Life shapers

We often think of those who have shaped our lives in important ways only after they are gone. It’s not intentional – we just take for granted that those who influenced us will always be there. As I age, more and more of the significant people with whom I’ve crossed paths in personal and professional ventures are dying. I recently discovered one of my life shapers through an encounter sharing musical interests with a new acquaintance.

I met Eileen Cline when I was a sophomore in high school. I had studied with one piano teacher for several years who determined that she had taken me as far as she could. She referred me to a young faculty member at the University of Colorado – Ms. Cline. I’ve always remembered Ms. Cline and her husband (a German language teacher at Boulder High School) but had never attempted to get back in touch. The honest truth was that I hadn’t been a very conscientious piano student so I hadn’t been sure she would even remember me. My hormones raging and the social environment of Boulder in the 1960s swirling around me, I just couldn’t focus. Ms. Cline urged me to work more on piano technique – scales, arpeggios, and theory. Because I had done well enough from my previous instruction to be able to perform in public, I didn’t have the patience and couldn’t muster the discipline to really get serious with Ms. Cline.

I was reintroduced to Ms. Cline when my musical acquaintance handed me an article as I was leaving his home after a two-hour conversation. The article was ”Anyone can win” (American Music Teacher, Vol. 40, No. 1, August/September, 1990). In complete astonishment, I looked at Eileen Cline’s name and said to my colleague, “This may seem crazy but Ms. Cline was my piano teacher when I was in high school.” The article is about the piano competitions that are held around the world that are responsible for identifying the most gifted young pianists. The essence she discovered through her research is that, although the competitions can be very subjective and political, they are helpful in honing young artists’ performance capability. She advised that one’s teacher, the institution where you study, technique, repertoire, and public performance experience are all important. But one of the things that distinguishes an artist who really connects with her/his listeners is a sense of personal vision, and that “a successful career cannot likely be built without it.” One of the most profound questions she raised was how many great piano students are actually destroyed by the competitions rather than built up and encouraged by them. She said, “Some of the most promising artists drop out of the field – because their most important gifts also make them have a distaste for the personal warfare involved in commercial success.”

Ms. Cline’s research and teaching influenced me in profound ways, as I’m sure it has for many others. Maybe had I been a bit more focused… I don’t know. Ultimately, she wrote, that an artist is one who expresses an insightful individuality “combined with a compelling conviction that can move the listener where he or she could not otherwise go.” I intend to reconnect with Ms. Cline in the near future (she is now 80 and lives near Boulder, Colorado). My intent is just to say that, regardless of my lack of seriousness, I’ve maintained my interest in music. In fact, I’ve come back to my musical roots in retirement and have been deeply fulfilled by the rediscovery of music as a sustaining element of daily life. I've also returned to limited piano performance, having played plenary session opening music for the November 2016 conference of the International Leadership Association and in May 2017 I will be an "atelier" performer/presenter for the 4th Transatlantic Dialogue in Luxembourg in May 2017. Ms. Cline was, and is, a delightful, intelligent, and affirming human being. She made a very real difference in my life at a time filled with turmoil.

Wear - Reclaiming Hope

Shadi Hamad, a colleague I met in Qatar and follow on Twitter (@shadihamid), highly recommended Michael Wear’s Reclaiming Hope (2017). Shadi offers insights that many other authors miss so I thought Reclaiming Hope could be a good read. I was not disappointed and other reviewers have already endorsed it as well. Although Wear’s overall assessment of the Obama years, seen through the eyes of a deeply committed Christian working in the White House’s faith-based initiatives, was peppered with disappointment, it nevertheless credited Obama with a number of important stands that served to embrace and draw Christian leaders and believers closer to the Democratic party than they had been for many years.

On the day the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships was launched by President Obama he said, “Instead of driving us apart, our varied beliefs can bring us together to feed the hungry and comfort the afflicted; to make peace where there is strife and rebuild what has broken; to lift up those who have fallen on hard times.” (9% into digital text) Wear worked for this office for 40 months following a stint as a volunteer campaigning for Obama during his run for his first term. Wear characterized his coming of age “during a time when the Religious Right had great influence and many Christians were coming to accept that some of the tactics of that movement actually caused damage to the witness of the American church.” (14% into digital text) The hope was that the Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships Office would create constructive ways for the Democratic Party to embrace this influential segment of the electorate by linking evangelicals to a commitment to social justice and the common good of all citizens. This would be a reawakening of the ideal that “I am my brother’s/sister’s keeper” that is so central to most religious traditions.

Zealousness can sometimes be expressed by those who have deep convictions. Wear acknowledged the need to learn how to not “kill the rabbit,” an image borrowed from Of Mice and Men used by one of Wear’s mentors to help him learn to keep his passions in check. The point being that when we love something, we should not hold it so tightly that we risk killing it. Although Wear does not portray Obama’s advocacy for faith-based work as tightly held, some of the ambivalence he describes may have indicated this to be the case. Regardless of the ambivalence, Obama’s resolve to engage faith-based groups was unshakeable and focused on four priorities; strengthening the role of community organizations, reducing unintended pregnancies and supporting maternal and child health, promoting responsible fatherhood, and promoting interfaith dialogue and cooperation. In this reviewer’s opinion, it was perhaps Obama’s clear, balanced, and unifying message and its potential to engage those of strong faith that posed the greatest threat for the Republican right, a threat that may have driven some of them to create the preposterous claims of Obama being a Muslim and not a real American-born citizen.

Learning how to disagree without being disagreeable is a phrase that Obama used many times and it was certainly a mantra to the faith-based initiatives. Only a year into Obama’s Presidency, two evangelical leaders, Os Guinness and Mark DeMoss, sought the commitment of every member of Congress to greater civility, only to fail due to the perception of some that civility was no more than unilateral disarmament. Unfortunately, the Affordable Care Act, the resulting conservative uprising against it, and the loss of the majority in the House of Representatives would put an end to any and all willingness to engage in civil discourse on shared concerns. Even President Obama’s vast capacity for gracious humor, even temper, and unapologetic proclamation of his Christian faith could not bridge the widening gap between the Democratic Party and evangelical Christians. Indeed, Wear spent five chapters explaining how pivotal conflicts and “the structural realities of our media and political institutions, and the strategies of politicians and strategist conspired to drive polarization to the truly corrosive levels we see today.” (39% into digital text) The conflicts include; abortion, the contraception mandate in the Affordable Care Act, Obama’s shifting views on LGBTQ rights/protections, and ultimately the lack of White House staff understanding the Christian right.

Wear closed by exploring whether or not there was any justification for hope in U.S.A. politics or, more importantly, in human progress. Wear cited Coates (author of Between the World and Me, 2015) and the struggle for hope he addressed. Coates’ critics focused on the lack of hope in his book yet he himself responded that, “a writer wedded to ‘hope’ is ultimately divorced from ‘truth.’” The hard truth is that the U.S.A. is in a very difficult time, one characterized by extreme isolation and antagonism among many of its politicians and citizens. However, Wear proposed that faithful hope is still possible, primarily because realistic faith accepts the reality of man’s sinful nature and God’s constant work to reunite with us in a reconciling life. Quoting Dr. Raphael Warnock, pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church where Dr. King was pastor, Wear proposed, “’It takes a tough mind and a tender heart to hold on to hope.’ But hold on we must. Hope is our tether to reality, and our bulwark against despair.” (66% into digital text) Advocating for readers to be active, volunteer, invest their talent and resources, and remain humble in all that they do, Wear closed by identifying the two biggest issues he believes people of faith must address in the coming years – racial justice/reconciliation and religious freedom. Now it is up to people of faith to find a way to bridge the faith chasm that most likely gave the White House to an individual who least represents conservative Christian values in the modern day, Donald J. Trump.

Coates - Between the World and Me

Seeking to understand the political and social dynamics we are experiencing in the U.S.A., U.K. and elsewhere in the world led me to read Ta-Nehisi Coates’ book, Between the World and Me (2015). This is an elegantly written book by an African American author who has gained wide recognition for his deep descriptions of the influence of race in America. I needed the personal approach Coates took, written in the form of a letter to his son, primarily because the white privilege that I enjoy makes it nearly impossible to have a deep and full understanding of what Coates describes.

Coates started by saying that race is the child of racism instead of the other way around. In essence, the need to name others as different and thereby characterize or discriminate was the starting place for what American society has come to understand as race. This compulsion to define created ‘a Dream’ that orders the way we interact across groups, creating expectations both within and between groups. “The Dream thrives on generalization, on limiting the number of possible questions, on privileging immediate answers. The Dream is the enemy of all art, courageous thinking, and honest writing.” (33% through digital text)

Raised in Baltimore, discovering the rich diversity within African and African American culture at Howard University (The Mecca), and exploring the metropolises of Chicago and New York, Coates concluded that he was part of a society “that protects some people through a safety net of schools, government-backed home loans, and ancestral wealth but can only protect you (his son) with the club of criminal justice.” In his view, this reflected either a failure to deliver on good intentions or was evidence of the sinister intent that allowed violence in schools, in communities, and in gangs (11% through digital text).

Ultimately, Prince Jones, the privileged son of a female physician and admired by Coates during his years at Howard University, brought Coates to understand the deep vulnerability of his own son. Followed by a police officer across several jurisdictions with no justifiable provocation, Prince was shot to death when he stepped out of his car at a friend’s home; the investigation of the shooting cast more questions on Prince’s character than on the police officer’s judgment. The necessity for a Black father’s discipline of his son was thus underscored in devastating ways - either discipline into submission or sacrifice to the streets and law enforcement officials. The Dream could seemingly only be achieved by telling “black boys and girls to ‘be twice as good,’ which is to say ‘accept half as much.’” (59% through digital text)

A question Coates repeatedly raised was “How can we escape the Dream that confines, limits, and imposes a certain lifestyle seemingly without option to fashion a life that is unique to ourselves?” Eventually Coates began to see argument and disagreement, and the ultimate discomfort they bring, as providing light to the shadowed path of personal fulfillment. Only by questioning could he pursue a unique and freeing way of being in the world. This questioning included rejecting a Dream of needing to be, talk and think as if he was white.

Coates’ book is not easy reading. Some of the images and dynamics he describes are unfamiliar or disturbing. More importantly, embracing the impact of what racism has caused hurts, it hurts because we are all complicit in what people of color experience in America. With imperfect understanding, my empathy has improved, a path toward the changes that must eventually come if we are to live in a more just and compassionate world.

Hochschild - Strangers in their own land

One of the greatest paradoxes of the 2016 U.S.A. Presidential election was why so many people seemingly voted against their apparent self-interest. This is the subject of Arlie R. Hochshild’s book, Strangers in their own land (2016). The book is based on a sociological study of the Bayous of Louisiana, an area that is at the bottom of all the measures of a good life – educational attainment, environmental degradation, and life expectancy – yet the vast majority of the people in this area actively identify with the Tea Party.

Hochschild describes her journey as an attempt to scale the empathy wall, “an obstacle to deep understanding of another person, one that can make us feel indifferent or even hostile to those who hold different beliefs or whose childhood is rooted in different circumstances.” (2% through digital text) Many of those Hochschild met in the Bayou Courne region of Louisiana were poor, although most expressed that they didn’t see themselves that way. They were of various cultural backgrounds including Cajun, Black, White and other.

Bayou Courne residents used to embrace the platform of the Democratic Party but now they are decidedly more Republican or, at minimum, independent and leaning to the right. The cause for the party affiliation shift – a sense of losing opportunity, being left out of prosperity, and having others less deserving than them cut in line ahead of them to receive benefits from the government. In addition, the Great Recession of 2008, the presidency of Barack Obama, and Fox News fanned the exodus with a healthy tailwind from those who advocate the philosophy of “you’re the only one who can save yourself” based on Ayn Rand’s objectivist philosophy.

Hochschild reported that Bayou Courne and other areas such as Lake Charles and Baton Rouge are blighted by years of neglect and exploitation at the hands of corporations. She documented Pittsburgh Plate Glass dumping raw chemicals and oil companies releasing sludge into natural waterways. More recently, sinkholes have swallowed up entire neighborhoods after underground aquifers and caves were pierced by fracking. The residents of these blighted areas resist governmental controls and inspections although many grieve the loss of former pleasures of restive vistas and leisure fishing. Those who live in the most devastated areas have no option to leave polluted rivers and lakes because home value losses have prohibited sale. With all this evidence of abuse by corporations, the Louisiana state government continues to give away tens of millions of dollars in tax breaks to draw corporations back to drill for more oil or frack for natural gas and citizens welcome the job opportunities the corporations will restore.

What the citizens of Bayou Courne grieve is not the sacrifice of clean air/water but the unfairness of government taking tax revenues away from deserving citizens and redistributing them to what they perceive to be underserving leeches on the public dole. This view was widely evident even in the face of evidence that “Voters in the twenty-two states that voted Republican in the five presidential elections between 1992 and 2008 – and who generally call for less government regulation of business – lived in more polluted environments.” (19% through digital text) Regardless of the economic, social, and political devastation Bayou Courne endures, its residents are resilient – pursuing their way of life and often drawing strength from religious beliefs that caused them to thank God for the strength to persist rather than pray for the fortitude to stand up against those who abuse them.

Hochschild offered a ‘deep story’ to capture the sentiment of those she interviewed which was readily accepted when she shared it with them. The story, similar in many ways to narratives proposed by Haidt in The Righteous Mind, started with the idea that the American Dream is one that is in progress for all, requiring each individual/family to wait in line, work hard, and be patient. The violation of this story is what those in Bayou Courne resented most – line cutters who gained unfair advantage in striving for the American Dream, a dream ever-more crowded and competitive due to a globalizing world that is leaving so many behind. The citizens of Bayou Courne had lost the ability to see themselves in the American Dream and they had lost purpose and honor in their striving.

Why would citizens of this ‘deep story’ reject a political agenda calling for governmental assistance? Why would they place their hope in the Tea Party and political figures of vastly different socio-economic means? Because to identify ‘up’ grants pride within oneself for being optimistic, hopeful, and not giving up on the dream that had been part of your upbringing, your church, and the very identity from which you derived worth.

And along came an unorthodox personality (part entertainer, part businessman, part politician) who redefined the run for the presidency as no longer Democrat versus Republican but instead anti-establishment versus establishment. And Donald Trump will be inaugurated as the 45^th President of the U.S.A. on January 20, 2017.

Haidt - The Righteous Mind

I’ve continued to search for books that contribute to understanding the contemporary social and political dynamics that have emerged in the politics of the U.S., U.K., and other countries. Jonathan Haidt’s The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion (2012) offered particularly helpful insight for those who espouse a more liberal worldview. In fact, one of major points Haidt made was that conservatives are generally more aware of liberal’s views than liberal of conservatives, resulting in blindness that is debilitating in the current climate.

The U.S. Presidential election of 2016 was shocking to many who believed that, regardless of one’s political perspective, the candidate with the greatest experience (Hillary Clinton) would win in a landslide. At the core of this was that the WEIRD (Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic) portion of U.S. citizens were talking to themselves and were woefully unaware of how many others were being mobilized by Donald Trump’s candidacy.

One of the most important practical questions to resolve in any social system is the balance between the individual and the group. Most societies tip the priority to the group, resulting in a sociocentric perspective, while a few select societies place the individual at the center, resulting in an individualistic culture. An individualistic focus became more prominent during the Enlightenment period of Western societies. This focus on individualism was accompanied by a rationalistic (reasoning) bias rather than relying on intuitional (emotional/judgment) insight. Haidt characterized this rationalistic bias as delusional and asserted that intuitions come first and strategic reasoning afterward. With intuition as the driver, Haidt described a framework of five initial foundations of morality (p. 125); 1) care/harm, 2) fairness/cheating, 3) loyalty/betrayal, 4) authority/subversion, and 5) sanctity/degradation to which he eventually added another 6) liberty/oppression. His view is that most humans act on their intuition about what is “right” related to these six principles.

Haidt cited a number of research studies and anecdotal evidence that the six foundations of morality are at the core of human inclinations but he also offered evidence that liberal and conservative priorities are somewhat different. For example, liberals tend to place greater value on concerns related to care/harm. In addition, while both liberal and conservatives are concerned about liberty/oppression, liberals express greater concern about harm to vulnerable groups while conservatives are more concerned about the infringement of liberties resulting from government that intervenes too much in their lives. Liberals tend to construct most of their political arguments around the first three foundations while conservatives embrace these three plus add the others (authority/subversion, sanctity/degradation, and liberty/oppression) with relative equal weight across all the foundational moral principles. This is what he asserts as the fatal flaw in the thinking of liberals – they do not recognize, much less affirm, the full range of moral inclinations that are seen as essential to forming and sustaining a righteous society.

Haidt’s perspectives were well documented and his book was organized to continually remind the reader where his argument was headed. While I would not entirely agree with the assertion that conservatives are better informed about liberal causes than vice versa, it is important for both conservatives and liberals to find ways to talk – to seek each other’s perspective, to suspend judgment, and to be open to new understandings. Ultimately, all of us could benefit from striving to create a society where the intuition behind our perspectives is exposed and where this intuitional inclination more explicitly recognizes the moral and ethical practices we observe. Especially at a point in human evolution where we have grown to recognize the need for a common understanding about how we should live in community, it is important to encompass the full range and not just a select number of moral foundations.

Perhaps our evolving communities will have their most powerful influence when “interlocking sets of values, virtues, norms, practices, identities, institutions, technologies, and evolved psychological mechanisms work together to suppress or regulate self-interest and make cooperative societies possible.” (p. 270) Religion and politics are important ways to create and regulate a righteous society but in order to be successful in the current divisive stand-off, religion, politics, technology and other connective systems need to open rather than close us to each other as we seek to identify solutions that can satisfy all. Ultimately, we need to become bound together across the full range of principles of an ethical society where “… everyone’s reputation is on the line all the time, so that bad behavior will always bring bad consequences.” (p. 74) Likewise, where good behavior, broadly recognized and enacted, is rewarded.

Palmer - Healing the Heart of Democracy

Parker Palmer closes his book Healing the heart of democracy: The courage to create a politics worthy of the human spirit (2011) with a quote from Reinhold Neibuhr that captures the essence of his message:

Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in our lifetime; therefore, we must be saved by hope. Nothing which is true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore we must be saved by faith. Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore we are saved by love.

Palmer wrote Healing… before the U.S.A. election of 2016; however, the concerns he raised have become even more evident this last year. Palmer’s view is that in order to make the Constitutional assurance of “We the People…” work, we need to speak to those beyond “our own” and we must cease to demonize those who have ideas different than ours. Examples of the struggles Abraham Lincoln faced leading up to and during the Civil War are offered throughout the book, providing contextualization that puts our own times in perspective. The rights of diverse others was a central disagreement of the Civil War and it appears that diversity has again driven a wedge between us.

Hope in our future can be recaptured by recognizing the mutual heartbreak of a government that doesn’t work and of communities divided by class and culture. “When we hold suffering in a way that opens us to greater compassion, heartbreak becomes a source of healing, deepening our empathy for others who suffer and extending our ability to reach out to them.” (p. 22) The relative stagnation of the U.S. economy is clearly a source of much of the heartbreak that many citizens share. “When material progress falters… people become more jealous of their status relative to others” (p. 64); the jealousy then results in scapegoating others instead of working to problem solving our way to a more prosperous community.

There is no question that we experience tension, discomfort, and distrust with people who are different from us; however, there are benefits to diversity if we are able to hold it in a way that results in creativity, openness to each other, new ideas, and new courses of action. Unfortunately, one of the most significant barriers to our being able to open to each other’s ideas is the individualistic pursuit of wealth and power. Although individualism was one of the things that helped immigrants as they came to North America, it now pushes us away from each other and weakens our sense of shared community. This erosion of community through individualistic pursuit also has the more negative potential of making us vulnerable to despots who exploit our differences. The antidote is that our government was designed to help us embrace differences of opinion and to use the resulting tension to generate an active body politic.

Palmer proposes five habits of the heart that he believes can restore our sense of community and protect our democracy. The first thing is that we should recognize that we’re in this together. The second habit is that we must develop an appreciation for the value of others. The third is that we must cultivate the ability to hold tension in creative ways. Fourth, we must generate personal voice and agency. Finally, we should strengthen our capacity to create community. All five of these habits must be cultivated with chutzpah (knowing we have a voice and using it) and humility (accepting that truth is always partial and we should listen to others). These habits can be expressed in many places but educational institutions and religious organizations are two places where they are most effectively nurtured. In order for education and religious organizations to be useful, they cannot hold our society’s problems at arm’s length but must engage fully and personally to develop the empathy and willingness to act in ways that protect the present and future of our democracy.

Palmer’s optimist views have contributed much food for thought for those of us committed to a creating a better and more equitable world. His views are also realistic and have been documented in communities of hope where healing is underway. His historical and contemporary analyses of these places led him to discern four stages that are key in the process – “deciding to live ‘divided no more,’ forming communities of congruence, going public with a vision, and transforming the system of punishment and reward.” (p. 189)

Goss - Bolero: The Life of Maurice Ravel

My love of Ravels’ compositions goes all the way back to age 10 when I broke my arm and my mother bought a “stereo” (equivalent to what would be today’s boom box or ipod) to entertain me until I could go back to practicing piano. Along with the stereo, one of my first purchases was a recording of Ravel’s famous Bolero; I listened to it until the grooves wore out. Now I play two of Ravel’s most beloved compositions on piano, Pavane pour une Infante defunte and the Adagio Assai from his Piano Concerto in G.

Reading Bolero: The life of Maurice Ravel  (M. Goss, 1940) introduced new insights that now bring deeper meaning and enhanced interpretation to his compositions. Ravel is fascinating as a study in leadership as well, particularly because his kind of leadership was one that often goes unrecognized – simple, convicted, and pursued with little regard for influence. He made music because he had to (“comme unpommier fait ses pommes”) instead of for the purpose of advancing himself or making money.

Ravel’s father was Swiss and his mother from the Basque region of Spain. His unique love of Basque culture led to a career-long fascination with rhythm and dance. This, combined with a tendency to obscure emotion behind a film of artistic restraint, came to be recognized as quintessentially French.

Numerous other composers influenced Ravel yet he remained unique. Chabrier provided inspiration for the Pavane pour une Infante defunte, the first of Ravel’s compositions to be widely embraced. Its delicate and unwavering rhythm depicts a princess dancing the Pavane at court and becoming so obsessed with its beauty that she loses all interest in anything else. His most influential teacher was Faure and contemporaries included the likes of Debussy, Satie, Massenet, Saint-Saens, de Falla, and Stravinsky (one of Ravel’s closest life-long friends). He also interacted with many of the impressionist painters (Verlaine, Monet, Manet, Renoir, and Degas) of the early 20^th century.

Many of Ravel’s compositions drew sharp disapproval from critics and the public but made him a celebrity among his young artist comrades. He composed in many different styles with one period focusing exclusively on ballet and a later period incorporating elements of jazz. After visiting America he reported that “American people have developed a distinct national personality by combining different races into a united whole” which resulted in “two distinct characteristics: underlying pathos… plus a hidden yearning for an ideal which Americans hardly understand.” (62% through digital text)

Ravel composed Bolero only a short time after returning from his concert tour to America. Its pulsating beat never varied when Ravel conducted it in concert and it is this constant forward movement, drawing the listener to an eventual dramatic key modulation and explosive conclusion, that made the piece so intoxicating. Another of Ravel’s last compositions, the Piano Concerto in G, incorporates a similar rhythmic pulse in the middle movement (Adagio Assai) that supports a tender and elegant melody. The pace and persistence of each of these compositions creates a captivating quality much like the short life of this eccentric composer with the Basque heart and restrained French sensibility.

Khanna - Connectography

I read and review a lot of books, some are great, others are alright, and a few are barely worth the effort. Connectography: Mapping the Future of Global Civilizations by Parag Khanna (2016) is a must read particularly in a time when governments and their leaders are searching for understanding about the future.

Khanna has recorded for TED Talks where he describes a world that should be understood more in terms of connections and trade than how we have seen it in geography and maps. His proposition is that connectivity will transform our world; geographic boundaries, protected by governments and military defense, will become irrelevant.

Informed by extensive travel and an amazing network of colleagues around the world (see “Acknowledgments”), Khanna describes a hopeful future where military superiority and wars will cease to be a threat, replaced by supply chain and trade agreements that world leaders dare not violate if they want to survive. Khanna, by contrast to many who deplore the mass urbanization unfolding around the world, sees cities as the way to deal with environmental degradation and income inequality.

“As the lines that connect us supersede the borders that divide us, functional geography is becoming more important than political geography.” (7% through digital text) Khanna predicts that nations will have little power in comparison to cities that broker supply chains and trade at will, carefully managing the flow (resources, goods, capital, technology, people, data, and ideas) and friction (borders, conflict, sanctions, distance, and regulation) within their purview. This world of evolving and permeable boundaries, is more effectively leveraged through engagement than containment.

Tug-of-war for resources, innovation, products and services is the new paradigm that Khanna says successful cultures must embrace. Within this tug-of-war the most important goal is securing talent; whether grown through education and training or acquired through immigration from other areas of the world, the boundaries should be taken down rather then erected. That is not to say that immigration can be totally thrown open but it does call for modification of immigration processes and numbers so that talented people who seek opportunity can flow to whatever place helps them achieve the goals they have for themselves and their families. When and if migrant workers “are sent back, they should be armed with skills and money to stabilize their own countries to eventually diminish the urge to migrate.” (73% through digital text) Perhaps the solution in the 21^st century is to issue “global passports” that are carried by those who move and work from country to country and city to city, effectively undoing the “punitive effects of the accident of birth.”

With 60% of Americans now believing that the “American Dream” is out of their reach, 40% of young adults 18 to 24 see themselves working outside of U.S.A. boundaries at some point in their future (26% through digital text). This is a startling change in American’s view of their future and it is one that, in itself, will help the country become more connected and therefore influential. It is these expatriate and traveling diplomats who offer the new face of America abroad. New York, Miami, Dallas, Los Angeles, San Fancisco, Chicago, Boston, and Atlanta have been important to the U.S.A. but to these “homes” the global cities of London, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Singapore, and Dubai will be added. Infrastructure development will increasingly be central to the success of any city that wants to be included among the global supply, talent, and innovation centers. Simplistic calls to “bring jobs back to America” fail to recognize that the more jobs and wealth that emerge elsewhere, the more there are those who can afford to buy innovations that originate in the knowledge economy of the U.S.A. where banking, insurance, software programming, consulting, design, architecture, accounting, legal affairs, health care and education are so lucrative. These innovation industries can thrive in special economic zones (SEZs) placed around the world, providing more opportunity to build connectivity while bringing mutual benefit to all.

According to Khanna’s predictions, “Connectivity is destiny” and those individuals, businesses, and countries that do not embrace this reality are at risk. In his concluding paragraph, Khanna advocates, “We need a more borderless world because we can’t afford destructive territorial conflict, because correcting the mismatch of people and resources can unlock incredible human and economic potential, because so few states provide sufficient welfare for their citizens, and because so many billions have yet to fully benefit from globalization.”

Khanna is showing up regularly in Facebook posts and other media. One New York Times article proposes a new map of America based on the trends identified in Connectography. Khanna’s message is worth careful consideration, especially in the context of political strife emerging all around the world and most graphically demonstrated in the 2016 U.S.A. Presidential contest. 

An Other World - Block, Brueggemann & McKnight

An Other Kingdom: Departing the Consumer Culture (Block, Brueggemann & McKnight, 2016) proposes that the competitive economic and resource-scarce world that is reflected in much of life’s experience is being replaced by a covenantal world characterized by neighborly beliefs.

The free market consumer ideology that the authors believe is dying assumes scarcity of resources, that certainty and perfection are achievable, that acquisitiveness and privatization are essential, and that institutions are required to maintain this ordered culture. The emerging covenantal world is based on the neighborly beliefs of abundance, mystery, fallibility, and the common good. The consumer and globalized culture which dominated much of the 19^th and 20^th centuries violated neighborly values and perpetuated privilege, competition, self-interest, entitlement, and surplus (unused) resources. By contrast, a new covenantal culture would result in more even distribution of resources and would reduce the obsession to acquire more than we need. The covenantal community requires that individual well-being be reunderstood by paying greater attention to the well-being of the whole community.

The authors view urbanization as one of the primary causes for the loss of community, partly due to the complex systems and empire that has to be maintained as a support to consumerism. This urbanized world lacks a sense of community, of knowing each other, and it ignores the potential of a connection to God. They trace the class system that has emerged and the organizations that support it to a “myth of individual development.” The empire that perpetuates our disconnection from each other is supported by everything from schools to aloof elites who are blind to the social and economic conditions that impact other’s lives. Additional factors that sustain our disconnected life experience include mobility and isolation, unproductive wealth, and the violence that accompanies them.

The alternative the authors propose is to accept an “invitation to covenantal justice, a call to create a more just or equitable world based on covenant.” This covenant is what many would see as a commitment to the common good. And this common good can be achieved by recognizing the abundance of our community gifts and sharing the resources we need. The signposts of such a covenantal community are sharing time, food, and silence. Rather than observing time as a quantity to be managed, covenantal time involves measuring the depth of time – what did we do with time to make meaning and create common good? Rather than seeing food as something to hoard, food should be viewed as coming from nature and therefore freely shared. Rather than viewing silence as a void or absence, it should be seen as a companion to mystery – a place allowing for reflection, discernment and deeper understanding.

In the postscript, the authors express their intent in writing this book, “to shrink the market as the primary means of cultural identity, schools as the sole source of learning, systems as the source of care, price as the measure of value, productivity as the basis of being.” All in all, such propositions sound attractive but the few examples the authors provide offer little certitude of dramatic change, especially in a near term view. An Other Kingdom was more a primer for reflection on the state of our civilization and world’s future than a roadmap to how to make it happen.

Relating music, leadership and cultural intelligence - Part Five of Five sequential posts

As many of us discover in our maturing days, there are repeating and often deepening themes throughout life’s experiences. Music, leadership, and cultural intelligence have been areas of constant discovery in my life. They will continue to be fascinations for me as I seek to learn more. Through my journey thus far, I have gained insights from the confluence of discoveries in each area which include:

• Find areas in your life that fascinate you, remain open to learning about them, and transfer ideas discovered in one area to others.
• Brain function research guides us in realizing where we are in our learning, especially related to the discomfort we have in learning new things and the growing freedom we have when acquired learning is incorporated into who we are.
• When learning something new, pick the pieces apart, analyzing different issues for patterns that can illuminate how the pieces fit together and how approaches in one area can be adapted to another.
• Once we achieve some degree of authenticity (comfort) in who we are, keep both an explicit awareness of what you are doing running at the same time you act out of your natural core.
• Find the place that allows you to be “at home” with new knowledge and to express your true self in using it.
• Remember that you are not the center but simply an instrument of conveyance for something that goes beyond and is bigger than you.

Music, leadership and culture can each be seen as special areas of expertise and therefore things that we should only engage if we have high expertise. What’s wrong with that view? Seeing them as matters of expertise and performance takes away the opportunity for all of us to enjoy being involved, living fully, and offering all that we have. Seeing music, leadership and cultural interaction as part of who we are but not about us can be freeing. The bottom line is that music used to be something shared in private salons and living rooms and now it is celebrated more on the concert stage. Leadership used to be a shared responsibility in communities seeking mutuality in order to survive and now it is viewed all too often as the purview of select elites. Cultural interaction used to be about how to connect with someone of another tribe and now it is viewed more as an obstacle to overcome in business or political negotiations. What I am advocating is that music, leadership, and cultural interaction, as well as many other areas, can and should become topics/experiences of mutual exploration rather than audience observation and evaluation.

Some final points that I’ve realized through these successive posts, expressed in musical terms but generalizable to leadership and culture as well, may be helpful:

• Starting from scratch can be terrifying – fear of the unknown is intimidating.
• The hard parts require greater discipline to learn but they often become our best passages.
• Hidden and subtle themes are often the most interesting.
• Concentrate on where the arc of the long phrase goes rather than just the short interludes.
• Masterful performance is a combination of restraint (careful control) and reckless abandon.
• Focus on the art and not the audience.

In some ways, these understandings have likely been part of my worldview for some time. However, the explicit recognition of them helps me to hold certain assumptions about what I am doing that keep me on track. The last point, “It is the art that should be the focus and not the audience,” has been a struggle for me. Even now, I can write these words but I know that in relation to playing piano I still pay too much attention to the audience. I am coming back to this challenge and will have an opportunity in November 2016 to test this assumption at the International Association of Leadership conference in Atlanta. I’ve been invited to play background music as conference attendees take their seats at two of the keynote programs. Practicing a number of Rachmaninoff pieces for the last several years, the program I intend to play traces his compositions from the first when he was only 18 years old (middle movement of the Piano Concerto #1) up to one of his final masterpieces (18^th variation of the Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini). As I practice, I am often transported to a place that is outside of myself and concentrates only on my giving voice to this great music. My goal is to go to this place regardless of who is in the room in Atlanta.

Culture - Part Four of Five sequential posts

My artistic struggle is that I can play piano very well for myself, my wife, and family. When it comes to playing “for” others, anxiety is my worst enemy. Anxiety has a powerful ability to derail procedural memory. When I performed publicly as a youth, I remember sitting down at the piano to perform a piece by memory, and then not even knowing how the piece started or how to figure it out. The anxiety froze my procedural memory and the only way out was to try to relax, visualize the explicit aspects of the music in order to get started, and then hope that the procedural memory would comfortably kick in for the rest of the piece. If I was not able to get back on track through memory, I would ask to see my sheet music for a refresher and then dive in. Such experiences are terrifying and I’ve had my share…

Again, applying to leadership and culture, I believe we can freeze up when we face an anxiety producing setting. The only difference is that in leadership and culture, some of us (myself included) feel we have to proceed, faking it along the way and hoping that others don’t recognize. As you can see in this comparison, you couldn’t get away with faking it on the piano. However, when we freeze in leadership or cultural interaction, many of us just blunder ahead rather than saying, “You know, I really don’t know where to start. Can you give me a little help in understanding what to do?”

Increasing cultural proficiency starts with a realization that we all have unique ways of living and interacting with others matched with curiosity about how other’s ways work for them. Living in Qatar for seven years offered the opportunity to interact across very different cultures on a regular basis. In the early days of being there, and privileged by the belief that I was expected to bring my perspective and expertise, I made many blunders. Fortunately, colleagues would comment good-naturedly that “You are so American.” At first I didn’t understand what that meant but I gradually overcame my own blindness to see the details of how others interacted with each other. I eventually came to adopt a habit of reading each encounter I had with a cultural lens, reflecting with, “What is the same or different about this encounter and what must I do if I want to “connect” with the other person?

An example of seeking to “connect” more effectively can be found in determining whether to speak up or stand down in cross-cultural interactions. Many Americans and some from other “Western” cultural backgrounds place great value on speaking one’s mind and forthrightly offering our perspectives. This view is related to lots of things, among them are individualism, assertiveness, and a belief in the value of freedom of speech. Other cultures, particularly in the Middle East and Asia, view speaking up as potentially disrespectful of others, self-oriented, or inviting scrutiny that could reveal imperfection. The natural tendency of an American, regardless of cultural context, would likely be to speak up quickly and directly. Unfortunately, this can result in others being unresponsive to what might have been otherwise a very helpful idea. A choice to stand down, listen to others first, recognize the value of other’s contributions, and then offer an enhancing perspective would most likely be much better received.

What many refer to as “culture shock” is in essence “freezing up” in the face of the anxiety of being in a cultural context that we do not understand. In that moment, we face a realization that something is not working and we don’t know where to turn. I am not sure it applies to all cultures, but my experience in Qatar was filled with gracious hosts who were more than happy to help me in those “freezing up” moments and I grew to know that I could always turn to one of them to say, “I really don’t know where to start. Can you give me a little help in understanding what to do?”

Molinsky’s (2013) cultural dexterity model is very helpful when thinking about how to establish authentic communication and appreciation across cultures. His view is to know one’s own cultural inclinations, seek to understand that of others, and adapt (without compromising the essence) your own style in order to be able to relate effectively with others. There is striking confirmation across learning music, leadership, and culture – study carefully and deeply, understand the bits and pieces, keep an eye on both the small and big picture, seek authenticity, and find a place that represents being “at home” that allows you to perform at your best.

Leadership - Part Three of Five sequential posts

Like music, when we engage in leadership, things may seem very disjoint and cacophonous but a deeper dive and growing familiarity reveals patterns that increase our understanding. It is patience and discipline in the analysis of both music and leadership that ultimately leads to greater success.

Leadership is thought by many people to be something that others do – not me. Our times, with advancing quality and length of life around the world, require a broader number of us to engage in leadership. All one has to do is look around to recognize that many of those who presume to “lead” are nearly incapable of leadership and that there are others with such deep humility that they would never accept that they offer leadership on a regular basis. My belief is that we need both more humility among “leaders” as well as audacity that invites others into leadership.

Learning about leadership can start through experience or through study, and ideally both. It is something that requires a depth of reflection and analysis much like the approach to learning a new piece of music – analysis, identification of patterns, and seeing both the immediate and big picture. Having been a formal student of leadership from 1976 to this day, I continue to read actively, observe others carefully, and reflect on my own experience to understand it. And it is almost always the deeper experiences, sometimes my own failure, that stimulate the greatest insight. Approaching leadership with a discerning eye that identifies patterns, hidden dynamics, similarities/dissimilarities to other experiences, and balances both small and big implications is almost always more successful than just forging ahead.

Working within a framework of critical analysis and discipline, we can achieve great artistry that embraces the nature of the question we seek to master, either a piece of music or a challenge in leadership. This artistry then becomes the ‘at home’ of who we are when we are our best selves in leadership – approaching the situation as nuanced, unique, and ripe with opportunity to make a difference. This authentic place is based on our acting out of our natural tendencies tempered with the awareness of our surrounding environment and its dynamics.

Music - Part Two of Five sequential posts

In looking at the way we learn music, leadership, and culture I want to begin with how our brains function. In Alan Rusbridger’s Play it Again a very important distinction is made between explicit and procedural memory. Explicit memory is brain capacity that is used when we encounter and attempt to master something new. Depending on the complexity of the topic or skill, the process of establishing explicit memory may take a significant amount of time and effort. Gradually as we begin to incorporate the new understanding into our natural thinking, the brain function moves to procedural memory. Procedural memory is something that can be recalled automatically, seemingly without effort or focus.

Learning a piece of music is one of the easiest illustrations to use regarding explicit and procedural memory. When learning a piece, I work very hard to read the notes, observe the dynamics, and do as much as I can to recreate the composer’s intent. During this phase, the music doesn’t “sing” because it is stiff and mechanical. As all the technical aspects are gradually mastered, playing a piece becomes more natural and musical. It is at this stage that brain functioning is shifting from explicit to procedural memory. A startling moment can occur during this phase as I get caught up in the music, enjoying a truly artistic moment; then all of a sudden, I don’t know what the next notes or phrase should be and the result is a train wreck. The way to avoid the train wreck is to seek to hold some explicit awareness of what I am doing in the moment while letting go of the technical details – freeing the full artistic expression that is possible when I am caught up in the music.

One of my favorite composers, Sergei Rachmaninoff, was recognized as one of the 20th century's greatest composers, conductors, and pianists. Rachmaninoff is known for his great melodies and I enjoy playing his compositions because they have very complicated chords, runs, rhythms, and interplay of both hands. This requires me to pick the piece apart, analyzing different sections of his compositions for patterns that can help me see how the work fits together and how approaches in one section can be adapted to another. As the sameness and variation within and across pieces becomes clear through repetition, the music becomes more familiar, comfortable, and "at home."

It is the "at home" point that the music and I become one in the same - with my reading and playing the music serving only as a conduit for what is written in a manuscript. "Arriving at home" allows for a piece of music to have a unique interpretation that is only mine. I shape the phrases, change the tempo, emphasize a note or chord and the way I do it is likely never to be repeated by anyone else. It is in the "at home" stage that full expression is possible and it is frequently accompanied with a physiological reaction in me; I get chills up my spine and all over my body when I find expression in the music and achieve just the touch that the composer intended as well. So, the piece is played with integrity to the composer yet finds distinctive expression through me.

Experimentalism and empiricism - Part One of Five sequential posts

I’m an experientialist rather than an empiricist. My career and personal life have offered untold opportunity to learn from my encounters. The problem was that, as many in the world, the luxury of taking time out to conduct an empirical analysis of what was happening and why just never emerged. I have, however, learned that the experientialist perspective has a lot of value and this perspective deepens and perhaps gains greater validity as we mature. This is the realization that draws me to undertake a series of blog posts that will connect three major themes in my life – music, leadership, and culture.

Especially in an age where the voices of youth are marginalized and sometimes not taken seriously, I do not equate my advancing age with any deeper realization in life. Anyone can and should own realizations when sufficient time has been taken to dig into our experiences in search for deeper meanings and connections. In an age of complexity greater than any we have experienced before, I strive to use all the critical thinking, comparative perspective, and cross-disciplinary thinking I can muster. Even with a lot of work, the result will be inadequate but I’m striving for “good enough” to be of benefit to any reader and/or me searching to understand.

The realizations I intend to explore reflect three life priorities for me - music, leadership, and culture. Ultimately, the series will be a journey in the discovery of embracing and utilizing my strengths – which I understand to be connective thinking, relational appreciation, big-picture attention, and artistic insight and expression. These are my gifts for better or worse. They have worked for me at many times in my life. On other occasions, these gifts have either been unappreciated or denigrated by others who saw little value in what I had to offer. This is one of the lessons I believe is so important to all of us as growing, developing human beings – don’t deny who you are just because someone else doesn’t embrace your essence or is threatened by it. Temper your response, hold your ground, and do what you can to maintain your uniqueness while still accommodating to individuals and environments where you find yourself. If you finally conclude that a particular environment is hostile, get out as soon as possible!

Doris Kearns Goodwin interviews U.S. President Barack Obama

Vanity Fair ran a remarkable article on September 21, 2016, Doris Kearns Goodwin's interview of U.S. President Barack Obama. This is a must-read for anyone who seeks to understand leadership in the modern age. Beginning with President Obama's fascination with the legacy of Abraham Lincoln, moving through reflections on the personalities and impact of several other U.S. Presidents, and ending with reflections on his own accomplishments and unrealized aspirations, the interview reveals a lot about the internal struggles of a world leader. President Obama proposed that ambition is a driving force for many in their youth but that there is a moment of truth when something beyond one's self emerges that then becomes the source of motivation and endurance for difficult roles such as the president of a nation state. Adversity is often the source of awakening to "this is me." President Obama's youth presented challenges that shaped his early life but no one could question that he has faced many challenges during his two terms. With great humility, President Obama does not attempt to claim any uniqueness or profound impact but, instead, suggests that it is up to the American people and historians such as Goodwin to determine how he will be judged. Thank you, Mr. President and Dr. Goodwin for allowing us to sit with you in a profoundly revealing conversation!

Khalilzad - The Envoy: From Kabul to the White House, my journey through a turbulent world

Zalmay Khalilzad was first Ambassador from the U.S.A. to Afghanistan, then to Iraq, and eventually to the United Nations. I picked up his book, The Envoy: From Kabul to the White House, My Journey through a Turbulent World, because I continue to struggle with how to cultivate peace and prosperity throughout the Middle East and Arab, Israeli, and Persian worlds. As a native Afghan, naturalized citizen of the U.S.A., and Muslim, his views deserve careful attention.

Khalilzad is balanced in his portrayal of almost all those individuals he notes in his book, although readers should understand his cultural context and life experience in order to understand the perspective he offers. As an example, his portrayal of George W. Bush, the U.S.A. President with whom he worked most closely, recounts Bush’s deep interest in understanding what was going on in the Middle East, his support of Khalilzad in proposing sometimes unpopular strategies, but in the end bemoaning Bush’s lack of follow-through with the nation building strategies Khalilzad believed were necessary to move forward. Khalilzad’s analyses of Bush and other politicians recognized the diverging pressures of inward (within nation) and outward (interaction and diplomacy with other nations) forces that sometimes cause heads of state to appear inconsistent and unpredictable. The key learning from these analyses were that, when seeking to understand the actions of presidents and prime ministers, it is critical to understand to which audience the politician is attempting to appeal.

The first two-thirds of the book recounted Khalilzad’s childhood in Afghanistan, coming to the U.S.A. as a foreign exchange student in 1966, returning in 1974 For graduate study at the University of Chicago, and on through his diplomatic career progression. There is no question that Khalilzad is worldly in his view and he is very committed to democratization anywhere in the world where opportunity presents itself. Thus, he favors intervention rather than staying distant from conflicts in other parts of the world and he is not reticent about destabilizing bad heads of state and working toward regime change. Taken in this context, Khalilzad’s recounting of the mistakes of Afghanistan and Iraqi are revealing; the errors he asserts are primarily of not engaging deeply enough and not staying long enough to finish the regime change and nation building in each of these cases. Khalilzad’s reflections reinforce that factionalization among countries and religious groups requires deep understanding but can ultimately be tamed through diplomacy that includes both reconstruction/nation building as well as provision of security forces.

Specifically in relation to Iraq but also relevant to his experience in Afghanistan, Khalilzad identified the following lessons: 

• Do not assume that local politics will take care of themselves in the aftermath of regime change.
• Geopolitical vacuums are dangerous things.
• Foster conditions that bring out the better instincts of local leaders.
• Exercise presidential command.
• Pursue political and security efforts in tandem. (77% through digital text)

In particular, changing course during the process of destabilization and regime change is not a good thing and doing so has cost the U.S.A. considerable credibility and trust in a number of places around the world.

Khalilzad identified several trends he believes represent a threat to the U.S.A.: “the collapse of order in many developing countries; the rise of terrorism and extremism; Europe’s triple crises of a loss of confidence in Brussels, threats from Putin’s Russia, and the conflicts of the greater Middle East; and the Chinese push for regional hegemony.” (83% through digital text) He goes on to say that the worst strategy for the U.S.A. to pursue now is to retreat from the world; Iraq and Syria offer examples of where staying at a distance can cause greater problems than more active involvement. He indicates that the U.S.A. should promote a regional balance of power in the Middle East and should avoid taking sides on the sectarian conflict between the Sunni and Shia branches of Islam. Khalilzad also sees the U.S.A. as an unusual immigrant country that continues to reinvent itself through experimentation and innovation, a characteristic that contrasts with many other countries and cultures that “see problems as permanent and solutions as the inevitable start of new problems.” (86% into digital text)

As I concluded Envoy, Khalilzad authored an article for Politico Magazine, “’We misled you:’ How the Saudis are coming clean on funding terrorism,” The article describes Saudi Arabia’s support for Islamist splinter groups as a way to initially defeat Egypt’s Nasser from unifying the Arab/Islamic world and then used later to support extremist views in order to resist Russia’s growing influence in places like Afghanistan. Admitting that their strategy had metastasized into a monster that could destroy them, Saudi officials couldn’t own up to their role when questions about the 9/11 attacks on the U.S.A. were raised. Why would Saudi Arabia now want to come forward? There is new and youthful leadership who know that they have to transform the nation in order to survive; in Khalilzad’s words, “Riyadh views modernization as the vehicle through which the Saudi state, at long last, con confront and defeat extremism, foster a dynamic private sector and master the looming economic challenges” it now faces. While Khalilzad recognized that there are many challenges ahead, he portrayed the changing Saudi approach as one that could allow them to regain status as a Middle East regional power and a model for how to move forward in many other conflict areas.

We can only hope but Khalilzad’s informed perspective at least provides a rationale for why hope is warranted.

The Quran and Bible on Grounding and Striving in Leadership

I encountered one of those moments of truth recently. My wife and I were attending our community Methodist church on a Sunday morning when one of the staff came to me to ask that I read the scripture for the day. I agreed to read Luke 14:1,7-14, which is "When Jesus noticed how the guests sought out the best seats at the table, he told them a parable. 'When someone invites you to a wedding celebration, don't take your seat in the place of honor. Someone more highly regarded than you could have been invited by your host. The host who invited both of you will come and say to you 'Give your seat to this person.' Embarrassed, you will take your seat in the last important place..."

Reflecting later on this verse and looking back at my experience in Qatar, I sent a message to a Muslim colleague whose opinion I value a great deal. I asked specifically if the Quran has a similar verse. He responded that the closest thing he could think of was "Do not strut about in the land for you can neither cleave the earth nor attain the height of the mountains."

Both of these references admonish us to exercise humility and my own view is that leadership is one of the areas in which we should most seek to demonstrate humility. The Biblical reference indicates that to be presumptuous in presenting oneself as more important than others risks embarrassment while the Quran advocates humility, “Do not strut…,” because we then can neither keep our feet on the ground nor transcend the confines of our earthly role if we do.

So, how do we exercise humility yet strive to make a difference through our leadership? It seems that experience as well as the best of what is being written about leadership these days recommends avoiding any appearance of superiority or unwillingness to hear other’s perspective – staying grounded in the reality of other’s and our own experience. In addition, it seems that striving to make a difference should not be done for its own sake but for the difference it makes in the world – to attain the height of the mountains.

There are also a few more words that close the Biblical text in Luke - "Then Jesus said to the person who had invited him, 'When you host a lunch or dinner, don't invite your friends, your brothers and sisters, your relatives or rich neighbors. If you do, they will invite you in return and that will be your reward. Instead, when you give a banquet, invite the poor, crippled, lame, and blind. and you will be blessed because they can't repay you. Instead, you will be repaid when the just are resurrected.'"

The combination of the Quran and Bible are again instructive. When we strive to make a difference through leadership, seeking to help our friends and family can be good but doing so results in immediate reward in kind and in the moment. By contrast, striving to make a difference for those who are most in need and cannot and never will repay will result in a reward of a different kind – not to be returned, perhaps invisible, but elevating both the other and ourselves to the height of mountains.