Grasping for something that’s just out of reach

We have just come back from a wonderful holiday.

Each year we try to get a couple of weeks away in the middle of the year which makes a big difference in how we manage the second half.

This holiday featured a lot of fishing, watching season two of ‘the Mentalist’ and lots of reading.

I read N.T. Wright’s book ‘Surprised by Hope’ and found it stimulating, encouraging and extremely frustrating.

As he unpacked his theology of the Resurrection and the Kingdom it was very helpful, quite grounded and gave me some words to describe what I have known to be true but haven’t had the words to communicate.

The thing is though, that after reading it, there is much that clicked and made sense, but I still don’t have the words to describe all of what it is.

It’s frustrating to know something and not be able to explain it, or even know how you know.

As I came back I caught up with a good friend who is an artist. He is a very gifted and special person. His family is facing some challenges at the moment and his art has been on the back burner for a while. He is here in Poatina along with 30 others for our annual artists retreat.

He talked about how he is feeling that he is almost ready to start engaging with art again, but knows he needs to let himself have the space to play and come and go without really engaging in the work of creativity.

He describes being an artist as work because you are “always reaching for something that you can’t quite see”.

I felt a bit like that after reading Wrights book, its like it gave me a small hazy window into a land I know to be true and real but is just out of reach.

It made so much sense but my head is still searching for ways to express the profound truths that my heart so quickly responded to.

This way of knowing is not what you learn in school.

In school the job of a teacher is to put stuff in your head that may or may not be of any use in the world you find yourself at the time or at any time in the future.

This is different… first you sense something then gradually your head catches up but only ever in a partial kind of way.

Do you ever experience that kind of thing?

As my friend was talking I couldn’t help relating what he was saying to leadership.

I have read so many different books on leadership, done courses on leadership and enjoy wrestling with what it means. However I have found that the clearer I think I understand “the answer”, the more I am missing the real question.

At the moment the mob I work with is going through a process to redefine and understand who we are and where we are going. I am finding it incredibly frustrating.

The frustration comes because for many of us we kind of know, but the knowing is just out of reach, and whatever words we come up with are at best partial.

My sense is that part of the key to effective leadership is being willing to live in a world of partial answers and never falling for the trap of pretending they are complete.

My sense is the job is to keep grasping for something you can’t quite see and somehow as more and more comes into focus, the need to keep grasping into the world of the unknown seems to become greater and not less.

But thats where the adventure is.