{"id":29082,"date":"2022-10-13T19:36:01","date_gmt":"2022-10-14T02:36:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/?p=29082"},"modified":"2022-10-13T19:36:01","modified_gmt":"2022-10-14T02:36:01","slug":"discovery-in-time-of-crisis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/discovery-in-time-of-crisis\/","title":{"rendered":"Discovery in Time of Crisis"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Failure of Nerve challenged me in my thinking this week. I had to reconsider the way in which I thought about leadership roles. In considering the early explorers to the Americas, Christopher Columbus, Amerigo Vespucci, and Giovanni Verrazano, Friedman reminds us that they did not have any of the advantages our astronaut explorers have today. [1]\u00a0<\/strong>In fact, they were not even sure most of the time exactly where they were while they were out at sea! [<\/strong>2]<\/strong> The author details five characteristics of leadership that these men possessed in their day that for the most part we are lacking in our society. In my role as a missionary \/ teacher on the Choctaw Indian Reservation in Mississippi, it is my desire to be this type of bold leader.<\/p>\n

The first of these is to go outside the emotional climate of the day.\u00a0[3]<\/strong> I mentioned in a previous post that we had a student commit suicide. Since that post we have had another student hang herself in the school bathroom. Her funeral was today. A motivational speaker \/ evangelist was called to the school to speak this afternoon. Thirty-eight students responded that they were contemplating suicide right now. We are a school of only 240 children. The numbers are devastating. Our emotional climate right now is one of distress. It is difficult to lift myself out of it to lead.<\/p>\n

The second characteristic is a willingness to be vulnerable.\u00a0[4]<\/strong> The students shared today times in their lives when they have been abused. They opened up about self-harm. There was a lot of crying. I cried too and they saw it. And that was alright. They need to know I am human too.<\/p>\n

The third characteristic is persistence in the face of resistance or rejection.\u00a0[5]<\/strong> There are some students that do not know how to deal with the grief that is going on right now in our community. They make a joke out of it. They tease others that are being sent to behavior health for counseling. Those children are few in number, and are bullies. They need to be dealt with individually and persistently.<\/p>\n

The fourth characteristic is stamina in the face of sabotage.\u00a0[6] <\/strong>It would be easy to give up right now, or call in sick because I am not able to deal with the emotional baggage of it all. Some days it might even be easier to find another job somewhere. However, that is not what I am called to do. I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I am to keep at it day in and day out for the sake of the children.<\/p>\n

Finally, the fifth characteristic is being headstrong and even ruthless at times.\u00a0[7]<\/strong> I don’t know about ruthless, but I can say that I am headstrong about helping the kids and serving the community I am in. There is no greater joy than to see them return years later to visit me as young adults. I have been with the Reservation now for twenty-one years and am teaching the children of children. That alone is rewarding.<\/p>\n

Just as Vespuci, Verazanno, and Columbus discovered new worlds in their journeys, I am discovering in my role as a leader on the Reservation that so many of these children are crying out for help without even uttering a word. I need to fill the gap.<\/p>\n

_____________________________________________________________________<\/p>\n

\n
Friedman, Edwin. 2017. A Failure of Nerve<\/i>. 10th ed. New York, NY: Church Publishing.<\/strong><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Failure of Nerve challenged me in my thinking this week. I had to reconsider the way in which I thought about leadership roles. In considering the early explorers to the Americas, Christopher Columbus, Amerigo Vespucci, and Giovanni Verrazano, Friedman reminds us that they did not have any of the advantages our astronaut explorers have […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":159,"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":[2393,236,35],"class_list":["post-29082","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biography-drama-history","tag-explorers","tag-friedman","tag-leadership","cohort-dlgp01"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29082","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\/159"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29082"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29082\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29085,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29082\/revisions\/29085"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29082"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29082"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29082"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}