Choosing a Leader

Not easy, is it? Judging leaders through the media. Both men are humans and, thus, somewhere between lousy, mediocre, OK, pretty good and super. Rather easy to spot their flawed mediocrity, though, isn't it?  Probably because we're so mediocre ourselves. Like art, we know it when we see it.  

Ever meet a leader, with eye contact, have a chance to walk a beach with him, share? I look back on my 79 years and, yes, there were several. I don't necessarily mean the ones I loved and got close to, out of the available groups: parent, relative, friend, neighbor, teacher, team captain, coach, employer, boss. Not even:  religious superior, professional partner, hierarch in the judicial and ecclesiological systems where ladders were a-plenty and hero-worship came with an urge to climb. I don't mean hero. I don't mean even somebody I actually know well or a little. But somebody who, well, leads.

For example, one marvelous summer afternoon at Pine Point, rolling surf coming up on the beach with that lulling yet crashing joy, calling me away from the computer, I looked out the window. There walked, alone, the Bishop of the Diocese of Portland, Maine, towel around his neck, like a stole, beach umbrella a crozier, and the rest of him in bathing suit, T-shirt and sandals, a middle-aged mediocrity, eyes fixed over the bulkhead at the end of the lane, taking in the ocean of blue with glints of sun. He was smiling. I hollered out the window, "Hey! I know you."

He wasn't even startled, nor did he break stride, but looked up and hollered back, "Don't tell."

"Wanna walk the beach?"

"Sure."

And that's how I met a leader simply walking down our street. He'd bolted from the chancery, rented a cottage near our home for a week, to be alone, all alone, completely alone from ecclesiastics and fawning Catholics. He just wanted to be away, by himself, unknown, unheralded, another guy at the beach for a week of sun and sand and the cool, yet so inviting, waters of the North Atlantic Ocean, lapping on a beach seven miles long.

Great for walking at low to medium tide, where the sand near the water is cool, hard-packed, glistening from receding waters. Beyond the high tide mark it is lush and soft and clutchy on the feet with that sinking feeling that turns simple walking into trudging.  That's where the people sit, like in that poem, every single one of them facing the ocean, staring out to see the sea, almost as if they were patrons in a movie theater, when life is all around them, vivid, vibrant, real, alive.  

And so, we walked. Talked about the Red Sox and sand dollars, a bit about ourselves. Told him I'd been a Jesuit once and was warmed by his humor, "Wanna chat in Latin?" And, from then on, we were two middle-aged men out for a simple walk with simple talk, no probing, just plain, simple talk, the kind guys do with each other.

He sensed my want for solitude and I his. Our duotude that week was blessed with a couple more walks on the beach.  Easy talk. Neither one trying to impress the other, nor away and apart from the people on the beach. We belonged. We were they as well as us. Mothers with toddlers digging holes in the sand with little plastic shovels; fathers behind sunglasses eyeing the bikinis floating by endlessly with that look-but-don't-touch-yet-come-hither sway of shoulder and hip;  teenage boys throwing footballs manfully; teenage girls pointing out hunks womanfully; elders smiling at it all knowingly and remembering.

Thinking back on that week, so long ago, I wish he were our Bishop today. He was a leader as shepherds are. Anybody can grow up to be President, so it is said. Not so for Bishops, though most of them think so and work it out so it can be so.  Like Presidents? Do all leaders get to leadership one way or the other but always out of a sort of politics?

In politics, ah! there we are at the mercy of the media. In my lifetime of Presidents, I think – my personal opinion --  there were three leaders: Roosevelt, Kennedy, Clinton. In history: Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Lincoln, Cleveland. Not too many, after all.

Today, two wannabes. One is not, never was, never could be a leader. The other, an unknown a couple of years ago, came up out of the pack, shows promise – good arm, quick feet, an athlete, played OK so far, might  be a franchise player some day. As between the two, there is no choice. The rookie wins. He's the starter. Hope he measures up. I won't have much of a chance, or the time left, to get to know him. Wonder whether I can trust CNN,MSNBC, FOX NEWS? Or my own intuition? Can never holler out the window, "Wanna walk the beach?"  I can vote, though.

There is one leader in my life who did take time to sit and talk with me and my friends in the scholastics' rec room at Sophia University, over a three year period, regularly: Father Pedro Arrupe, SJ.  Not a close, personal relationship, more favored than others, just another scholastic and another Father Provincial. Like walking the beach with a Bishop a few times, kind of but not as casual. It lasted for three years. And we looked into each other's eyes, heard our voices, touched hands. He sat and walked  and talked with us.

When I  think leader, I see Father Arrupe. Makes it tough on others in my life who want to lead. With him as the role model, leadership is put out of reach for ordinary people. And, isn't it true? Ordinary people are the ones who want to be leaders and jostle and push and campaign to be chosen. Leaders simply show up. And lead.

I like a little thing Thomas Merton wrote – at least the bookmark on which it is printed says he did. I've had it for years. If we have choices for President, substitute the word "leader" for "saint" and our intuition will tell us who we will choose, who will be offered the chance to lead. After the votes are counted.