{"id":25876,"date":"2020-02-14T08:43:44","date_gmt":"2020-02-14T16:43:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dminlgp\/?p=25876"},"modified":"2020-02-14T08:43:44","modified_gmt":"2020-02-14T16:43:44","slug":"what-narrative-will-we-follow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/what-narrative-will-we-follow\/","title":{"rendered":"What Narrative Will We Follow?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The famous or infamous University of Toronto professor and clinical psychologist Jordan B. Peterson, PhD, is an unlikely celebrity in our current culture. Known for his straight forward demeanor and political incorrectness. He is also the author of 12 Rules for Life <\/em>and this weeks reading Maps of Meaning.<\/em><\/p>\n

In Maps of Meaning, <\/em>Peterson sketches out a monumental philosophical work in which he interprets myth, religion, history and philosophy . If I were to boil Peterson\u2019s work down to one thought, it is about the purpose of life and the responsibility of each adult to pursue that purpose.<\/p>\n

One of the underlining themes in Peterson is that we (human beings) live life based on narratives that are both known and unknown to us. Peterson\u2019s writes, \u201cAdults embody the behavioral wisdom of their culture for their children. Children interact with adults, who serve as \u201ccultural emissaries\u201d, he continues saying, the \u201ccollective unconscious\u201d that constitutes the basis for shared religious mythology is in fact the behavior, the procedures, that have been generated, transmitted, imitated, and modified by everyone who has ever lived, everywhere\u201d.<\/a>[1] In layman\u2019s terms, the stories we have passed down from generation to generation, in both word and behavior, have shaped us all. There is much more to say about his work, I really liked the Hero and Antihero piece, but I could not shake past this revelation in the book.<\/p>\n

When I think about my life, there was a narrative that was passed down from generation to generation as far as I could remember. In summary it is, we will never be more than poor, stay out of jail and close to family and everything will be alright. Although I saw other narratives from books and tv shows it was not until I met Christ that I found a narrative that actually change my life and gave it meaning. The late Viktor Frankl, Austrian neurologist and psychiatrists, in his book, Man\u2019s Search for Meaning, <\/em>\u00a0writes about the meaning of life through the experience of surviving the concentration camps saying,<\/p>\n

we had to teach the despairing men, that it did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us. We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life\u2014daily and hourly. Our answer must consist, not in talk and meditation, but in right action and in right conduct. Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual.<\/a>[2]<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What I love about this statement is that it puts action\/responsibilities back into the hands of the one pursuing the meaning. I would add that as we enter into the narrative that Christ has for us, then we find the true purpose and meaning in our lives. This is why in my concept of Paracletic Leadership, we are continuing the work of Christ not trying to start something new. Paracletic leadership is sequent<\/em> and does not start with the current leader. Instead, it is a procession into which a person enters. As Anderson points out, it \u201ccontinues the ministry of Christ through the presence and power of the Holy Spirit.\u201d<\/a>[3]<\/sup> This is an important distinction from the popular understanding of where leadership begins.<\/a>[4]<\/sup> This distinction sets the mark for leadership in the person of Christ and his work, establishing it as being sequent, or a continuation of Christ\u2019s work.<\/p>\n

When critiquing the celebrity culture of leadership within the American church, theologian Len Sweet further asserts that Christ is the church\u2019s only leader, and we are \u201cfirst followers.\u201d<\/a>[5]<\/sup> Because it leads by following, paracletic leadership is therefore paradoxical. As Sweet correctly says, \u201cThe Jesus paradox is that only Christians lead by following.\u201d<\/a>[6]<\/sup> By definition then, the framework of paracletic leadership anchors the individual or organization to a starting point outside of self\/itself, yet without diminishing the role of internal or self-leadership, which is the \u201cself-influence process through which people achieve the self-direction and self-motivation necessary to perform.\u201d<\/a>[7]<\/sup><\/p>\n

\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014<\/p>\n

<\/a>[1] Jordan B. Peterson, Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief, (New York, NY: Routledge, 1999), 82-83.<\/p>\n

<\/a>[2] Frankl, Viktor E., Ilse Lasch, Harold S. Kushner, and William J. Wnislade. Mans Search for Meaning. Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 2014.<\/p>\n

<\/a>[3] Anderson, Shape of Practical Theology, <\/em>195.<\/p>\n

<\/a>[4] Self-awareness plays a vital role in the development of a leader. However, leadership theories tend to attach leadership\u2019s starting point to the individual. See Peter G. Northouse, Leadership: Theory and Practice <\/em>(Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2018), 2\u20135.<\/p>\n

<\/a>[5] Leonard Sweet, I Am a Follower<\/em> (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2012), 23, Kindle.<\/p>\n

<\/a>[6] Ibid., 21<\/p>\n

<\/a>[7] Christopher P. Neck and Jeffrey D. Houghton, \u201cTwo Decades of Self-Leadership Theory and Research: Past Developments, Present Trends, and Future Possibilities,\u201d Journal of Managerial Psychology <\/em>21, no. 4 (June 2006): 221, DOI 10.1108\/02683940610663097.<\/p>\n

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

The famous or infamous University of Toronto professor and clinical psychologist Jordan B. Peterson, PhD, is an unlikely celebrity in our current culture. Known for his straight forward demeanor and political incorrectness. He is also the author of 12 Rules for Life and this weeks reading Maps of Meaning. In Maps of Meaning, Peterson sketches […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":117,"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":[571],"tags":[1779,1778,1541],"class_list":["post-25876","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biography-drama-history","tag-maps-of-meaning","tag-peterson","tag-spirit-led-leadership","cohort-lgp9"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25876","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\/117"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25876"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25876\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25877,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25876\/revisions\/25877"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25876"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25876"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25876"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}