{"id":28267,"date":"2022-02-23T19:51:42","date_gmt":"2022-02-24T03:51:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/?p=28267"},"modified":"2022-02-23T19:51:42","modified_gmt":"2022-02-24T03:51:42","slug":"stress-to-strength","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/stress-to-strength\/","title":{"rendered":"Stress to Strength"},"content":{"rendered":"

Simon Winchester, the author of The map that changed the world<\/em>, writes about the epic and stretched journey of William Smith, a geologist who mapped the first ever geological map of England, Wales, and southern Scotland, which gave way to modern geological discoveries. The book can be categorized under biography, and Winchester describes the revolutionary story of how one man named William Smith, a canal digger, someone who has no scientific training, becomes obsessed with the idea of creating the first geological map by following the fossils. Smith spent twenty-five years traveling all over England and published his first masterpiece that took his lifetime to achieve: an 8 ft by 6 ft hand-painted map that changed the world.<\/p>\n

From reading the book, I saw William Smith as someone who definitely possesses a pioneering character and visionary spirit. When everyone around him was skeptical, William Smith \u201cbelieved that there would be a pattern out there\u201d[1]<\/a> that would prove to be true after centuries of his research and hard work. The book reveals that Smith had to battle almost all of his life against skepticism, criticism, financial difficulties, sickness and diseases, marital relationship problems with his wife, abandonment, long physical and mental suffering, and fraud from his colleagues and friends.<\/p>\n

How was he able to endure through such long-suffering? I understand that he had a goal he desired to reach \u2013 to \u201ccreate what had never been created before a true geological map.\u201d[2]<\/a> Winchester describes Smith\u2019s lifelong obsession to be a \u201cwork of genius, and at the same time a lonely and potentially soul-destroying project.\u201d[3]<\/a> One of the leading distinctions that I admire from Smith\u2019s character was his dedication to hard work and resilience against loneliness. His life journey required unimaginable physical and intellectual difficulty \u2013 \u201cit required tens of thousands of miles of solitary travel, the close study of more than fifty thousand square miles of territory\u2026the task required patience, stoicism\u2026 It required a certain kind of vision, an uncanny ability to imagine a world possessed of an additional fourth dimension, a dimension that lurked beneath the purely visible surface phenomenon of the length, breadth, and height of the countryside, and because it had never been seen.\u201d[4]<\/a> Smith did not have a team, he didn\u2019t have mentors, and he didn\u2019t have the right resources, but he did have one of the strongest leadership ethics built-in him over the various trials he survived through in his life. Northhouse, author of Leadership<\/em>, described leadership ethics as \u201cconcerned with what leaders do and who leaders are. It has to do with the nature of leaders\u2019 behavior, and with their virtuousness.\u201d[5]<\/a> As I have been reflecting on the concept of tempered resilience \u2013 \u201cresilience comes from the stress that creates strength\u201d[6]<\/a> I am reminded through Smith\u2019s life that his view of stress was totally different from how the typical crowd view stress. A leader requires a certain kind of vision, an uncanny ability to see beyond the visible fossils of the past and look beyond what will shine through the fiery fire.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cSo that the tested genuineness of your faith\u2014more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire\u2014may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.\u201d \u2013 1 Peter 1:7 –<\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> Simon Winchester and Soun Vannithone, The Map That Changed the World: William Smith and the Birth of Modern Geology<\/em>. Reprint edition (New York, NY: Harper Perennial, 2009), 78.<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> Winchester, The Map That Changed the World<\/em>, 125.<\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> Winchester, The Map That Changed the World<\/em>, 192.<\/p>\n

[4]<\/a> Winchester, The Map That Changed the World<\/em>, 192.<\/p>\n

[5]<\/a> Peter G. Northouse, Leadership: Theory and Practice<\/em>. 8th edition (Los Angeles: SAGE Publications, Inc, 2018), 336.<\/p>\n

[6]<\/a> Tod Bolsinger, Tempered Resilience: How Leaders Are Formed in the Crucible of Change<\/em> (Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 2020) 195.<\/p>\n

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

Simon Winchester, the author of The map that changed the world, writes about the epic and stretched journey of William Smith, a geologist who mapped the first ever geological map of England, Wales, and southern Scotland, which gave way to modern geological discoveries. The book can be categorized under biography, and Winchester describes the revolutionary […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":145,"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":[2221],"class_list":["post-28267","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-winchester","cohort-lgp11"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28267","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\/145"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28267"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28267\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28268,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28267\/revisions\/28268"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}