God

I am very excited to inform readers about the coolest conference, that I attended virtually, on topics like good leaders, collective well being, narratives of love, and steps to a loving and kinder world.  The conference is the  5th Spirit of Humanity Summit: Towards a Loving World  during first week in June 2021,which was hosted in Reykjavík, Iceland over three days, but, participants were from around the world. A  dear friend forwarded the link to me and  I was able to virtually see some of the wonderful presentations.  The taped sessions of the summit are on line, in case, readers are interested in viewing them.   The summit began by addressing and acknowledging the suffering in the world impacted by this pandemic, especially, in communities with high risk social determinants of health, like lack of economic opportunities, poverty, instability in housing and inequity in health care and educational systems. The focus of the summit was the importance of   reconnecting with core human values of love and compassion to create effective political, economic and social policy, and practices by global citizens, including  leaders, to reshape a world where our collective well being is key. The argument is that  we need to envision pathways to a more loving, kinder world. I totally agree.

The prime minister of Iceland , Katrin Jakobsdottir, made a critical point which is that a society cannot prosper when citizens are reporting poor well-being or quality of life. She discussed that she developed a commission which interviewed people in Iceland about what does “well being” mean to them.  According to Katrin Jakobsdottir,  the commission researchers found following factors as important in the well being index. The list includes : 1) good health, especially mental health and access to high quality health care, 2)work-life balance and good relationships, 3)affordable secure housing, 4) good education, 5)target of zero carbon commissions by 2030 for ecological health, and 6)better communication systems, including digital communication. Katrina Jakobsdottir emphasized is that in order for effective social change, people have to engage in inner personal transformation. This is so true. When one brings forth loving and compassionate interactions with other people, most people react in kind ways.  Katrina Jakobsdottir discussed that when a person, including a leader, is internally immersed in fear, chaos and anger, he or she cannot be part of effective  social change. I agree with her 100 percent.

In terms of health and well being index in the United States, mental health needs are noted as critical in the United States, as in Iceland. According to a recent Centers for Disease Control survey, 40% of US adults reported struggling with mental health or substance abuse issues. The survey was conducted in June 24-30 2020 time period.   Research from Society From Human  Resource Management) SHRM  released findings in 5/2020 that 41 % of employees in the U.S. reported burnout and 23% reported feeling depressed and hopeless. The report indicates over 1 out of 5 employees experience a tangible loss related to COVID in their jobs, such as, lack of opportunities, benefit of job etc. Interestingly, over 1 out 3 employees reported not having coping tools to deal with feelings of burnout and only 7% have reached out to mental health professionals. The study also found that people more heavily impacted by pandemic stress were: women, younger workers, people living with health care provider, essential worker, elderly family and people with immunosuppression health conditions.

However, this post is not about resolving the complex issue of mental health needs in the world.  This post is a reflection of some of the ideas discussed about effective leadership, in alignment with core values of love and compassion, at the Spirit of Humanity Summit. The discussion is on redefining leadership as selfless, service oriented and motivated on collective well being of communities, which are steps to creation of a kinder and loving world.

Leaders who promote collective well-being.

When I think of leadership, I think of political leaders or CEOs of major organizations. However, this summit presented the radical notion that we are all leaders in some aspects of our lives: as parents, teachers, school administrators, university professors, government officials, health care or business professionals. The idea that a leader’s love and compassion, in developing well-being for the people and communities he or she serves,  is a key factor in effective leadership. Effective leadership is not fueled by what can I get out of this, but, how can I empower and serve communities and create wellbeing. There is an element of selfless service with love and compassion to others, which characterizes great leaders. Good leaders are service oriented and thus allow “others in the team or community” to shine when they do good work. A spiritual component is that the leader is not serving his or her ego, but, the “larger than self” community .The ultimate example of leadership through agape love through service is Christ’s leadership of his disciplines where He washes the disciples’ feet before the Last Supper.

The website, www.teamgnatt.com, discusses a style of leadership called servant leader.  This style of leader prioritizes people’s and team’s successes over establishing his or her power. The success and growth of the employees and governance   are critical, whereas, ambition of the leader takes a back seat. The art of effective listening and empathy demonstrated by servant leaders is critical.

The article, The Real Summit Picture is When Everyone is Back Down , highlighted for me what good leadership looks like. The article talked about  a group of people setting out to climb to the top of Mount Everest. The best leader of the group is not the person who climbs first to the mountain top and “wins”. The best leader is determined by when the whole group returns to base camp after reaching the summit of Mountain Everest, and then, the leader ensures that everyone in the group is safely back in base camp. This analogy spoke volumes to me about good leadership looking out for collective wellbeing. As parents or teachers leading a group on such a trip, that is what one does. One is not worried about making it to the top of the mountain first, but, ensuring that the whole team  is successful in reaching the top and safely returning to base camp. This model of leadership makes sense to me. I believe that effective leaders are not concerned about who wins or loses, but, the collective well being of the community. Effective leaders ensure the protection and well-being of not just majority, but, also minority groups. Effective leaders need to be able to work with people having different perspectives.

Leading with empowering and inspiring the governance for collaboration

What does effective leadership look like? I found this fascinating article about effective leadership in wolf packs. Wolf pack leadership includes the alpha male and female. Wolf packs are effective in survival because leaders make decisions in the best interest of the group and the leader empowers different wolves based on their unique strengths. I also found it fascinating that the leader of wolf pack is not the strongest or loudest, but, has capacity of inspiring other wolves for group collaboration and cooperation. Group collaboration includes different wolves sharing responsibilities about taking care of the young and sick or elderly wolves. Some wolves have “healer” roles in taking care of the sick. The elderly wolves are respected for their knowledge  about survival. The mentality fostered in wolf packs is that group functioning is more powerful for survival than individual wolf. The hunt of prey includes wolves acting in harmony and following strategy.

The goal of the pack is to take care of each other. An interesting note is that “bad behavior” of an individual wolf, who threatens the cohesion of the group, is  corrected by others.  Another aspect of wolf packs is resiliency. This means that the group leader assesses the group performance, and likelihood for successfully catching the prey and may decide to terminate the mission if the conditions are not favorable to the group. The leader shows assessment skills and re-strategizing based on novel situations. The leader’s role is challenged if he or she presents with negative attitude. It is not about leader’s ability to dominate others.

As a side note and stepping away from wolves, I have seen human leaders, as parents, coaches and teachers, who inspire others in the teams to put forth their best effort. Inspirational leaders see the best in people, identify people’s strengths and set up tasks where people succeed. Inspirational leaders seem to have a growth mindset where, failures are opportunities to learn from, develop better strategies and increase chances of success. Inspirational leaders separate shame and guilt feelings from failures, and , reframe failures as part of the human condition and possible  growth opportunities. Another aspect of inspirational coaches, teachers and parents are that they embody the belief that one day the student or child will develop greater expertise and outshine them and they welcome this. Impactful teachers and coaches are not threatened by talented students. Great teachers and coaches see our potential when we may not be in a space to envision our strength. They lift us up. I am so grateful for the wonderful teachers and supervisors who have shaped me.

I believe that good leaders have the humility to step back and give credit to the team because he or she realizes that success is a team effort.  My experience in social service organizations is that social issues and problems are complex and one person cannot solve all the problems. It takes partnerships, interagency collaboration and good working relationships to succeed in developing innovative and effective delivery of social services. An effective leader builds collaborative work environment for accomplishing goals, instead of division and distrust in the team. I also believe that effective leaders are not threatened by talented members of the team. Just as wolf pack leaders, effective leaders empowers the team member to work on tasks which tap into his or her strengths. A leaders who is easily threatened tends to shut down development of talented key members.  Effective leaders are also quick to correct a toxic member of a team, who jeopardize harmony and collaboration of the team. This is very important in creating a supportive community.

Conclusion

We are all leaders in some aspects of our lives. We need to be good, effective and inspirational leaders to create collective well being in the communities we serve. The Spirit of Humanity Summit redefines effective leadership, as characterized by loving and compassionate values, where leaders are service focused in creating political, economic and social policy and practices for the collective well being in their communities. I am all for a kinder, compassionate and loving world.

I will end with Howard Washington Thurman. He was a grandson of former slaves. He became a brilliant scholar, professor, theologian, possibly the greatest preacher of the twentieth century (according to Life Magazine), and a prolific writer. Thurman  was a mentor of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and met Gandhi and Rabindranath Tagore of India in one of his travels. He is known as unsung hero of the civil rights movement. Thurman is said to have inspired Dr. Martin Luther King to merge the nonviolent movement of Gandhi to the civil rights movement. Thurman was the first pastor to cofound a multifaith and multiracial church in the United States. Incidentally, Katarina Jakobsdottir,  Prime Minister of Iceland, ended her speech at the Spirit of Humanity Summit with a quote from Thurman’s philosophy of great leadership.

I am so impressed with Thurman’s educational philosophy that a student must understand self as a “human being” and accept oneself which is key to character development.  Thurman discussed the relationship of character and leadership and that a visionary leaders must seek the truth. Thurman talked about the “inward journey”, the relationship between “personal transformation” and and yearning for social justice. He argued that integrity, honesty and taking responsibility for his or her own actions are key to successful leadership. I will end with Thurman’s quote. 

Kipton E. Jensen (2020) (2020) writes that what “Thurman wrote in 1960 is doubly true today”. Thurman wrote :

We are living in a time of revolutions, technological and social. Our reaction to these revolutions may be one of fear, panic, and despair. We may in our reaction be stripped of all hope and all confidence not only about the meaning of our own lives but about the significance of the future of mankind. Or we may in our reaction be inspired to deeper commitment to higher purposes and more meaningful resolves to the end that in us the dreams of mankind that are cherished will be worked at with fresh vigor and new hope. How we react is our responsibility – and from this there is no escape.

This post is about Mother Theresa, Saint of Light, Love and Darkness. But I will begin by talking about my mother. I have been missing my mother, Anuradha Ganguly. Her nick name was “Benu”. My mother was not a saint, but, real human being. She showed me love in a powerful way. So I use these lenses and experiences of being mothered by own mother to grasp a glimpse of what made Mother Theresa did for the world:  The Saint Who Mothered the world.

Anuradha Ganguly, my mother, passed away 9 years ago. She celebrated with me in my victories and hugged me tenderly in my defeats. There was a deep bond of love between us, despite, the peaks and valleys in our relationship. In difficult times, I miss my mother’s encouraging words, delicious chutney, and conversations where I was understood and loved by her. Our conversations  lasted hours over hot tea. Growing up in a Bengali home, we always had the kettle on with hot water for chai, Indian black tea and milk. Fights happened between my mother and me, with sharp words flung at each other. This followed mutual words of endearments as we became friends and allies. Her faith was strong. Her prayers were powerful especially for her children, me and my two brothers, as she targeted her prayers with strength, supplication, and ferocious vehemence  to enter Heaven’s gates and propagate to God’s ears. I remember the smell of sandle-wood incense from her puja or prayers. She was from Bankura, a small town in West Bengal.  She was very passionate about making sweets, like “rosogolas”, “sandesh”, and “chumchum”. West Bengal, by the way, is famous for its sweets or “misti”. I happen to have a sweet tooth and she saved the best sweets for me. Her mantra for me in my younger days was “Eat the sweets and worry about your weight later”. Interestingly, she was diabetic and I think one of the most powerful ways she showed her love was giving sweets to us. Giving to others what she was not allowed to eat. She showed much joy in people enjoying her sweets. Anuradha had her eccentricities and challenges, like other human beings. But, Anuradha was a loving, generous and forgiving woman. She made sacrifices for her family.  I found this aspect of her as we both aged and matured.  We grew from mother daughter dynamics into friends over the years. Friendship with my mother in adulthood gave me a compassionate and kind perspective about who she was as a human being. This is when I realized she is a human being, ordinary person who did extraordinary things. She stepped up to the deep calling of “mothering”.  Mothering is beautiful, rewarding and yet can be super-hard.  Mothering is a 24/7  job and once a mother, always a mother. I am nowhere near my mother in terms of loving and forgiving others.

As I was missing my mother, I thought of another mother from Calcutta, West Bengal, Mother Theresa. Saint of Light who dispensed God’s love to the most destitute, dying, sick, and forsaken by the world. She wrote that the greatest pain and suffering in humanity is feeling unwanted and unloved. I agree. As a psychotherapist, the most painful and gut wrenching stories I hear are people’s  experiences of feeling unloved and unwanted. Having meaningful and loving connections with others is good for the mind, body and spirit.

Mother Theresa was deeply in love with Christ. She described hearing “call in a call” from Christ to serve the poorest of the poor. She served, loved and demonstrated God’s love to people, who were destitute, poor, dying, sick and forsaken by the world. Yet, she suffered greatly. She had feelings that God and Christ abandoned her. She felt darkness, loneliness and thirst for Christ which  she did not feel Christ reciprocated for fifty years after Christ called her to serve the poorest of the poor..  Her struggles in her faith journey became public knowledge after she died and her spiritual mentors wrote about her personal pain. This post is a discussion of Mother Theresa, Saint of Light, Saint of Darkness. I also include thoughts on dark nights of the soul, associated with St. John of the Cross,  a great Christian mystic and Mother Theresa. I wonder if many people have experienced dark night of the soul, especially in the pandemic. I have more questions than answers about dark night of the soul. Is dark night of the soul a part of the human condition? What is the difference between dark night of the soul and depression? No idea. So I went back to practical spirituality:  reflections of a faith based person facing trouble. I have added the powerful words of faith warriors: Dr. Maya Angelou and Dr. Wayne Dyer. 

 Mother Theresa : Saint of Light and Darkness

I will begin with saying that I am great fan of Mother Theresa. My husband and I had the great Blessing of seeing Mother Theresa in person and getting her Blessings after our marriage in 1995. We are both from the Calcutta area, where Mother Theresa established her ministry. When I caught a glimpse of her, I saw lines of people from all over the world who traveled far and wide to visit her in Calcutta. I remember her frail figure in a white sari with blue borders. What struck me was Mother Theresa’s  eyes :  deep, piercing, unfathomable, kind and compassionate  eyes .  There was a power and depth in her gaze like she saw me completely. She blessed me and my husband and said something to the effect that “Family that prays together stays together”. I do not remember the exact words as I was overwhelmed by the experience of encountering Divine Grace and Love in human form. I will never forget meeting her. The encounter with Mother Theresa was brief with multitude of people clamoring for her. However, it is etched in my mind. Meeting Mother Theresa, even for a few minutes,  was a powerful memory of God’s unconditional, fierce and fearless love for humanity.

Mother Theresa was born as Anjeze Gonxhe Bojaxhiu in 1910 in Skopje, Macadonia.   Prior to starting her own ministry, she joined  Sisters of Loretto in 1928 in Ireland. She traveled to India in 1929 and taught in Loretto Convent in Calcutta. Loretto convents are excellent catholic schools which educate women in many parts of India. Interestingly, I attended  Loretto Convent in Asansol for four years. The nuns taught with rigor and compassion.  I found that attending the only girls catholic Loretto Convent nurtured my curiosity for knowledge.

While traveling on a train to Darjeeling in 1946, Mother Theresa received her calling from Christ to serve the poorest of the poor. She left the academic world of Loretto Convent in Calcutta and established Missionaries of Charity to serve the poor in the slums of Calcutta. Her work spread in helping people who were  destitute, dying on the streets, people with leprosy, AIDS and cancer. She served people who were abandoned at their most vulnerable points in their lives.  She started her missionary work with the faith that God will provide for her. Indeed God did provide abundantly. Her organization grew around the world and she received the Noble Peace Prize. She was an acclaimed and international figure of faith who personified God’s Unconditional Love for all of humanity. She worked with people who were abandoned by the world: the forgotten, discarded, sick, homeless, and dying.  But not forsaken by Mother Theresa and the God she represented. I see Mother Theresa as mother to people who were abandoned. She showed softness, compassion, grace and unconditional love to people who were at their weakest points. I think of Mother Theresa as a mother to people in their greatest hour of despair, like my own mother was to me. Words of comfort and encouragement in the middle of painful experiences are like healing ointments for the heart and soul. One never forgets such people or their words of comfort, kindness and grace.  One of my colleagues called these people who show up in your hour of need as “God with Skin” people. They are earth angels.

Then I came across  this article of Mother Theresa’s faith journey.  The experience of reading about her faith journey after her death  shocked the living daylights out of me. Her spiritual mentors released information from her  letters  after her death where she wrote about her experiences of  darkness, deep abyss of loneliness,  lack of faith, feeling unloved by God and Christ, for Whom she dedicated her life. It is noted that despite her yearning for Christ, she did not feel His Presence in her soul. She talks about the empty hole in her soul. It is stated that she felt forsaken by God for almost fifty years.  She experienced feeling unloved and unwanted by the Love of her Life, Christ.  There are articles written that Mother Theresa served the people who felt most unwanted and unloved because she was familiar with that experience. She stated that the greatest suffering in humanity is not poverty or disease but feelings of being unwanted and unloved. Her deepest pain seems to have played a major role in her ministry. This was shocking to me when I first discovered this information. Some theologians suggest that Mother Theresa’s love for Christ was so deep that Christ shared his deepest state of feeling unloved and unforsaken by His Father before the crucifixion. This showed the humanity of Christ. Christ was Divine, but he knew the deepest pain of feeling unloved before his greatest trial. Despite feeling forsaken, Christ surrendered to God’s Will. So did Mother Theresa. This is the Divine stuff I cannot understand with my mind. Yet, my heart is stunned and tearful about Mother Theresa and Christ’s love for God.

 St. John of the Cross and the Dark Night of the Soul

Mirabai Starr (2002)discussed the concept of dark night of the soul in her book, “Dark Night of the Soul: St. John of the Cross”. Starr writes that St. John of the Cross and St. Theresa of Avila immediately connected because they both felt that the Catholic Church had lost its “holy inspiration” and they both wanted church reforms to go back to the simplicity of service and deep contemplation. St. Theresa of Avila started a movement known as Discalced Carmelite Order, also referred to as “Barefoot Carmelites”. This movement included monks and nuns taking off their shoes and wearing “rough sandals” to symbolize the call to return to simplicity of service. Starr writes that even though King Phillip of Spain approved of reforms, officials in Rome were not approving of reform. In 1577, St. John of the Cross was captured by friars due his involvement in reforming the church. Starr writes that St. John was tortured, flogged, interrogated. When St. John refused to deny the reforms, he was condemned to a tiny space, which was previously a toilet. He was described as starved and brought to the dinning commons to be flogged while other monks ate their meals. Starr states that St. John,  starved, endured a brutal winter and then summer which led to his clothes to rot.  During this period of intense suffering, St. John connected to his relationship with God to survive. Starr stated that as St. John’s suffering continued, he felt fading of Divine Presence. This led him to formulate passionate love poems to his Beloved, God in his poems. Eventually, a Carmelite brother provided pen and paper so that St. John wrote his poems expressing his pain of separation from God. After nine months, St. John escaped miraculously and found reunification with the living God in his heart. He fell into profound ecstasy that he came out of total darkness and found his Beloved, God. He wrote “Songs of the Soul: One Dark Night” describing the ecstatic reunion with his Beloved, God, an pouring of his heart for love of God after the excruciating pain of darkness.

Concluding Thoughts

It may be that the God man, Christ, in his humanity, immediately before the cruxifixtion,  Mother Theresa and St. John of the Cross all perceived feeling abandoned by God, which lead to their experiences of darkness,  loneliness and deep suffering, known as dark night of the soul. If Christ, the God man, and spiritual giants, Mother Theresa and St. John of the Cross reportedly experienced such feelings of being unloved and unwanted at certain points in their lives, I would argue that perhaps this is a more common experience in humanity than previously thought.  These feelings of being unloved, unwanted, and existential aloneness  may exist in some points in life, especially in times of vulnerability.  Maybe more so in this pandemic.

Is dark night of the soul part of the human condition? What are differences between dark night of the soul and depression?

Are people’s perceptions of experiences of feeling unloved, unwanted and loneliness part of certain points in time in the human condition? Starr (2002) writes that St. John’s experiences are part of the human condition. She argues that events, such as, divorce, job loss, career change, trauma may lead to dark night of the soul experiences. What are differences between dark night of the soul and mental health issues, such as depression? Starr (2002) states that dark night of the soul is different from depression.  She differentiates dark night of the soul as St. John experiencing painful emotions as he seeks union with the Divine and he is not concerned about health. According to Starr, St. John may not be seeking to eliminate painful emotions as he may see them as stages to develop into higher spiritual states. Bottom line, I have no answers about the demarcation of the psychological and spiritual arenas  in the dark night of the soul experiences? I do not know the difference between dark night of the soul versus mental health struggles, like depression. This is an area that needs to be explored more in spirituality and psychology.

Practical Spirituality

So I will go back to my practical side as a faith based person dealing with trouble? Practical spirituality include faith based and psychological strategies too. Loving God in dark times is super-hard, a Herculean task. I wonder if this dark night of the soul is a spiritual test of whether we love God for Who He is and not just for the wonderful Blessings He pours on us. Spiritual tests are the most rigorous. By the way, I have always hated academic tests in school. 

Many people, including me, feel anger and frustration at God in tough times. Sticking with God through pain and suffering is probably the greatest spiritual challenge. I have no definitive answers. Just some preliminary thoughts. Again some strategies for dealing with painful situations are differentiating between what you can control versus what you have no control over. Focus on what you can control. Practice possible acceptance strategies on what you cannot control. As a faith based person, practice possible surrender of uncontrollable factors to the Divine Source even if you are questioning why certain things are happening. Surrendering to Divine Will is a tough task. Ask and receive help as needed from professional health care people  or safe family or friends. Remember to notice the positive. One example is to remember how God got you through difficult times in the past and He Will again.  I love Dr. Maya Angelou’s statement that if God got you through this far, He will get you through this too. Another positive strategy is counting Blessings or gratitude practice. Be kind, compassionate and nurturing to yourself.  Develop healthy coping strategies for handling negative feelings.

Faith warriors: Dr. Maya Angelou and Dr. Wayne Dyer

In our times of suffering, God’s will seems incomprehensible. The only solace is that God walks with us in these dark times and good times. A wise person reminded me “God always Blesses” . A reminder that indeed, this difficult time too shall pass.  Interestingly, Dr. Maya Angelou, a woman of strong faith encouraged herself and others to say “Thank You” to God for trouble because she said at the end of the storm comes the beautiful rainbow (Dr. Angelou’s interview with Oprah Winfrey, www.Oprah.com, July 13, 1993). Dr. Angelou’s faith was spectacular, majestic and breathtaking that she is able to say “Thank You” in the face of trouble. This was stunning to me when I first heard it. Dr. Angelou also described her belief that she can do anything set before her because she knows she is a “Child of God”. This suggests her strength and self-efficacy that comes from her relationship with God.

Dr. Angelou also talked about the most important virtue to cultivate is courage. She said that without courage one cannot practice other virtues. So right, Dr. Angelou is. The best definition of courage is to confront the challenge and move forward in the face of fear and adversity. Tough stuff.

 I will end with a powerful quote of Dr. Wayne Dyer: 

“If you knew who walked beside you at all times, on the path that you have chosen, you could never experience fear or doubt again.”

The challenge is to remember this when we are walking through darkness and experiencing feelings of unloved and loneliness. This is where faith comes in.  In the Bible, Hebrew 11:1 defines “Faith … is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” . I am a big believer that God honors faith.