{"id":31827,"date":"2023-03-14T18:57:35","date_gmt":"2023-03-15T01:57:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/?p=31827"},"modified":"2023-03-14T18:57:35","modified_gmt":"2023-03-15T01:57:35","slug":"one-leaders-landscape","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/one-leaders-landscape\/","title":{"rendered":"One Leader’s Landscape"},"content":{"rendered":"

Using Food stamps, gathering government commodities and collecting pop cans for extra funds were just a few of the regular survival strategies in my family.\u00a0 I grew up in a low income family.\u00a0 However, I had two parents who loved God, were devoted to one another and loved their children.\u00a0 My dad, a highly intelligent inventor\/scientist, graduated from the University of Wisconsin with a degree in environmental science, later graduating with a masters degree from Michigan State.\u00a0 His research was centered in the area of brain dominance and computer science.\u00a0 As a child, I remember how he often spent his days in our basement inventing things like solar panels made out of discarded metal and junkyard finds or soldering computer chips to program motherboards housed in large black metal boxes called CPUs.\u00a0 Once he welded together a swing structure made out of steel piping that he found at an auction.\u00a0 He was a highly educated father with a mind on many things.\u00a0 Having relationships with people was very difficult for him.\u00a0 He frequently lost one job after another making it difficult to provide for his family like he wanted to.\u00a0 My mom later relayed to me that he often struggled with feelings of inadequacy, weakness and rejection.<\/span><\/p>\n

During my freshman year of high school, our family was packed and ready to move to El Centro, California.\u00a0 My dad had taken a job there and our boxes were packed and ready to go.\u00a0 I was at school saying my final goodbyes to my friends, when I was called to the school office.\u00a0 My mom, sobbing on the phone, told me that dad had lost his job in California and was headed back to Illinois.\u00a0 We were devastated, but it was an all too familiar scene.\u00a0 Looking back, my family commented that my dad had Asperger\u2019s syndrome, although not officially diagnosed.\u00a0 In my mind, he was like the dad in the movie \u201cHoney I Shrunk the Kids\u201d, always inventing and creating.\u00a0 Over the years, the Lord has mended areas in my heart that felt the pain of wanting to know my dad more and be able to connect with him.\u00a0 The Lord has also highlighted areas in which my dad led in faith, trusting in the Lord when times were very tough financially, not knowing where we would live or what to eat.\u00a0 One could presume that our family would have ended in separation, divorce or some sort of tragedy, however the outcome was very much the opposite.\u00a0 All of my parents children love the Lord and serve in full time ministry, some of their grandchildren are in full time ministry too.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

My dad and mom led our family in faith.\u00a0 His fatherly leadership style didn\u2019t look anything like a \u201cFocus on the Family Father of the Year\u201d style (if there is such a thing).\u00a0 Rather, he led in humility, vulnerability and weakness.\u00a0 Some of my earliest memories of my dad are of him having fallen asleep on the couch with his Bible opened across his chest.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Growing up, I often felt the \u201clack\u201d, wanting what we could not have or afford, settling for second hand finds when I just wanted something new of my own.\u00a0 This is part of my backstage, the messy stuff, where the script was and is written. [1]\u00a0 However, these early scars, among others, have been repurposed by the Author and Perfecter of my story. [2]\u00a0 God redeems the brokenness, using it for His greater good.<\/span><\/p>\n

Another part of my backstage, is that due to the fact that my dad was absent and my mom worked 3-11 p.m. at the hospital, I was often responsible for the care of my siblings at an early age.\u00a0 I found satisfaction in the identity of being a hard worker, as seeds started to grow in the landscape of my ego. [3]\u00a0 My landscape was beginning to be defined by a string of successes, especially as a hard worker.\u00a0 I started working in 6th grade as a corn detasseler in the summers and babysitter during the school year.\u00a0 To be able to have money for things that I wanted, like playing volleyball, tennis and running track, I worked.\u00a0 I worked at McDonalds from age 15-17 and then worked full time in home health care while attending Asbury University (then College) full time.\u00a0 On many occasions, leakage would happen when my backstage self would leak onto the front stage. . . tired, worn out from working so hard and wanting to have what others had, that I had to work so hard for, entertaining feelings of envy and \u201cthat\u2019s not fair\u201d with underlying drive to achieve and resilience to keep going.\u00a0 [4]\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

By the grace of God, the unhealthy drive for achievement and competition rears its ugly head less now than in previous years.\u00a0 As I read books, the illuminating presence of the Holy Spirit has highlighted many backstage and front-stage incongruences in me.\u00a0 One such book that spoke to me about some of my backstage \u201cleakage\u201d was <\/span>Water From a Deep Well<\/span><\/i> by Gerald Sittser.\u00a0 I highly recommend it.\u00a0 Gerald Sittser writes:\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Thomas Merton, a convert to Catholicism, a Trappist monk and a devoted student of the desert saints, observed that people\u00a0<\/span>seem to be in constant need of activity and success.\u00a0 The frenzied pace of their lives poses a threat to spiritual health.\u00a0 Many\u00a0<\/span>people fail to make progress in the spiritual life, he said, because \u201c\u2018they are attached to activities and enterprises that seem to\u00a0<\/span>be important.\u201d\u00a0 Thus blinded by their desire for ceaseless motion, for a instant sense of achievement, famished with a crude\u00a0<\/span>hunger for results, for visible and tangible success, they work themselves into a state in which they cannot believe that they\u00a0<\/span>are pleasing God unless they are busy with a dozen jobs at the same time.\u00a0 <\/span><\/em>[5]<\/span><\/p>\n

As I read this week\u2019s text, <\/span>Leading Out of Who You Are: Discovering the Secret of Undefended Leadership<\/span><\/i> by Simon Walker, there were several moments when the landscape of my childhood was disturbed and my current reality was cultivated a bit. \u00a0 I haven\u2019t kept too much \u201cbackstage\u201d in this post. I believe that healing can be experienced when light illuminates the dark places within us, allowing God\u2019s grace to freely flow in a sin-sick person like myself.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

[1] Simon Walker.\u00a0 Leading Out of Who You Are:\u00a0 Discovering the Secret of Undefended Leadership (Carlisle, UK:\u00a0 2007), 27.<\/span><\/p>\n

[2] Hebrews 12:1-2<\/span><\/p>\n

[3] Ibid, 71.<\/span><\/p>\n

[4] Ibid, 29.<\/span><\/p>\n

[5]\u00a0 Gerald Sittser. <\/span>Water from a Deep Well:\u00a0 Christian Spirituality from Early Martyrs to Modern Missionaries<\/span><\/i> (Downers Grove, Illinois:\u00a0<\/span>2007), 94.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Using Food stamps, gathering government commodities and collecting pop cans for extra funds were just a few of the regular survival strategies in my family.\u00a0 I grew up in a low income family.\u00a0 However, I had two parents who loved God, were devoted to one another and loved their children.\u00a0 My dad, a highly intelligent […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":168,"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":[2310],"tags":[2489,1718],"class_list":["post-31827","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-doctor-of-leadership-3","tag-dlgp02","tag-walker","cohort-dlgp02"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31827","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\/168"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31827"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31827\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31830,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31827\/revisions\/31830"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31827"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31827"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31827"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}