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Alan Creech
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October 27, 2006
> 8:47 PM
more on leadership > more from guigo  That image is from a photograph I took in a church in Cong, County Mayo, Ireland. It's a beautiful window as you can see, and very Irish. I didn't really examine it closely when I was there. I was in a sacred space, not a museum. There were other people praying in there at the time as well. Anyway, that's not really what the post is about but it started with me wanting to share this window with you.I thought then of another quote from the Meditations of Guigo to share and talk about. This one I had heard before. As I listened to one of the Thomas Merton recordings I have, as he taught some of the monks, using Guigo as a reference. This is one of the very quotes he read to them and which they talked about. The thought here is deeply wise. He saw something very clearly here - and it is still clear, the same today as it was nearly a thousand years ago. The aim of a good teacher or doctor is twofold: to preserve and increase the good already present - in other words, health or knowledge; to supply what is lacking, and to remove what is evil. For 'drunkenness besets the thirsty person.' But someone who wants things to remain thus is not a good teacher or doctor. Someone who wants always to be a teacher wants ignorant people. He hates those he wants always to be in that condition. But someone who is good fights against disease and ignorance in order to destroy them. He is, in a sense, fighting against his own profession, in order to destroy it: if those evils were no longer to exist, neither would his job.Full of integrity and deep wisdom. A leader or teacher who can see, much less publicly say something like that is to be respected. Now, of course, we you are a Teacher, you will (you should) continue to teach. You will, if you are a pastor, continue to shepherd people who are placed in your care. But the thing is this: what do we desire for people? What is the purpose of our teaching or spiritual direction? Well, hopefully we will have a desire for the real and lasting transformation of those in our care. What's the purpose? To form people into permanently mature Christian persons. And when this happens, people naturally don't need to hear what you're teaching as much. When the become healthy, they do not so much need you as a doctor. So, when Jesus, our ultimate example as a pastor/leader/teacher, said to his disciples as they marveled at His miraculous works, that they would do the same and even greater works later, He meant it. And He wasn't threatened by that notion. He wanted it to happen. He loved them enough to desire for them to be as great or "greater" than He was (don't get excited, of course they couldn't be God from eternity). We should, if we love our disciples, desire and work for them to have all our knowledge and more. We should do what belongs to them becoming spiritually and holistically healthy, even to the point of immunity to disease. Is this what we truly desire as spiritual parents in our communities? Let's be dreadfully honest with ourselves. Attempting self-deception never really works for very long and even when it is "working," it isn't working for anything good. It is, in fact, hindering good, stopping growth in it's tracks. We've got to let all that go. It's the only way any of this is going to actually "work" anyway. God's Grace be with us. technorati tags > guigo I, church, christian leadership, discipleship, spiritual transformation Labels: church, leadership, spiritual formation 0 Comments:| permalink | e-mail me | 
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