"But even as we act to evoke community, we must remember that community itself is a gift to be received, not a goal to be achieved. We have a strong tendency to make community one more project among many, to struggle and strain to come into relationship with one another, only to find that the stress of these very efforts exhausts us and drives us apart. True community, like all gifts, involves true risks. Community may or may not happen, may or may not be received, may or may not have consequences we like.
Jesus exercises the only kind of leadership that can evoke authentic community - a leadership that risks failure (and even crucifixion) by making space for other people to act. When a leader takes up all the space and preempts all the action, he or she may make something happen, but that something is not community. Nor is it abundance, because the leader is only one person and one person's resources invariably run out. But when a leader is willing to trust the abundance that people have and can generate together, willing to take the risk of inviting people to share from that abundance, then and only then may true community emerge."
Parker Palmer
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