The Voices Inside:
Listening and the Interior Life of the Leader
All of us are affected by what goes on inside us. Whether we recognize it or not, our interior life profoundly shapes the way we act in the world, how we perceive and respond to the challenges before us. The same is true for clergy, of course. A pastor’s interior world has a dramatic impact on his or her life and ministry. A congregation’s ability to navigate difficult situations will be affected for good or ill by the interior condition of its pastor.
As clergy, how do we stay in touch with our interior world? What symptoms do we look for as we monitor the condition of our inner life and its impact on those around us? Over the years, I have found five attitudes, or “voices,” that are symptoms of interior struggle. When these attitudes surface, when we hear these voices, we need to pay attention. If we do, we will almost always discover that something is going on not just around us, but deep within us. If we ignore these symptoms, however, we may find our congregations becoming more resistant, anxious and stuck—and find ourselves at a loss to understand why.
These voices are the voices of judgment, cynicism, fear, control and knowing. Subtle but significant, they are obstacles to clergy health and block creativity, presence and growth in congregations. Triggered by anxiety, these voices speak from deep within us.
The voice of judgment
The voice of judgment closes the mind to possibilities and severs relationships. Blame and judgment stifle creativity for individuals and groups. When the voice of judgment speaks, wisdom is strangled; anxiety and resistance increase. Whenever I become judgmental, whether of another person or a group, I know it is a sign that something within me is amiss, something I need to hear, reconnect with and accept. When I no longer believe in those with and to whom I minister, I can be assured that they no longer believe in me. As we judge one another, we will live into and function from the worst in each other, not the best. When this voice speaks, our challenge is to suspend it and accept individuals and groups for who and where they are. When I can silence or at least moderate the voice of judgment, I can begin to believe in the group and expect the best from both them and myself. Mutual trust and communication give both the group and me a way to live into that higher self.
The voice of cynicism
Many pastors today are tempted by the siren call of cynicism. For often understandable reasons, they feel the need to distance themselves emotionally and spiritually as way of self-protection. But in doing so, they cause great damage to themselves and to their congregations. Cynicism removes us from that source of deeper wisdom that comes from connection to others. The voice of cynicism blocks progress on the journey and distorts our ability to hear others, ourselves and God. It blinds us to the holy in others and ourselves. It cuts us off from our emerging future. If pastors are to help congregations move forward, we must live in a place of vulnerability, hope and connection. It is only there that we can access the deepest recesses of our collective wisdom, both our congregation’s and our own.
The voice of fear
The voice of fear blocks us from openness, creative responses and forward movement. Fear paralyzes, preventing us from opening the door to what lies ahead and keeping us from letting go of what we have and who we are. Fear speaks in many voices. It can show up as fear of losing, fear of being ostracized, fear of ridicule, fear of looking bad to the cabinet or our superiors and even, or especially, fear of death. Yet, hearing and responding to the voice of fear is the very essence of spirituality and leadership. Confronting our fears means facilitating the “letting go” of the old self and the “letting come” of the new self that is trying to emerge. When we overcome the fear of the unknown, we can step into another world that is trying to take shape. As Parker Palmer wrote in The Courage to Teach, “Fear is so fundamental to the human condition that all the great spiritual traditions originate in an effort to overcome its effects on our lives. With different words, they all proclaim the same core message: ‘Be not afraid.’. . . Be not afraid does not say that we should not have fears . . .(but) that we do not need to be our fears.” Though we all have fears, we don’t have to be driven by them. Instead, we can transcend them, acting from our inner resources. We can relate to them without becoming them.
The voice of control
Nothing shuts down creativity and an emerging future more than the voice of control, the one that tells us we must manage and direct all aspects of our lives. While the desire for control is only natural, we still need to resist it, refusing to allow such reactive behavior to guide our lives. One of the most important aspects of spirituality is letting go, not holding tighter. When people try to control, they close space. According to ancient Eastern wisdom, the best way to calm a nervous cow or sheep out in the pasture is not to bring in the fences, shrinking the grazing space and tightening control. Instead, the better way is to give the animal more pasture, not less. Only then will the animal become calm. The same is true with individuals and groups. Even though our instincts tell us to control or tighten space, the better way is usually the counter-intuitive way: to loosen, open or give more space. Then, over time, individuals and groups will relax, become calm, and learn and grow from the experience. When groups are calm, anxiety is lower and creativity is higher. The possibilities for hearing and connecting increase; wisdom and discernment become more accessible.
The voice of already knowing
The belief that we already know or think we know the answers can stifle a group. Shutting down curiosity and compassion, our certainty can prevent us from listening to others. If we already know the truth, why do we need to listen to anyone else or to the group? In my experience, everyone has a partial truth, including you and me. As pastors, we must listen, discern, and acknowledge this partial truth in everyone—particularly those with whom we disagree. Authoritarian systems rest on the assumption that the leader can and does know the one right answer or truth. But our world today is too complex for any individual to know the right answer or the truth, even if such a thing exists.
In his poem On the Road Home, Wallace Stevens writes:
“It was when I said
‘There is no such thing as the truth,’
That the grapes seemed fatter.
The fox ran out of his hole.”
In most cases, the answers we seek, the next steps that we are trying to discern, will emerge through conversations among the group members. The answers are already there. We simply have to make space and hold it open until they surface. In the meeting place where souls connect, in the speaking, the listening, and the silence, the divine whispers. When I work with groups, I am not looking for who knows the answer, but for the big question, wisdom, insight and next steps on which to act. As T. S. Eliot wrote,
“. . . what you do not know is the only thing you know.”
Maybe our prayer should be, “Lord, teach us to know, teach us not to know, and give us the wisdom to know the difference.”
Conclusion
As we learn to speak back to these voices within, as we challenge and argue with them, we will need to call upon all our theological and spiritual resources. If we do, we might discover that we can even befriend and transform these voices, much like the “dragons” that poet Rainer M. Rilke wrote about:
. . .perhaps all dragons of our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us once beautiful and brave. Perhaps everything terrible is in its deepest being something helpless that wants help from us.
(I am indebted to the work of Dr. Otto Scharmer, senior lecturer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, for first naming three of these voices for me.)
Dr. W. Craig Gilliam is director of The Center for Pastoral Effectiveness for the Louisiana Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church.
