This Post Has Nothing to Say About Ayn Rand Disciples But My Next One Might

It's difficult to ask people to make sacrifices. It's difficult but it seems something good leaders are able to do.

I don't mean just taking something from someone because you can- wether it's time, money, lives.

That's not leadership. That's being a bully. But convincing us that we're responsible to each other, that we're in something together, that we have a reason to overcome our differences, and work towards something bigger and more important than our individual interests. That's what a good leader does.

It's difficult, but that's why it's the purview of good leaders.

But I suppose not being able to lead might also be a result of being a people who don't need leaders. That is, perhaps we are such that we know it's inappropriate to ever have someone tell us to make those choices if it's not something we want to do for ourselves. I think, these days, we call that an ownership society. Later, we'll call it hell.

Last night I only watched a bit of the State of the Union. I thought I would watch the whole thing, but had a meeting to be at later and it was putting me in too foul a mood to handle much more than a few smirks and the affected cheering of the government we deserve.

MY PRESIDENT made it pretty clear that he's coming from a place that has no need for leaders because there is no need for us to come together for anything bigger than some sense of "me." We've no responsibility to anyone other than ourselves. Free market this, private that; take care of yourself and that takes care of enough.

I like that he made that very clear, especially in his pledge to use his mighty but rare veto on any bill that raised taxes. And then to make clear where he's coming from, he joked about the idea of being willing to sacrifice for each other: "Others have said they'd be happier to pay higher taxes. I welcome their enthusiasm. The IRS accepts both checks and money orders."

Usually when he mentions those faceless others, he's talking about people that don't actually exist. Strangely, in this case, he might actually be ridiculing the majority of Americans who say they would be willing to pay more in taxes for health care, or providing relief for those in need, or that the tax cut he wants to make permanent are not worth "it." But instead of leadership, he offers derision. Instead of inspiring us to something greater, he mocks the very idea of inspiration. What an ass.

Later, at said meeting, we were confronted with the idea of how difficult it is in our erstwhile Yearly Meeting to get people to sacrifice the time to come together for anything. Everyone's got their own things to worry about. That's true. We do. And broadly, we're not a people looking for leadership, we're looking for a way to take care of ourselves in such a way that it might take care of everything else. That's true broadly, but particularly- particularly as our Ministry and Counsel- we were struck by how odd and unfortunate that is.

I want to be careful to not make this a "pat ourselves on the back moment" but we're pretty great. So great that pretty great doesn't seem to say it. We're pretty [expletive] great. So great, in fact, that we undermine that sense of how great we might be and are able to be confronted by how great we really aren't so we might be even greater.

We recently had a small winter retreat. We had about half our congregation there. Larger, more successful, no use for a leader congregations in our Yearly Meeting have noted that not only could they not get that rate of people to show for something like that, they could not even get the same numbers from their mega-congregations to show.

I wonder if it's any coincidence that the die-hard 3 out of 10 that approve of MY PRESIDENT would be found in these very same congregations that don't need leaders, that only need to be affirmed in what they want to do to be a part of anything called the Body of Christ.

There was a bit of a realization last night that we're a weird bunch in the larger group. And who wants to listen to weirdos?

M'eh
The Past and Pending- The Shins
I Wanna Be Your Lover- Prince
Nessun Dorma- LP
Not Ready Yet- The Eels
Shrink- Dead Kennedys
Abstract Plain- Frank Black
Penthouse Serenade- Sarah Vaughan
I'm Lonely- The White Stripes
Darn that Dream- Mile Davis
Moonlight Becomes You- Chet Baker

ed.- And in case you can't tell, I wrote this yesterday but didn't post it right away.