The poet Galway Kinnell, a writer of exquisite and moving poetry, died this week.His poem 'St Francis and the Sow', which you can read in its entirety here, opens with these lines:
The budstands for all things,even those things that don't flower,for everything flowers, from within, of self-blessing;though sometimes it is necessaryto reteach a thing its loveliness,to put a hand on its browof the flowerand retell it in words and in touchit is lovelyuntil it flowers again from within, of self-blessing;
This expresses so clearly a central responsibility of leaders (isn't that all of us?), parents, friends, coaches, consultants, doctors, nurses, teachers of all kinds - to act in a way that enables the people and systems in which we work to flower from within, of self-blessing.It is ridiculously easy to be cynical. Easy to create distance. Easy to forget the capacities that lie within us. And the easiest (and sometimes, in the moment, most self-satisfying) to pull people and projects apart with our knowing insight and sharp judgement, or with our world-weariness.And it's probably the hardest, and most necessary, to be someone who patiently, over time, brings about genuine flourishing by reminding us all of our most life-giving qualities - the ones we so easily forget - so they can be called into expression.