{"id":131,"date":"2012-04-04T07:30:18","date_gmt":"2012-04-04T14:30:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nickduffel.com\/?p=131"},"modified":"2012-04-04T07:30:18","modified_gmt":"2012-04-04T14:30:18","slug":"leadership-wednesday-the-shadow-falls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nickduffel.com\/?p=131","title":{"rendered":"LEADERSHIP WEDNESDAY: The Shadow Falls"},"content":{"rendered":"<body><p><\/p>T.S. Eliot\u2019s amazing and confounding poem, <em>The Hollow Men<\/em>, contains the following words:\n<p style=\"padding-left:30px;\"><em>Between the conception<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left:30px;\"><em>And the creation<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left:30px;\"><em>Between the emotion<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left:30px;\"><em>And the response<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left:30px;\"><em>Falls the Shadow<\/em><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nickduffel.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/the-shadow-of-light.jpg\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-132\" title=\"The-shadow-of-light\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nickduffel.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/the-shadow-of-light.jpg?resize=225%2C300\" alt=\"\" width=\"225\" height=\"300\" loading=\"lazy\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nickduffel.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/the-shadow-of-light.jpg?w=3000&amp;ssl=1 3000w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nickduffel.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/the-shadow-of-light.jpg?resize=225%2C300&amp;ssl=1 225w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nickduffel.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/the-shadow-of-light.jpg?resize=768%2C1024&amp;ssl=1 768w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nickduffel.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/the-shadow-of-light.jpg?resize=1200%2C1600&amp;ssl=1 1200w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nickduffel.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/the-shadow-of-light.jpg?w=2400 2400w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 225px) 100vw, 225px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Heather Van Aelst says this in her <span style=\"color:#0000ff;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/aduni.org\/~heather\/occs\/honors\/Poem.htm\"><span style=\"color:#0000ff;\">analysis<\/span><\/a><\/span> of the work<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis section of the poem deals with the true cause of hollowness- failing to make that choice that was once offered, failing to take action, giving in and living only as a shadow.\u00a0 The shadow has had a chance to recognize the difference between salvation and damnation and has either rejected that chance or failed to choose between the two.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Is this a post about leadership or English literature?\u00a0 Here\u2019s my point: Leadership exists to keep people from taking the path of least resistance.<\/p>\n<p>The Shadow is everything that resists us, blocks us, and otherwise stops us from taking action.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s a temptation for everyone.\u00a0 We talk a good game.\u00a0 We\u2019re all armchair quarterbacks to some extent.\u00a0 We have these great ideas, but when it comes to executing them we freeze and don\u2019t take action, or we fail to make the choice, or we give up because it\u2019s too hard.\u00a0 The Shadow falls and the moment of greatest opportunity passes.<\/p>\n<p>No.\u00a0 This must not stand.<\/p>\n<p>Leaders, first we must push through from conception to creation; seeing our ideas become reality.\u00a0 We must not allow those things that stir our emotions\u2014be it injustice, or lost souls, or broken systems\u2014to go on without responding in action.<\/p>\n<p>And then we must lead others there.\u00a0 Out of their complacency, through the Shadow, and to the Light of the Kingdom.<\/p>\n<p>God\u2019s Kingdom is becoming a reality here on earth.\u00a0 God is moving.\u00a0 As leaders we need to break the inertia of the people of God, so they can follow His lead.<\/p>\n<\/body>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>T.S. Eliot\u2019s amazing and confounding poem, The Hollow Men, contains the following words: Between the conception And the creation Between the emotion And the response Falls the Shadow Heather Van Aelst says this in her analysis of the work \u201cThis section of the poem deals with the true cause of hollowness- failing to make that&hellip;&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nickduffel.com\/?p=131\" rel=\"bookmark\">Read More &raquo;<span class=\"screen-reader-text\">LEADERSHIP WEDNESDAY: The Shadow Falls<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","_themeisle_gutenberg_block_has_review":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[7],"tags":[37,70,84,113,135,168,169,176,184,186,188],"class_list":["post-131","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-leadership-2","tag-church","tag-failure","tag-god","tag-leaders","tag-poetry","tag-servant-leadership","tag-service","tag-social-justice","tag-success","tag-t-s-eliot","tag-teamwork"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7EHHr-27","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nickduffel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nickduffel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nickduffel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nickduffel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nickduffel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=131"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nickduffel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nickduffel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nickduffel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nickduffel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}