year it is fun to watch the hearts develop.
We have a few tulips but I too love the bleeding hearts. When we vacation in West Virginia we have found bleeding hearts in bloom and they look a lot different than the ones in our yard. We affectionately call them hillbilly hearts. My wife’s family originates from WV so she can get away with using that terminology.
Adam,
Thank you for your work/ministry and the care you are bringing to those who have risked so much only to have their hope deeply threatened. May the God of hope sustain you. I will be praying with you this weekend for the meetings and the 45 families. I know there are so many more, but having “45 families” gives me a place to focus and keeps me prayerfully connected to the greater tension.
Adam, this was a beautiful and honest post. It’s good that you have intentionally built margin into your time. Recognizing that God is almighty and uses all things for His glory, how do you make sense of the difficulties you see and experience regarding refugees? How do you guide people to continue trusting God?