Do You Really Need a Leader?

My wife and I are on vacation this Labor Day weekend, visiting our son, his wife, and their son, who turned three on August 31st. I can never remember which months have 31 days, but now that my grandson was born on the 31st, I know August is one of them. I could not tell you the other six to save my soul.Our daughter-in-law is bursting at the seams, expecting twins by the end of September, a boy and a girl, doubling our grandchild count from 2 to 4. When I mentioned their imminent arrival to a friend, she said, “How unfortunate. I wouldn’t want to bring a grandchild into this world.”Since this is the only world currently inhabitable, I’m not sure which other world she has in mind. If we’re going to have children and grandchildren, we’ll have to have to have them in this world, and not some make-believe world in another place and time. This is it. Like it or not.She blamed the world’s wretchedness on Donald Trump, which struck me as a United States-centric sentiment, the assumption that if things are bad here, the whole world is a mess. This likely stems from our curious habit of referring to the American president as the “leader of the free world,” which must surely annoy the other 95 democracies in the world. I can assure you that the citizens of Germany, England, Norway, and India don’t view Donald Trump as their leader. Many U.S. citizens don’t, including me. He may be the Current Occupant, but that doesn’t make him a leader.I’ve lived through a dozen Current Occupants, have liked some better than others, but since becoming an adult I’ve not felt the need for any leader. I’m perfectly capable of leading myself, thank you very much, and if I lose my way, I can always depend upon my wife to set me on the right path.A lot of Christians refer to themselves as followers of Jesus, which makes me suspicious, since they appear to be doing whatever they wish, then attributing their activities to God or some other person of the Trinity. I can’t count the times I’ve seen someone do something unkind or immoral, then claim God told them to do it. To hear them tell it, they talk with God like I talk with my neighbor Bill. I’ve known Bill since the first grade, a lot longer than I’ve known God, but I’d no more expect Bill to lead me than I would expect God to. They both have more important things to do, like plumbing and saving America from Donald Trump.The same woman who told me she wouldn’t bring a child or grandchild into this world, then told me things will be better when a Democrat is leading us, a sentiment with which I disagree. This world will be better when each of us stops depending on others to provide our moral direction. All those folks who voted for Trump because they’d been told the Democrats were sexually abusing children in the basement of a Washington D.C. pizza parlor, are now awakening to the realization that the abuse was happening, not in a pizza parlor, but on Epstein’s island hideaway and that Donald Trump might have been right in the thick of it. So much for moral leadership.To be fair, Bill Clinton was a whole lot friendlier with Jeffrey Epstein than any decent person should have been, which doesn’t speak well of Democratic leadership either, and serves to prove my point that unless one’s morality is rooted in the self, it is vulnerable to corruption. I didn’t become a Christian because I needed Jesus to do for me what I should do for myself. I became a Christian, and remain one, because Jesus intrigues me. So much so, that if Jesus hadn’t existed, I might well have invented someone just like him. As a writer, I’ve invented lots of people, many of whom seem as real to me as Jesus, if not more. While I admire Jesus, I also admire the Dali Lama, Abraham Lincoln, Rosa Parks, and Desmond Tutu, who once endorsed a book of mine, something I could never persuade Jesus to do.If you lack an interior compass, no external compass will suffice. Mature adults don’t expect a book, a church, a priest, or president to provide their moral bearings. When one assumes responsibility for the shape of one’s world, there is never a bad time to welcome new life. I’ll keep you posted on those twins.Philip Gulley is the author of the popular Harmony series and Unlearning God: How Unbelieving Helped Me Believe.Discover my books, stories, and more by visiting Books by Philip GulleyContact Philip directly at [email protected] PHILIP FOR SUNDAY WORSHIPYou're invited to join Philip and Fairfield Friends Meeting online for our worship services (Sundays 10:30-11:30 a.m. EDT) via Zoom.Join Zoom Meetinghttps://us02web.zoom.us/j/83152822906?pwd=UDkzR3NPNlB5N29QY0svelRkNkUwdz09Meeting ID: 831 5282 2906 This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit philipgulley.substack.com/subscribe