The Courage to Lead: Transform Self, Transform Society

By R. Brian Stanfield and Ilona Staples

To transform society, we first need to transform ourselves. The Courage to Lead starts from this premise and delivers a strong, simple message: if you relate authentically to life, to yourself, to the world and to society, you start the process of social change. Grounded in more than fifty years of in-depth research and practical experience in over thirty nations, The Courage to Lead uses a large canvas to paint a vivid picture of leadership in its many forms: personal, family, work, organization, community. Activist stories from around the world demonstrate the profound premise and inspires a deep understanding of leadership. This is a book that changes lives.

These days, the complexity of life tends to leave us paralyzed. The Courage to Lead will help people move out of their paralysis and invite them to join the ranks of those social pioneers who create what is needed for the 21st century. This book speaks to you in a strange language that you do not at first remember but that you will eventually recognize as your mother tongue.
David Patterson
CEO, Northwater Capital Management

The Courage to Lead provided me with a great deal of guidance and support at a time when I needed to make significant life decisions. It also provided me with a framework and a language to better understand who I am, where I needed to be and where I wanted to go. I recommend this course to anyone who is open to a transformative experience in which one brings many important life questions into focus.
Garret Keown
Teacher-in-Training, Lakehead University

325 University Health Network (UHN) staff have participated in The Courage to Lead study program over the last five years. The fundamental principles in the book align with our belief that "everyone can lead from where they stand." We think that leadership is not about a formal role or job title but about a philosophy, values and attitude in how one approaches life. This program has helped staff tap into the leader within themselves and, in doing so, has supported our mission to deliver excellent patient-centered care.
Irene Wright
Senior Development Manager, Human Resources, University Health Network

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: May 2, 2012
• ISBN: 9781475910025

R. Brian Stanfield

R. Brian Stanfield was an inspired leader, who spent years helping others to become the same. As well as his decades of experience as an educator and researcher, he held the position of Director of Publications at the Canadian Institute of Cultural Affairs for many years. Brian was the author of 5 books focusing on the qualities required for successful progressive leadership and group facilitation, including The Workshop Book,The Art of Focused Conversation and The Courage to Lead.

Book preview

copyright © 2012 by The Canadian Institute of Cultural Affairs.

All rights reserved. First edition published in 2000 by New Society Publishers and The Canadian Institute of Cultural Affairs. The second edition was revised, updated and redesigned to reflect the experience and feedback from readers, courses and study groups in several countries. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Second Edition Team: Jeanette Stanfield, Daphne Field, Duncan Holmes, Fred Simons, Derek Strachan and Virginia Varley.

Editors: Ronnie Seagren and Brian Griffith.

Design, layout, cover, illustrations: Ilona Staples.

The Canadian Institute of Cultural Affairs (ICA Canada) gratefully acknowledges the financial support of all those who donated to the Memorial Fund set up to support the publishing of writings of R. Brian Stanfield.

iUniverse books may be ordered through booksellers or by contacting:

iUniverse

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Bloomington, IN 47403

www.iuniverse.com

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ISBN: 978-1-4759-1001-8 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4759-1002-5 (ebk)

iUniverse rev. date: 04/26/2012

Inquiries regarding requests to reprint all or part of The Courage to Lead: Transform Self, Transform Society should be addressed to ICA Canada at the address below.

Contents

Foreword

Acknowledgements

Leadership Compass

Introduction

Section A Relation to Life

Relation to Life

Chapter 1 Everyday care

Chapter 2 Disciplined lucidity

Chapter 3Continual affirmation

Section B In what context do I make decisions?

Relation to the World

Chapter 4 Comprehensive perspective

Chapter 5 Historical involvement

Chapter 6 Inclusive responsibility

Section C Relation to Society

Relation to Society

Chapter 7 Social pioneer

Chapter 8 Transestablishment style

Chapter 9 Signal presence

Section D Relationto Self

Relation to Self

Chapter 10 Self-conscious reflection

Chapter 11 Meaning in everyday life

Chapter 12 Profound vocation

Conclusion Summoning the will and courage

Continuing your journey

Appendices

Who is the ICA?

References

ICA Canada (The Canadian Institute of Cultural Affairs)

Foreword

The world we have made as a result of the level of thinking we have done thus far creates problems that we cannot solve at the same level at which we have created them … We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if humankind is to survive.

Albert Einstein

People are looking for a new approach to leadership. Perhaps it is due to our dissatisfaction with those who call themselves leaders and yet do not quite measure up to what we are looking for. We know there is more to leadership than effective management of an organization, getting elected again, or convincing people to do things a certain way. Yet we can lead in our own situation. Time and again people find themselves redefining their understanding of leadership. The Courage to Lead addresses this excitement, possibility and potential.

I started using this material before the first edition was published. For the last eleven years I have led several study groups a year and used chapters in other leadership courses taught at ICA. Despite all that exposure the concepts remain fresh and challenge me each time I teach them. I never know when or where some concept will catch me unawares and land me in a new swirl of understanding. As participants have said:

Phenomenal! I have been involved in numerous leadership programmes, but none have ever shifted my way of thinking in any meaningful or lasting way, until now!

This course gave me a fresh perspective on the value of leadership and the skills and talents needed to be a good leader. I feel as if I can now more effectively lead my staff.

This is a book that keeps on giving. As we approached the twelfth anniversary of the book we thought it was time to revisit the ideas and make the book more accessible. Brian died several years ago, yet his voice still lives with us. So we took on the task of refreshing the stories and concepts, and reworking some of the language while keeping his unique voice. We were fortunate to have his wife Jeanette leading the revision effort. She knew his voice better than the rest of us—yet everyone who reads the book feels as if they know Brian.

This is a very personal book—it is Brian’s book—yet it is Brian using his own life and other’s life experiences to help us see the leadership capacity in ourselves and in others. A couple who was given the book by someone in one of the group study series came to Brian’s memorial service. We had to come to meet the man who has so impacted our lives. They continue to buy more copies for their fellow managers and employees so others can taste a new approach to leadership.

Participants in the study groups have come from all walks of life. Professionals—doctors, nurses, researchers, business people, activists, union leaders, cleaners and maintenance workers, employed and unemployed, people in transition and people who thought they had life well sewed up but were open to learning. And some of them came back to help lead further study groups for a second, third and even tenth time. They each say they keep on deepening their understanding. People who thought of themselves as leaders and those who did not but sensed they could do more—they all know they are tapping into a more solid understanding of leadership.

I feel as if I am better able to view a situation and see the work that has gone into making it happen instead of viewing it just at face value.

I now understand that leadership is not to lead others, but to lead yourself in the direction you need to go.

We have worked to make the book more accessible, the language easier and the references more familiar. Sometimes we have added more current examples. I’ve heard people say that they didn’t understand a chapter the first time around. The second time, it was Wow! Now I get it. What a powerhouse! In this revised edition we wanted to make the powerhouse in each chapter visible on the first read.

We wanted the revised edition of The Courage to Lead to be a book for today, even though some of the concepts have come down to us through the decades. Together these concepts form a foundation on which thousands of effective leaders have evolved their own leadership. Some of these foundational understandings are from the 1950s and '60s and earlier. I came across them in the 1970s. Forty years later it’s no surprise that people still find exploring them helps them reflect on their own experience and use it as grist for their own leadership. This solid foundation keeps on supporting us.

I am guessing that even with our efforts to make the book more accessible, some will find certain chapters more difficult than others. I won’t pretend that the concepts are easy. If you find a concept difficult, read the stories. The stories illustrate the ideas in real life experiences that we can all relate to. As does the poetry.

This book is not about the ten methods to do this or the twelve approaches to solve that type of problem. It is about a way of life—an understanding of life that can address your life at any moment and carry you through many difficulties, no matter where you are in your leadership journey. The book communicates a foundation from which you can build your own leadership style. It provides a foundation on which the methods and approaches you have learned make sense. It will change the way you use those methods and change your life, your workplace and all you do.

Be prepared to be surprised.

Duncan Holmes, Toronto

President, ICA Associates Inc.

Acknowledgements

This second edition of The Courage to Lead has become a reality because of the commitment of people who, having read the first edition, found ways to share the book with others over the last decade. I believe that Brian would be very grateful for their passion and care. I hope he would be delighted by the cover of this revised edition as well. Where necessary, the foundational concepts of the first edition have been made clearer and more accessible. In specific chapters, he would notice some structural changes, but I believe he would still recognize this book as fully his own. Brian’s unique voice and his personal stories are at the heart of The Courage to Lead. Just as with Brian, each of us can find ourselves able to lead by distilling our very personal experience and identity.

It has been a privilege over the last five years to work with the second edition team of Daphne Field, Duncan Holmes, Fred Simons, Derek Strachan and Virginia Varley. Since the publishing of the first edition, this team has shared The Courage to Lead through study programmes and courses. They brought that experience to the second edition project table. Daphne Field partnered with me in creating the revised drafts of the chapters and particularly went after jargon-free plain language. Duncan Holmes was an invaluable mentor to Brian during the writing of the first edition and to me throughout the revision process. Fred Simons and Virginia Varley encouraged the second edition project and created the initial revision team. Derek Strachan contributed his sharp sense of design to the refinement of the graphics and to the cover of the book.

Kevin Balm, Mark Butz, John Epps, Rachel Holmes, Staci Kentish, Garret Keown, Elaine Richmond and Janet Sanders were very helpful to my own thinking regarding this book.

The University Health Network facilitators reviewed all the revised chapters and met together to make recommendations. Jo Nelson refined the exercises in the chapters. Bill Staples set up the publishing arrangements.

It was very beneficial to have the same final editorial and layout team as for the first edition. Ronnie Seagren brought her insightful editorial expertise to sharpening the text and asked the necessary questions to help us strengthen the book as a whole. Brian Griffith used his meticulous copy editing skills to refine early drafts. Graphic designer Ilona Staples did the book design and layout, illustrations and cover.

A memorial fund for Brian Stanfield set up by ICA Canada has provided funding to publish this edition. I want to thank all of the people who had the vision to donate to that fund, in particular David and Anne Patterson, Robert and Sandra Rafos, John and Thea Patterson and Ernie Kueckmeister for their generous financial support. I also want to acknowledge those who financially supported the first edition, especially David and Anne Patterson and Phil and Margaret Devor.

On behalf of ICA Canada and Brian, I also want to acknowledge the contributors to the first edition: the constant urgings and support of Board members, Shelley Cleverly, David Dycke, Daphne Field and former Board Chair Judy Harvie. David remained steadfastly convinced of the importance of getting the book written, despite the obstacles. Judy was a wellspring of practical wisdom throughout the process. Daphne kept asking hard questions. Shelley shepherded the book along every step of the way. She was the iron pillar who kept on convincing everyone that the book could be written.

An international advisory group helped with the first edition. I especially want to recognize Bill and Barbara Alerding, John Epps, Gordon Harper and Betty Pesek for their wise advice, encouragement and cautions.

Sheighlah Hickey cared for ICA Canada’s archives and kept them in excellent order, making the research task comparatively easy. The CD-ROM Golden Pathways provided instant access to thousands of archival files of ICA wisdom, without which it would have been incredibly more difficult to write the original book.

I am grateful for the 35 years I spent as the wife and colleague of Brian Stanfield. Brian and I were both educators who discovered one another in Sydney, Australia in 1969. I was teaching in a multicultural preschool and he in a Catholic high school. We met through ICA and traveled together to teach in human development schools in India, in a global academy in the USA, and then in Canada where we were part of a lively research and publishing team. After sharing The Courage to Lead in Australia, Canada and Thailand, I have treasured the opportunity these last five years to take this book that Brian put so much of his passion into and sculpt it into an art form accessible to the next generation of authentic leaders—young ones and not so young—who want to make a difference in the 21st century.

We now give this book to you as a gift born out of the desire of all of us to live caring and creative lives and to share that possibility with others. May the stories and approaches in this book help you feast on your own life experiences and continue to develop your own unique wisdom and potential. May the human race and mother earth be richer because of your care.

Jeanette Stanfield, Toronto

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Leadership Compass

This leadership compass reveals the structure of The Courage to Lead. The compass covers four basic relationships of authentic leadership: the relationship to life, to the world, to society, and to self. Each relationship asks a question of the reader.

Relation to Life: Where do I find meaning in my everyday life?

Relation to the World: In what context do I make decisions?

Relation to Society: What role do I want to play in the change process in society, work, community and family?

Relation to Self: How do I keep learning from my experience and trust my own inner wisdom?

Each relationship is expressed through three stances, or inner convictions. The 12 stances are the stuff of the 12 chapters of this book.

Introduction

I cannot be less than the most I can be, otherwise I would be spitting at God. If I’ve been given this much talent and this much intelligence, then I’m obliged to use it.

Maya Angelou

A fine wind is blowing the new direction of Time.

If only I let it bear me, carry me, if only it carry me!

D.H. Lawrence

Leadership is a fiery topic these days. Our media are quick to point out failed leadership, greed, stupidity and corruption. We sometimes forget to acknowledge those effective leaders we rely on in our communities and nations. The style of leadership is also a major consideration. Authoritative leadership is of comfort at times but more and more there is a deep need for a participatory, collaborative and facilitative approach.

In The Courage to Lead, we mean leadership as a role that someone assumes, with or without a specific title or position. We can all be leaders in our life and in society. This book focuses on developing our own inner wisdom so that we can be effective human beings. What are the interior dynamics and mental models which we can operate out of to transform ourselves and society?

When we think about learning, we often focus on gathering information from others, books, television, the internet or life events—using our senses to absorb information from the outside world. A second dimension of learning is reflecting on what we are discovering from both that outer world and also from what we might call a third dimension: our inner world, the place from which decisions, intuitions, dreams, values and convictions emerge.

The Courage to Lead describes twelve stances or internal driving forces which produce change. We will investigate these stances by exploring definitions, images, quotes, examples, personal experiences, philosophy and exercises. Each chapter provides a context so you can reflect deeply on your own values and convictions.

The key question of the book is: What does it take to act powerfully out of one’s own inner wisdom?

At the heart of The Courage to Lead are our life experiences and our constant dialogue with these experiences as we encounter them. The premise of the book is that life prepares us for leadership by throwing us into many different kinds of experiences that raise foundational human questions about life and what it means to be a human being. Three questions, at the heart of the twelve driving forces, are foundational questions which all of us find ourselves asking at different times in our lives. These questions are: Who am I? What do I? How be I?

How life questions are raised

Genuine leaders have always grappled with the key questions of life and rendered their own answers in the integrity of their own being as they have confronted the situations in which life has placed them. Those who have not heard and actively responded to life’s questions tend to be a little lost, lack confidence, and get distracted easily. Part of a leader’s authenticity is the willingness to engage daily in dialogue with the events and situations life presents to us.

When I was growing up in Australia, my parents lost a lot of money in the great depression, so in 1936 we sold our hotel in Sydney and made the car trip to a little seaside town in New South Wales. They leased a small hotel right by the water. I lived a halcyon life, swimming, surfing and bicycling. During the school holidays, hotel guests who were friends of the family took me fishing up the river and surfing. Life seemed ideal. One day at the end of fourth grade, when we were idling time in class after annual exams were over, Sister Emmanuel started us making a scrapbook. My first page was silly. I put in a full page advertisement for toothpaste. The next day was the attack on Pearl Harbour. So, my second page had the classic shot of US warships ablaze on battleship row. I filled up the scrapbook and five more with the history of World War II.

One day these two worlds—my carefree life by the seaside and the war—came together for me. I was down on the bayside beach near our hotel, when I noticed a launch approaching. It stopped just a few feet from where I was building sand castles. Five men were taken out of the launch. I saw that they were covered in oil and badly burnt. A butter ship had been torpedoed just a few miles off shore by a Japanese submarine, and these were the survivors. They were temporarily cared for in the hotel lobby until an ambulance could come.

The sight of those terribly burned men brought the suffering of war home to me in a way that none of the newsreels or war movies could. Perhaps, in retrospect, I began wondering how these two worlds—terrible suffering, and days without care—could exist side by side.

The next day my father pulled me out of bed and said, We’re going to pick up some butter. But butter was rationed. Where were we going to get butter from? As our truck made its way out along the southern beaches, I was told that the butter ship’s cargo was washing up all along the shores: boxes of butter lay everywhere. We joined the townsfolk who were strung along the beach salvaging the butter crates among the seaweed. We stacked crate after crate of butter in the truck, and then went back for more to stock our hotel freezer. The hotel dining room, to our guests’ amazement, had butter on the table all through the war. But at the time I was stunned—a ship gets torpedoed, and we get butter! How can disaster and suffering live side by side with such possibility?

Well, my days of not a care in the world quickly came to an end as all the young men in the town went off to war. It was impossible to hire male help.

At ten, I became my dad’s right-hand man, filling up quarts of draught from the firkins (nine gallon barrels) and kilderkins (18-gallon barrels), sweeping out the bar every morning, working side by side with him in the victory [vegetable] garden in our back yard. I had joined the working class.

In the back of my mind, a question was forming, something like: Is life really like this? Is it a roller coaster ride with terrible suffering and mysterious benefits? I think for the next thirty years I struggled with this question. How could life contain such opposite experiences? Which part of life was real: Was it the halcyon days of not a care in the world, or the dreadful suffering and hard work associated with the War? I think it would be bizarre to suggest that at age ten or eleven I was mature enough to ask these questions. But I do believe that life raised them, and I felt them profoundly.

Of course, there were other struggles, too. My dad and I were always at loggerheads about how much free time I should have. I always wanted more; but, with so much work to do, he figured less. Sometimes I would sneak away to hang out with the Kenny Gang, as we called ourselves, to go out on the bay in aircraft drop tanks, to ride ponies or to throw rocks at the public school kids. So, how much work was fair for me to do?

Later, when I thought that I had solved my life questions by joining a religious order, these childhood questions were only exacerbated. We delved into moral theology, ascetical theology, church history, hagiography, until we knew all the big words, with not an idea in the world of how they applied to everyday life. As I passed through the training and began teaching religion in a Catholic school, I noticed the sheer boredom of the kids when there was talk of transubstantiation, the hypostatic union, the beatific vision. After a while, in desperation at not being able to make any sense of it, or apply it to life, we would start talking about what we called practical issues: societal issues, work, getting a job, dating, euthanasia, and so on. But still there was no connection between the theological big words and real life.

I began attending conferences to search for clues there. I went to meetings of the Society, which studied the works of Roman Catholic theological heavyweight Thomas Aquinas. At every one of these Aquinas Society meetings at Sydney University, the same man said something like Søren Kierkegaard presents a totally different theological approach to life. We should be hearing what he has to say. Søren Kierkegaard was a 19th century philosopher-theologian from Denmark—the first of the existentialists, who, among other things, posited faith as an alternative to existential despair. After this man spoke, all hell would break loose. I did not have enough background at the time to really understand what was going on. But that Kierkegaardian knew that the study of Thomas Aquinas without any grounding in real life was pure abstraction, however valuable.

It is strange that for every new piece of technology, we get a manual on how to use it, except for us humans. We come into this world to face the puzzles of existence without any manual called How to Be a Human Being. If we buy a car, computer, refrigerator or even a digital watch, we get a manual of operations. But no one passes out instructions when we are born, neither to us nor to our parents. Later on in life we may encounter the Bible, the Koran, the Eightfold Path, or others. But, without good teachers who know how to use these great books, they often remain impenetrable, sometimes a source of one more fundamentalism.

Yet, everyone needs a big picture of the way life is, a good map to navigate the rapids of life and skills for the journey. For life initially comes to us as one great blooming, buzzing confusion, as the psychologist William James put it. Later on, as we get more scientifically literate, we may refer to it grandly as chaos dynamics. Or, more simply, as the Latin American author Ortega y Gasset proclaimed: Life comes to us as pure problem. Not whether to order a steak or a salad for lunch, not just the practical daily problems associated with the workplace or the family or spouse or kids, not just a few ethical problems, like whether to divorce or not, to abort or not. But pure problem: Why am I here at all? Who am I? What do I do with my life? Or, how do I style my existence in the world? These questions never go away.

So I started reading like one possessed, but found nothing that helped relate theology to real life. At one stage, it seemed that Vatican II was going to be the answer, but the conservative forces won out and, except for a few victories, the glow of Vatican II died. We were left with the same old disrelation to real life. Finally, the time came when I left the religious order, joined the peace movement and began raising hell in the press about the Catholic Church’s abuse of authority, its approach to birth control, its radical conservatism and much more. I was going deeper and deeper into despair.

One day, a woman by the name of Carol Pierce called from the Ecumenical Institute in Sydney and invited me to attend a course. I said I couldn’t bear one more course. Half an hour later, she called again with the same plea. I declined. Half an hour later she called a third time, and went through it all again. I said to myself: This is some woman, and she doesn’t take no for an answer. I couldn’t find it in myself to say no again. Carol and her husband, Joe Pierce, taught the course about what life was really like in the 20th century and what its possibilities were, and it was on target. That course, experienced and lived for the next 30 years, forms the basis of Chapters 2, 3, 6, and 7 of this book.

The course solved none of my life struggles for good; in a sense, it raised more questions than it answered, but it was a new set of questions that set me on a journey of discovery, and gave me names and handles for things.

As you read, you may want to reflect back on your life as I have done above to see where the big life questions were first raised for you. These questions arise many times in the course of a lifetime, but the answers do not all pop out neatly in one place. These days, the questions seem to turn up early in people’s lives; for example, in those youth who graduate from university with a bachelor’s degree or even a doctorate, and can’t find work related to their education.

So how do we enable young, middle-aged or older people to face up to the three fundamental questions of life:

1. Who am I? (What is a human being? Who am I as Mary, Vikash or Vincente? Who am I really?)

When life picks me up in its wave, and then dumps me on the beach so that my head burrows a hole in the sand, it raises the question: who am I? Do I rejoice at those ups and downs because that’s how life is? Do I give up surfing the waves of life just because I was dumped? Has this experience enlarged me or diminished me? Am I a lover or hater of life? And then the big one: how do I relate to the fact that I am going to die?

2. What do I do? Why was I born? Why am I in the world? What is my life about? What is my vocation in life? What do I want to do with my once-around-the-clock life? How can I make a difference to the world and its social structures?

For many of us this question was raised when we left the regular structures of school life and attended our ceremony of graduation. Suddenly we realized that the next years of our lives seemed like a yawning abyss. In our own ways, each of us faced our life opening before us. If my life is to have structure or purpose, it is up to me to create it. So what am I going to do with the whole rest of my life?

3. How do I style my life? How am I going to live my life? How do I style myself as a human being? How do I be who I am to the fullest? How do I relate myself to others and to the depths of my being? How do I live fully in whatever situation I find myself?

When my mood hits rock bottom as I encounter life’s vicissitudes and soars like a rocket when life is good to me, I am experiencing something quite normal. As I face life’s questions, I have the opportunity to develop a constancy, a centeredness in my relationship to life. I create what it means for me to be a leader in the real situations I face.

We all have to tangle with these questions as we live. But it is not so easy. In fact, any time we are confronted with one of these questions, as we shall see in chapter 2, our response is generally some kind of paralysis.

Leadership and paralysis

This book attempts to join two ideas. Firstly, there is an overwhelming radicality to the stance of living a full human life. Secondly, we don’t need to be paralysed by all the issues and questions in our lives. We can begin to deal with them as social innovators in our own household, around the kitchen table, at the coffee klatch, around the water cooler, wherever we are. We don’t need to put up barricades and start a violent revolution. We can lead by instigating small changes wherever we are—once we deal with the feeling of paralysis.

There are times in everyone’s life when we feel that something overwhelmingly different is demanded of us. It is as if life is a great marriage feast to which we are invited. Something in us wants us to say, Yes, yes, I want to participate. Maybe we wake up in the middle of the night and experience a sudden yearning for something different—to go on a great adventure, to get involved in our local community, to give up the rat race for one weekend and go on retreat, to abandon our career as an aggressive market trader, or go work in a Central American village for a year and see what happens. But the possibility paralyzes us; we make our excuses. There is an old gospel song about it:

I cannot come; I cannot come to the wedding,

I have married a wife; I have bought me a cow,

I have fields and commitments that cost a pretty sum.

Pray hold me excused, I cannot come.

The concern of this book is that people do not seem to be aware of their own ability to act. From time to time they wake up to their freedom to make choices and take charge of life’s meaning. They experience an overwhelming drive to do something, try something, but they are paralysed. This book challenges people to take charge of their own internal quest for meaning in life. It encourages them to move out of paralysis by acting powerfully wherever they are.

In the great old movie Auntie Mame, there is a scene where the heroine has invited some guests to a feast in her house. The guests are standing around listlessly, not partaking of anything, when Mame begins her walk down the grand staircase to meet them. Suddenly she pauses on the stairs to look down at the scene below. Moved by a sudden inspiration, she yells out to them: Life is a banquet, and all of you poor suckers are starving to death!

All of us, at times, have this experience. We are invited to a banquet, and yet our own paralysis and indecision has afflicted us with spiritual anorexia. Underneath this is a sense that someone else is in charge of our future—not we ourselves. Richard Critchfield wrote a great book on villages in the early 1980s. In it he says:

The great divide in the world today is not so much between the rich and the poor, the educated and the illiterate, the healthy and malnourished, but between those who think that