Leadership
“May you have the grace and wisdom to act kindly, learning to distinguish between what is personal and what is not.”
John O'Donohue, an Irish writer who weaves his words around compelling truths, inviting the reader into a deeper relationship with themselves and the world, authored a book called To Bless The Space Between Us. In it he illuminates the Celtic tradition of blessing, blessing everyone you know and every circumstance of life, so that each moment of ordinary life is celebrated and precious. The Irish, according to O'Donohue, believe that blessings "open a window in eternal time" where our human hearts can experience wholeness. I return to these blessings on a daily basis, repeating the words on behalf of those I love and, in truth, on my own behalf.
The blessing ""For A Leader" is particularly profound and timely. It asks for leaders to be hospitable to criticism, to act out of service, to cultivate presence, to be gracious, and well informed, to listen and encourage. For me, of all all the characteristics this blessing would bestow on those who have the privilege to lead, perhaps the greatest is to have the grace and wisdom "to distinguish between what is personal and what is not". Our society is inundated with the personal, personal reactions, personal opinions, personal grievances, personal accomplishments. And, of course, what is personal is, in fact, important to each of us. But, it is not the fabric of civic responsibility.
These blessings are among the last writings of O'Donohue before his untimely death at age 52 in 2008. Even then, he believed that we were living in times that called for us to be critically aware citizens, believing that "when spoken, the word of truth can bring down citadels of falsity".
At the very least, I will say the words of this blessing on a daily basis in the hopes that they will awaken in me concrete ways in which I can take up my duty as a citizen to become an agent of positive change.