Fallible saints and heroes hold the center

One of my spiritual disciplines is to read people who think differently than I do. Politically I’ve always been to the left of center. When I was young that was pretty far from the center. So for the last four years I've read a few center-right thinkers. Only those who I share a few core values with, like the rule of law, due process, free speech, a balance of powers, and so on. All “the stuff” of liberal democracy. The stuff of the suffragettes, the Revolution, the Civil War, World War Two, the civil right movement, and religious freedom. That stuff. So, most days I read Charlie Sykes, the Bulwark, and the Dispatch. I even have a wall of prints on that stuff.

It works for me because along with them I believe in fallible saints and heroes. I appreciate our imperfect institutions. A have great affection for the Episcopal Church, the Anglican tradition, and my tiny parish of St. Clements—no perfection there. I love this country that has so often failed to live up to its own ideals. I’m a fairly orthodox Christian so I assume human limitation and sin. I also assume that we are made in the Divine Image and called to be instruments of Divine Love. I love paradox and complexity (well ... often enough).

I wouldn’t have voted for Colin Powell as President, but I would have been okay with it. Lifelong Episcopalian. A person of American institutions seen in his service in the US Army and the State Department. It’s significant that he was passionate about the Colin Powell School for Civic and Global Leadership. I think he understood that he was a fallible leader and hero. He admitted mistakes and persevered.  

         An interview of General Colin Powell.

One of the conservative writers I read most days is Jonathan Last. Today he talked about the failure of our institutions. He called it “the story of our time.” He mentioned the courts, the government, the medical establishment, the police, the church, and the military. I’d add the media—on the left and right.

In my time I’ve seen our civic institutions hold up pretty well when faced with Watergate and Nixon. I never thought that the significance was about Nixon’s misdeeds. For me it was that American institutions held the center because the leadership of those institutions showed courage and did their job. More recently … well, the institutions and their leaders did hold firm enough to truth and democracy. But this time it felt less certain. Still, in the end people at Justice were ready for a mass resignation. The military was prepared to stop a coup. The Capital Police fought. But we all know it could have turned out differently.

At the center are two forces. One are the values, ideas, and practices of an institution. Values, ideas, and practices that over time form an organizational culture into which new people and leaders enter. The second, are the leaders of the institution who have an inner commitment to the values and ideas, who live the practices as a kind of muscle memory, who work at ways of adapting to new circumstances and needs while remaining true to the values and ideals, and who will sacrifice themselves in that good work.  Adaptation that maintains and advances institutional integrity, identity, and integration. There are also forces in all our institutions set on redefining those ideals and values. On removing them.

This week the members of the Order of the Ascension are in a conversation around the new book A Wonderful and Sacred Mystery: A Practical Theology of the Parish Church. The book and our discussion have a useful and somewhat narrow focus –the parish church. It’s something within our range of influence. What’s “the stuff” at the center? What shapes a healthy center? How do we exercise leadership and presence that grounds the parish in the best of our tradition values, ideals, and practices? What do we make of the fact that those who hold the center are, each and everyone of them (us), fallible saints and heroes?

That discussion will broaden in December in a program co-sponsor by the Diocese of Oklahoma and the Order of the Ascension. I hope you’ll participate. An announcement will be made in the coming days.

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