Thank you for being a vulnerable leader.
Thank you for standing in front of a crowd and being honest about yourself. Thank you for opening a door to a place you could have kept entirely secret. Thank you for letting us in. It wasn’t easy.
You didn’t celebrate your weakness, you just refused to hide it.
You didn’t hide behind feigned vulnerability, it was real and it was you.
We don’t get that very much. But we need it.
Thank you for showing us what courage looks like. We’ve had a lot of stoic over the years and it’s lost momentum. We’ve had the “never let them see you sweat” leaders and they seem, well, superhuman. We don’t connect. We don’t relate.
Thank you for going to a place that you didn’t have to go and for taking us with you. For too long, the rift has been so big. The distance between us and them has been cosmic. We can’t be like them. So we don’t try.
Thank you for showing us the scars. You didn’t have to. We know you have them… we all do. We don’t know what they are, and it’s truly none of our business, but now we know you have them. Now, you’re one of us and we are with you, because we have them, too.
Thank you for opening the door. Not just to the you that’s way down deep inside, but to a different way of thinking. A door that opens to tomorrow. A door that shows us we, too, can be accessible. A door that says, “All are welcome.” A door that doesn’t need to close again.
Thank you. Maybe you have some idea of what it means to us, maybe the same thing was modeled for you. Or maybe, it was just time and this is who you are.
Thank you for showing us that we belong with you in community. Thank you for showing us wholeness. These words from Parker Palmer’s “A Hidden Wholeness” seem so appropriate:
“Wholeness does not mean perfection: it means embracing brokenness as an integral part of life. Knowing this gives me hope that human wholeness-mine, yours, ours-need not be a utopian dream, if we can use devastation as a seedbed for new life.
But we cannot embrace that challenge all alone, at least, not for long: we need trustworthy relationships, tenacious communities ties of support, if we are to sustain the journey toward an undivided life.”
Thank you for showing us your brokenness, and for telling us it’s ok that we’re broken, too. That resonates. It inspires. And it heals.
Thank you.
1 Comment
THANK YOU for doing the same.