The Outcome Was Always Supposed To Be Togetherness

​Yesterday, I heard a presenter say, "we are all gifted; the question is: how." She offered that one of our greatest challenges as leaders is to help each other discover exactly what one another's gifts are.

I thought about that. I thought about how I feel like we have leaders who are trying to sort out the gifted from those who have none. Sort out those who are worthy of a space here and those who are not. Leaders bent on determining who are the grand contributors, and who among us don't contribute enough?

Our presenter gave the example of fireflies. Research has proven that fireflies who "light up" together have a much higher survival rate than fireflies who "light up" alone. And because fireflies know this, they put a lot of effort into synchronizing their light patterns.

In terms of the firefly's survival, it makes much more sense to help an out of synch firefly get synchronized than it does to abandon them.

Or evict them.

It's the way of Jesus, you know. Jesus didn't come to sort the valuable from the unvaluable. He came to insist, and to die as proof, that we ALL have value. Jesus held himself personally responsible for helping each of us see our internal value, and upon his departure, made each of us responsible for helping other's find theirs.

He said it in a way that didn't make it sound or feel optional.

I believe we have gone overboard in America with our belief in independence, in this belief that we can go it alone. Go it alone as individuals and as a nation. We have gone overboard in our belief that we have systems capable of sorting out those who have enough worth to help us prosper and those who stand in the way of it.

Maybe because we've come to adopt prosperity as the mission and not a beautiful outcome of fireflies lighting up together?

I fear that many will miss the richness of paradise, even as they stand in the middle of it, for having spent so much of their time while outside of it never coming to understand what the meaning of rich truly is.

I sat with colleagues at dinner last night, so many of us who are SO very different. But everyone was welcome at the table.

And indeed, everyone was NEEDED at the table.

I felt a bit like a firefly.

I have this dream that we will ALL one day feel a little more like the firefly.

We are all gifted, the question is: how?