{"id":17465,"date":"2018-04-13T06:36:05","date_gmt":"2018-04-13T13:36:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dminlgp\/?p=17465"},"modified":"2018-04-13T06:36:05","modified_gmt":"2018-04-13T13:36:05","slug":"hell-in-the-hallway","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/hell-in-the-hallway\/","title":{"rendered":"Hell in the hallway"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I picked up the book Leadership Pain: The Classroom for Growth<\/em> by Samuel Chand and following the time-tested Adler practices learned in this course, I perused the front and back, along with Table of Contents, before looking at the back inside flap.[1]<\/a> There, staring at me was Dr. Chand, in all his airbrushed glory. My reaction, I regret to say, was not charitable. How would I learn anything about pain from someone who had some marketing agent eliminate any trace of angst from the photo? I wanted to hear from someone who had taken hits for the team, who had come eyeball-to-eyeball with death and had meekly survived.<\/p>\n

Thankfully, I discovered as I began reading, Dr. Chand did provide a back story that made him a credible witness. Born in India into a pastor\u2019s family, he emigrated to the USA at age twenty. These early years were lonely and challenged by poverty \u2013 he recounts not talking to his family for the first four years and relied on dumpster-diving at the local grocery store for food \u2013 and as an Indian immigrant in the Deep South, he faced hateful discrimination even from his Bible college board and staff. His own story of persevering through pain is echoed in over a dozen other leaders who recount their own unique challenges, and how God somehow, miraculously, takes devastating experiences and fabricates a new pathway forward that redeems the pain for positive impact.<\/p>\n

The book reads more as a devotional book than an academic exploration of the pain of leadership. However, one approaches stories contemplatively not academically. How can this story speak to me in my situation? The experience of Bishop Mark Chironna of Church on the Living Edge is one story that caught my eye, specifically for his use of the term \u201climinal\u201d. He identifies liminal space as being that critical juncture where pain meets us, and we are formed into someone new. He declares:<\/p>\n

\u201cLiminal space is a concept in theology and psychology. It is the intermediate, in-between, transitional state where you cannot go back to where you were because a threshold has been crossed, and you have yet to arrive where you are going because it is not yet available to you. Essentially it is the hallway between the past and the future. I can tell you quite candidly: it\u2019s hell in the hallway.\u201d[2]<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

When we\u2019re in our rooms, we\u2019re comfortable and occupied with the task at hand: in the kitchen we cook, in the bedroom we sleep, in the bathroom we shower and shave. The purpose of the room guides our activity and gives meaning. It\u2019s when we transition to the liminal space of the hallway that we let go of the former tasks and begin anew. No one normally camps out in a hallway. It\u2019s a place of surrender \u2013 a difficult process for those of us who love being in control and who are more concerned with image management than authenticity. With so much uprooting in the liminal space, it\u2019s also the time when God has the greatest opportunity to change us because our hearts are more tender and pliable in the midst of transition.<\/p>\n

Being in limbo is an opportunity to rest in God and trust Him for His provision and leading. It\u2019s also a place where strategic life decisions are made that propel us forward into a better future. I think of our various readings over this course which proclaim this same truth.<\/p>\n

We learn of Ignatius in Chris Lowney\u2019s Heroic Leadership<\/em> and of his militaristic past, and during a long recovery from injury found himself captivated by a book on the lives of the saints. \u201cA profound and permanent religious conversion during his convalescence gave him a spiritual destination, but translating that goal into mature, sensible engagement in the everyday world proved a long, drawn-out, torturous process.\u201d[3]<\/a> In the solitary year he spent in bed, Ignatius gathered a vision that would lead him to begin a company of pilgrim activists that continues to shape our world.<\/p>\n

Sometimes being stuck in the hallway means living in the tension between certainty and doubt. Dominic Erdozain, in The Soul of Doubt[4]<\/strong><\/a><\/em>, writes of Luther, Spinoza, Calvin, and Wesley, and their theological meanderings which abandoned the primacy of the Catholic church in setting doctrine, and drove the responsibility to the individual to ascertain truth. Many of these characters would live in the liminal space that forced and cultivated greater faith. When we abandon institutions, we force ourselves into the hallway to recognize our own need for vibrant faith.<\/p>\n

Finally, the metaphor of William Cavanaugh\u2019s book, Being Consumed<\/em>, speaks to a place of liminality. He holds up the Eucharistic bread as the Body of Christ, and we see in this the self-surrender of our Lord, leaving his identity and place of belonging to become one of us. \u201c\u2026[T]he mission of Christ is also the very form of self-emptying, in which he who is in the form of God is abandoned to the cross\u2026 Thus, in the very discipleship in which the Christian \u2018loses his soul\u2019, he can attain his true identity.\u201d[5]<\/a> In the Lord\u2019s surrender, we find ourselves. It\u2019s another gift of the liminal space where leadership pain bears lasting fruitfulness.<\/p>\n

In the pain of my own leadership, I\u2019ve found regular spiritual direction with a discerning friend to be a life-saver to offer a different, more robust perspective while I\u2019m stuck in the hall. He follows an Ignatian spirituality, and together we\u2019re reading James Martin who cites the example of Ignatius.<\/p>\n

\u201cIgnatius \u2026 reminds us to strive for indifference to all created things. That means not shrinking from accepting sickness, poverty, dishonor, or even a short life. Through a variety of meditations [in the Spiritual Exercises], Ignatius reminds us that life will often present us with hardships: this is assumed in the Exercises, as it is assumed in the Christian tradition.\u201d[6]<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

We will encounter all kinds of pain on our journey. Will we run from it, or allow it to change us as we wait in the hallway?<\/p>\n

________________________________<\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> Adler, Moritmer J., and Charles Van Doren. How to Read a Book<\/em>. (New York: MJF, 1972), 34.<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> Chand, Samuel R. Leadership Pain: The Classroom for Growth.<\/em> (Nashville TN: Thomas Nelson, 2015), 56.<\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> Lowney, Chris. Heroic Leadership: Best Practices from a 450-Year Old Company That Changed the World<\/em>. (Chicago: Loyola, 2003), 41.<\/p>\n

[4]<\/a> Erdozain, Dominic. The Soul of Doubt: The Religious Roots of Unbelief from Luther to Marx<\/em>. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 2015.<\/p>\n

[5]<\/a> Cavanaugh, William T. Being Consumed: Economics and Christian Desire<\/em>. (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2008), 83.<\/p>\n

[6]<\/a> Martin, S.J., James. The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything: A Spirituality for Real Life<\/em>. (New York: HarperOne, 2010), 293.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I picked up the book Leadership Pain: The Classroom for Growth by Samuel Chand and following the time-tested Adler practices learned in this course, I perused the front and back, along with Table of Contents, before looking at the back inside flap.[1] There, staring at me was Dr. Chand, in all his airbrushed glory. My […]<\/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":[1182],"class_list":["post-17465","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-chand","cohort-lgp8"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17465","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=17465"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17465\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17470,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17465\/revisions\/17470"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17465"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17465"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17465"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}