Good governance is not built on elections alone, but on accountable and responsible leadership — and institutions that build the rule of law…Enduring good governance is not a gift that can be given, but one that must be demanded, made, and shared by the people themselves and as a whole. Agency lies with the people.

Kofi Annan, Interventions: A Life in War & Peace

Comforts can strengthen us, but they cannot fight our battles for us. Only we can do that. Only we can rebuild our lives. Only we can overcome our denial and redefine ourselves in the wake of tragedy. Only we can look inside our hearts and contend with the destructive emotions that have surfaced in response to our suffering: our envy, our guilt, our bitterness. Only we can resuscitate our relationship with God

Rabbi Naomi Levy, To Begin Again p.106

There are two opposite ways by which some men make a figure in the world; one, by talking faster than they think, and the other, by holding their tongues and not thinking at all.

Washington Irving, “Wouter Van Twiller”

When people are in danger…everyone has a duty to speak out. No one has a right to pass by on the other side

Kofi Annan, Interventions: A Life in War & Peace

It comes down to this: happiness is within our grasp, but it’s not free. It doesn’t just happen. It takes a reorientation of our own mental habits to both realize it and maintain it. Most of all, the achievement of happiness requires a commitment to bend the arc of our lives in the direction of things that count in life rather than toward the trinkets that decorate it.

Joan Chittister, OSB Happiness: The Universal Quest p.74

The situation of the great mass of the people, who are the real constitutors and essence of the nation, is wholly overlooked by the promoters and advocates of war. The leaders of the nation, too rich and too elevated to feel the effects of the storm, which must smite somewhere with unmitigated fury, contemplate the splendor of their armies and the proud banners of their floating military castles, and consider themselves increased in goods and glory, while the condition of the great body of citizens, for whom in particular government was instituted, is one of disappointment, poverty, and wretchedness.

Thomas C. Upham, The Manual of Peace (1836) p.56

I belong to the community of life, and so do you. For the faithful and devout, this belonging is felt as a sense of communion with all of God’s glorious creation. This sense beings with it responsibility…Care of creation is a responsibility of being human

Sally Bingham,Holy Ground (2008)

Without awareness of one’s story or context a person can be whomever and whatever he or she desires with no worry of repercussion. Without context there is no responsibility

Skye Jethani, The Divine Commodity p.40

The truth is that love makes us answerable for joy. Only selfishness gives us the right to nurse our aggravations. Love demands that it be shared and multiplied.

Joan Chittister, OSB Called to Question: A Spiritual Memoir

Faithful Serving, Faithful Leading

A Unitarian Universalist Association posted yesterday, “Ain’t Misbehaving. Saving My Love For You” mentions that a significant number of people who are “free range” Unitarian Universalists - people who are Unitarian Universalists by faith, but without congregational affiliation - are former leaders of those congregations.

One of the regular tests of faith - and breakers of it for many - is serving faith communities, where we can carry over the same expectations and behaviors from the larger political arena over to our congregations. That is, leaders can be held to unliveable standards. Leaders can be gossiped about, cut sharply and severely in their friendships, and even find people treating their families poorly.

There also can be congregational cultures without models of generous and healthy transitions from formal leadership back into congregational life. Leaders know how to be followers, or they are not really leaders. Giving people the opportunity to move from one role to another teaches and offers them new blessings and allows them to use their gifts for goodness in different ways.

Yet there are even some situations where either rule or “best practice” is considered to be separation and absence from the faith community for three to five years. Those rules or practices arise from a fearfulness of misuse of power. But they don’t actually address how to participate again in religious life as another congregant. Professional and volunteer leaders both face these same dynamics and issues.

I’ve witnessed these dynamics in many faith traditions. Breaking the faith of faithful leaders in the context of religious community, by breaking the leader’s relationship with the faith community is not a new problem. Faith communities seeking to sustain the faith of faithful leaders and community as a whole have to live into at least six realities.

Covenants are not behavioral rules to batter people with and gain power over them. They will not prevent troubles, only remind us of promises we’ve made in faith.
Covenants - even the ones with the Holy that are supposed to last for all time - are reentered and reengaged. The people recovenant with the Holy multiple times in the Scriptures. How could we expect not to have to do the same thing?
Leaders who serve faithfully might actually lead in a direction you don’t like or that is outside your comfort zone. Holding that against them for the rest of their lives, or being surprised when you serve in leadership and meet the same expectations of compliance with your friends’ views, is trouble. Faithful leadership is not doing what our friends believe in every instance. It would be extraordinarily unlikely, particularly in diverse communities facing new challenges.
Forgiveness is a way of life. Generosity and graciousness are spiritual practices, for every one, without exception.
We need mentors and faith friends all along the way, from our earliest days entering a community, through our serving faithfully.
Accountability is mutual. The Golden Rule goes a long way here. If we stop to consider how we would feel about what’s being said and done were we the ones being “held accountable”, we will move more often back to mutual relationship and not into throwing around rules and holy words to bind and control one another. Accountability is mutual responsibility for the health and vitality of the relationship. If anyone chooses not to attend to their responsibilities, or views accountability as a one-way situation (“they” are accountable to me, not all of us together and not me to “them”) then faith communities have work before them to draw those individuals back into responsible relationship.

Learning how to live faithfully together, in our diversity, without everyone agreeing all the time, without everyone being alike and loving alike, is one of the great purposes of religious communities. When we eject or make it extraordinarily difficult for people who have served the community to stay in community, we are avoiding that commitment of continued relationship, in all situations and times and risking the faith of others to protect our own. We all grow stronger and more faithful when we engage faithfully the difficulties of community life. There are amazing joys that can happen in religious community, amazing gifts and blessings that communities can offer the world. Leadership and service go together, and leaders who have served faith communities can only fulfill giving their gifts and blessings when communities make it possible for leaders to resume regular community membership.