{"id":15122,"date":"2017-11-09T15:27:26","date_gmt":"2017-11-09T23:27:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dminlgp\/?p=15122"},"modified":"2017-11-09T21:11:18","modified_gmt":"2017-11-10T05:11:18","slug":"a-beautiful-death","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/a-beautiful-death\/","title":{"rendered":"A beautiful death"},"content":{"rendered":"

When I received the DMin reading list this past summer and saw that Heroic Leadership<\/em> by Chris Lowney was included, I smiled.\u00a0 It was the same book I had encountered over a decade ago.\u00a0 I had found it so remarkable that I bought a box and mailed them out as Christmas gifts for Canadian parachurch leaders who I had worked with that year.\u00a0 Leadership books in the business sector are a dime a dozen, but ones like Heroic Leadership<\/em> that counterintuitively give light to a humble but noble pathway are not.\u00a0 They deserve a slower, more contemplative, read.<\/p>\n

The author, formerly a priest, now turned wealth manager, reveals that the heart of Jesuit education and 450 years of that order\u2019s impact lies in the four qualities of self-awareness, ingenuity, love and heroism.\u00a0 The Jesuit model explodes the \u2018one great man\u2019 model for the simple reason that everyone has influence, and everyone projects influence \u2013 good or bad, large or small \u2013 all the time.\u201d[1]<\/a>\u00a0 Great leaders \u201cset themselves apart from the mainstream\u201d[2]<\/a>, and quietly, persistently listen to their heart and march to a beat of a different drummer.<\/p>\n

The timing of the reading of this book is curious. Just last week we were remembering the 500-year anniversary since Luther nailed his 95 Theses <\/em>to the Wittemburg door, and launched, whether he intended it or not[3]<\/a>, the Reformation of the Church by change from without.\u00a0 Within the same general time frame, Ignatius of Loyola, 450 years ago, represented a leading vanguard of the Counter-Reformation \u2013 change from within \u2013 that began to challenge the same egregious excesses of the Church a few decades later.<\/p>\n

If we examine what made Ignatius a great leader, it wasn\u2019t necessarily his charisma or drive, but a self-awareness that came from a deeply personal and mystical encounter with Christ while writing the Spiritual Exercises.\u00a0 He met Jesus, and was transformed by Him; this wasn\u2019t just an inward change he arrived at through personal study. \u00a0Meeting Christ propelled him outward to launch foreign outposts and educational institutions as the Compa\u00f1\u00eda de Jes\u00fas<\/em>, his gathering of stalwart friends, walked together in shared mission. With rhythms of action and contemplation, Ignatius was \u201ca contemplative person even while he was in action.\u201d[4]<\/a><\/p>\n

At a critical juncture in my life I found myself in Bogot\u00e1, where we had once lived as missionaries. I knew I needed to meet Christ using these same Exercises that Lowney calls a life-long development tool. I called the Jesuits and found a spiritual director, Hermana Patricia, a beautiful nun, who was trained in leading people through the rhythms of consolation and desolation that accompany those who follow the Exercises.\u00a0 She walked with me for eight days in a convent, breaking silence only during our hour-long reflection times each day.<\/p>\n

The beauty of the Ignatian Exercises is that they are so centred in the Gospels, and specifically rooted in the drama of the last week of Christ\u2019s passion on earth.\u00a0 The Exercises invite one to imagine a different scene each day. You picture yourself with Christ while in the Upper Room, you walk with Him to the Garden, you stand alongside during the mocking, abuse and betrayal by the authorities, you limp together down the Via Dolorosa to Calvary. Then you watch and listen to His love expressed to you. In my experience it was deeply moving and life-altering. \u201cLoyola intuitively grasped what every competent therapist understands about self-discovery and what every quality manager understands about motivation: the switches are on the inside.\u201d[5]<\/a>\u00a0 I needed inner transformation to be ready for outward action.<\/p>\n

Tomorrow I am flying to Vancouver to be with a new client named Doris, who is also a dear, long-term friend. \u00a0Her husband, Ray, has just died after 22 months of a valiant and exhausting struggle with cancer, and his Celebration of Life service is being held on Saturday.\u00a0 Though all death is unwanted and horrible to witness, in some respects, this was a beautiful death.\u00a0 What made it unusually hopeful was the way Ray confronted his mortality face first.<\/p>\n

Here is Ray\u2019s last blog post before he died:<\/p>\n

\"\"I can\u2019t walk anymore, so we have had a parade of people over this\u00a0<\/em>last week walk into our bedroom to see me. \u00a0Some have sat or even laid beside me on our bed. \u00a0Others have stood, and we have held hands, and others have chosen one of the many chairs which have mysteriously wound up in our room\u2026. Gone are the days when we worried about people seeing the scuffs on the wall, or the worn out carpet, or our 1980\u2019s dated bathroom\u2026all of that stuff which was so major not that long ago seems so trivial.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Death is a mystery and most of us are curious when it comes to the subject, but we don’t talk about it a lot. The process of dying is even more mysterious, and I think one of the reasons that I am still here is so that people can watch what it looks like to die and imagine, what it might look like for them when their day comes. So instead of looking at the type of bedroom suite we might (or might not have) people are looking at what matters\u2026they are looking into their hearts and wondering about their mortality.[6]<\/strong><\/a><\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As Ray was confronted by his own imminent death, it birthed an exceptional degree of self-awareness.\u00a0 Lowney says that transformational leaders are twice-born, they have gone through the fire and emerge owing nobody nothing.\u00a0 He writes that \u201c[Ignatius] understood how he fit into the world and that it was not a hostile place.\u201d[7]<\/a> \u00a0Only self-aware people live with this freedom unafraid. They possess a unique joy not found amongst those who strive and are driven to success.<\/p>\n

One of Ray\u2019s unusual empowering acts during his months of slow dying was to create, together with his wife, a foundation that would be endowed with his life insurance payout. \u00a0Incredibly, on the day of Ray\u2019s death, the Canada Revenue Agency[8]<\/a> called with the announcement that the application for the new foundation had been approved. \u00a0Over the next years the family will have the responsibility and the joy of disbursing funds for the most marginalized in the name of Christ. \u00a0To me, this represents true, self-aware, heroic leadership.\u00a0 It is a life beautifully lived, a death beautifully died.<\/p>\n

_______________________________________________<\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> Lowney, Chris. Heroic Leadership: Best Practices from a 450-Year Old Company That Changed the World<\/em>. (Chicago: Loyola, 2003), 18.<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> Lowney, 21.<\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> I don\u2019t think he ever intended a split.<\/p>\n

[4]<\/a> Ruiz Jurado, Manuel. For the Greater Glory of God: A Spiritual Retreat with St. Ignatius.<\/em> \u00a0(Frederick MD: The Word Among Us, 2002), 11.<\/p>\n

[5]<\/a> Lowney, 115.<\/p>\n

[6]<\/a> Ray Olafsen, \u201cFacing Mortality: A Shared Piece by Ray and Doris,\u201d Caring Bridge Blog, October 18, 2017, accessed November 9, 2017, https:\/\/www.caringbridge.org\/visit\/rayolafsen\/journal<\/a>.<\/p>\n

[7]<\/a> Lowney, 45.<\/p>\n

[8]<\/a> The Canadian equivalent of the IRS.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I received the DMin reading list this past summer and saw that Heroic Leadership by Chris Lowney was included, I smiled.\u00a0 It was the same book I had encountered over a decade ago.\u00a0 I had found it so remarkable that I bought a box and mailed them out as Christmas gifts for Canadian parachurch […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":100,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2,1017,933],"class_list":["post-15122","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-dminlgp","tag-lgp8","tag-lowney","cohort-lgp8"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15122","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/100"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15122"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15122\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15168,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15122\/revisions\/15168"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}