 |
Rembrandt:
Christ in the Storm
on the Lake of Galilee |
As
in Jeremiah's time, leaders today usually set a tone for others. What
positive tone or atmosphere are you setting in your home, job, school
or church? Where might you have a negative impact? (Serendipity
Bible 10th Anniversary Edition, page 1092).
One
of my primary objectives is to cultivate an expression within my own
being and within that of others of transcendent personhood. This is
what I mean by that. It is observed that when we die, although
surrounded by friends and family, there is a sense in which we die
alone. This state of existential aloneness can have several negative
manifestations during our lives. One of them is "the loner".
This term identifies a negative attempt to achieve personhood. It is
represented by a tightly bound and tensely self-contained seedpod.
It is deeply antisocial in a severely restricted and unproductive
sense. The reverse of the loner is the vigilante. This is someone
whose seedpod has burst but venom rather than light is disseminated.
Transcendent personhood, the alternative representing spiritual
freedom, recognizes aloneness but avoids the harmful characteristics
illustrated by the loner and the vigilante. Jesus is the prime
example of transcendent personhood. Even though Jesus had 12
disciples and many who heard his teachings, there was a sense in
which he was alone. The affirmation and love of his heavenly father
served to ground him with a calm steadiness and assurance one
evidence of which was the serenely sourced Beatitudes. Transcendent
personhood always carries with it this tranquility born of assurance.
It is a freedom that transcends the confounding social nexus of the
world without being antisocial.
As
a leader (and I think there is a sense in which each and every one of
us are leaders), my primary objective is to augment a tone of healthy
and divinely sourced transcendent personhood. While in the matrix of
social interactions, I yearn to see existent within myself and others
a centered transcendence mastering temporal social stresses. A
tableau of this is when Jesus stood to calm the storm upon the
Sea of Galilee.
Print Page
