LACK LUSTRE LEADERSHIP.

There is a lack of inter-communication between the Establishment and all those it purports to serve. Too few of us are prepared to voice an opinion about anything, fearful of what others might think. Such persons being cognizcent that there is safety in numbers tend to huddle together beneath some umbrella organisation, be it a Political Party, Church, Pub, Club or Society, etc. Membership of which fulfils a need ‘to belong’, but is just belonging good enough? Probably not, for lack of personal involvement may inhibit better administration. If management has no idea what people think, it tends to assume there is no call for change, thus no cause for innovative Leadership.

Probably Leaders are so by nature rather than nurture, either circumstance has exceptions that disprove the rule. However one shouldn’t confuse leadership with ubiquitous pushiness for nothing deters others more than that.

Such maxims as ‘One cant keep a good man or woman down,’ and ‘Talent will out’ and of course that age old principle of ‘Ask a busy Person’, have seemingly served us well enough for eons, but has such a status quo encouraged unimaginative repetitiveness to the exclusion of new blood? How oft one hears the cry,

‘One can’t find anyone willing to do anything, now days’. This usually means that no one can be found to do things in the way that the enquirer wishes them to be done, that often enough the uninspired way of inherited practice. If any Management is without vision, it squanders an opportunity to improve the circumstance of that or those that it manages. Change is never needed for the sake of change, but mere maintenance of the Status Quo should not be an objective either.

Oratory used to be a tool of any cause, but is its day past? Where now the like of Dr.Donald Soper, or Joseph Christie SJ., Churchill or his side kick that great raconteur Harold McMillan? It was he who said

‘Tradition does not mean that the living are dead, it means that the dead are living’

Both the irreligious and the apolitical would listen to such people, for all were men with a message to proclaim, and a sincerity of purpose. What of today’s Political Leadership? Mr Hague has a turn of phrase, but what of the others? Every time I see on Parliamentary Television one Front Bench or the other, nodding its collective heads in agreement with its spokesman, I am first minded of a row of nodding donkeys, and next wonder if they are no more than just that. How different the blandness of the current Career Politician or indeed Clergyman from the Leaders of yesteryer. Maybe we neither deserve nor want any better.

When recently The Archbishop of Canterbury, and the Bishop of Rochester, and the former Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster voiced discontent over our current circumstance, the general response minded one of that remark allegedly written by Churchill

“This is the sort of b….. nonsense up with which I will not put.”

Is it that Religion and Politics have failed adherents, or that we have failed our Faith? Unfortunately legislation has censured Public Debate via the various hues of Political Correctitude. Even so that is no excuse for discarding ones innate sense of what is right and what is wrong. Cleverness is no substitute for Morality, source that whence one will. Neither should expediency replace honest self-expression.

Having mentioned Religion, would add this land is not solely divided between Faith and Atheism; but between Christianity, Judaism and Islam too. One reads that one in four of us follow the Islamic Faith, which itself ‘fields’ various sectarian teams amidst its followers.

Christianity is not so much the expression of ‘Three In One’, as a multiplicity of differing beliefs all claiming a unity of purpose. There is far too much bickering both in the Ranks and the Officers’ Mess. If there is disagreement concerning the Apostolic Succession, Transubstantiation, Prophylactics, The Virgin Birth, Women’s place in the Hierarchy, or the Marital Status of the Clergy, etc etc, why should this be so? Most of these dictats are man made, and one only has to read the Newspapers to see how often many of the rules have been abrogated by both Clergy and Congregation, if not formally, at least in the breach.

The Ecclesiastical Engine is running on an empty tank. Is this not the time for the re- amalgamation of Christianity? It’s not only that Church members are few and far, but there is a dearth of Clergy, of both the Protestant and Catholic persuasion, whilst Imams seemingly have to be imported from abroad. All that being so, Church Buildings that should be better utilised are under occupied and more often than not under lock and key. Something needs to be done. There are those who would pray for vocations, whilst others see doing that as but a dereliction of Episcopal Duty. Possibly it would be better if metaphorically speaking; heads were to be knocked together.

The picture above is of Queen Elizabeth 1, in whose reign The Thirty Nine Articles were enacted.

The other picture is of the missing Madeleine Mc.Cann Tuesday, 13 October 2009