Shadow-Casting Monsters, pt 3

Here are the fourth and fifth of Parker Palmer's five 'shadow-casting monsters'.

Shadow-Casting Monsters #4-5:
4. "Fear, especially our fear of the natural chaos of life" (89).

Don't we fear the chaos of things? Having started a new thing with Brooklife Church over the past months, so many things have seemed chaotic. And yet, that is where we've seen some of the most exciting and creative things happening. What would have happened if we had rejected the new and exciting because of our overwhelming fear of chaos? Nothing. Nothing would have happened. How completely sad. Palmer goes on to say: "The insight we receive on the inner journey is that chaos is the precondition to creativity: as every creation myth has it, life itself emerged from the void" (89).

5. "The denial of death itself" (90).

Here's two more insights from Palmer on this one:

We also live in denial of the fact that all things must die in due course. (90)

The best leaders in every setting reward people for taking worthwhile risks even if they are likely to fail. These leaders know that the death of an initiative - if it was tested for good reasons - is always a source of new learning. (90)

This fifth shadow-casting monster reflects perhaps one of the most important things I have learned in the past three years. There are life cycles in our lives, in the seasons, in our work, and in ministry leadership. There is a time to live and there is a time to die, as the writer of Ecclesiastes says.

How often we, as leaders, become a stultifying force in our organizations when we fear the natural way of death. I have seen and experienced the waste that happens when an initiative that needs to die is kept alive because of tradition or some sense wrong ownership. It is no longer fruitful. It is no longer risky and life-giving. God forgive us for doing this in the church.

May we be leaders who face the shadow-casting monsters in our lives, organizations, and ministries so that God's best for us and others is realized as we work with Him, and not against Him.