Friendship and Leadership

Lessons in Leadership – David Stories #3

I Samuel 18:1-5; 20:1-42; II Samuel 1

 “…the soul of Jonathan was bound to the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul…”

“…your love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women.”

(I Sam 18:1  and II Sam. 1:26)

What makes for great leadership?  Power?  Impervious?  Political clout?  Charisma? Money? Accolades from the masses?  How about friendship?  Can great leaders have friendship?

The friendship of David and Jonathan has carried all kinds of speculation.  It has been used to illustrate commitment and loyalty in friendship that runs deeper than bloodlines.  In more recent years with the religious and secular battles regarding homosexual relationships, their story has been used to tout gay relationships.  I believe that their relationship was more than “good buddies” or purely sexual. 

Scripture does not have many stories of friendship that covers so much writing space. (Read the long chapters listed that tells of their friendship.)  There are no other stories in scripture of such deep friendship based on a selfless love between two persons, (except a few verses regarding Jesus and the disciple whom he loved, which have held speculation that the disciple may have been John or Mary Magadelene).  There was something special the scripture writers wanted to convey in David and Jonathan’s friendship, something beyond the ordinary.  David’s lament at Jonathan’s death stating, “your love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women” carries much more than sexuality.  In the days of David, who had more than 3 wives, who lusted after women and committed murder to have the woman he desired, who more than likely related to women ‘only’ in a erotic way, wherein women were still relegated to “property” status, intimacy of spirit and soul would most likely be in relationship to another man.  David, anointed by Samuel, harpist for King Saul, slayer of giants, emerging military leader, was Jonathan’s friend,  an Anam Cara.  “Anam Cara” is what Celtic Spirituality calls a “soul friend”;  Anam, meaning “soul” and Cara, meaning “friend”.

John O’Donohue (1956-2008), writes of this in his book entitled, Anam Cara. O’Donohue states that the deepest calling of our soul is “the longing to belong. Belonging is a circle that embraces everything; if we reject it, we damage our nature. The word 'belonging' holds together the two fundamental aspects of life: Being and Longing, the longing of our Being and the being of our Longing.”  Anam Cara is that friendship with our own soul and/or with another, that enables us to discover that longing, that being, our true selves, our true home within.

Tony Cluckson’s definition of Anam Cara states that,  “an Anam Cara reminds you of what is important. They guide you to knowing who you are. They take you into what are called in Ireland “thin places.” They take you to the edge. They coax you to the edge. When you are trusting enough they push you. They know this is the only way for you to learn to fly. They know you are an eagle that was brought up in a society of chickens. The Anam Cara will take you soaring. The very air that will take you higher is learning trust and faith in your essential goodness.  An Anam Cara does not really care.  They know you are always held in the hand of the Beloved. They are not here to do anything for or to you. They are only there to facilitate your discovery that you are always enough. They know that what you need is not more of anything but a great big helping of “no thing.” This gives your soul true rest. This is where you give up trying to live life and become life abundant. You become the flow of the essential. Nothing matters because it all matters. Ultimately they take you to love of soul.”   (http://ezinearticles.com/?Anam-Cara)

Jay Alan Whitham and Wendy Lynn Nethersole, from the Anam Cara Foundation say that to experience life at the highest levels of fulfillment, we must first become our own "soul friend"; that intimate relationship with our own soul, our True and Authentic Self, that enables our capacity for "soul friendships" with others. Only from the place of "Authentic Self" can we discover and live our true life purpose. (http://anamcaraspirit.com/home.html)

David perhaps was the greatest leader and most famous of kings in all of Hebrew history because he knew himself and his own soul, was a friend to himself as he listened deeply in the times of struggle, hiding, running, and self examination. He was also open to the vulnerable listening with another who knew and shared in the depth of soul as well.  Exceptional leadership may well include the ability to “know oneself” fully and unashamedly and to “be known” and exposed to another.  In that way we are truly accountable to ourselves and to the world in which we live.

In these days of powerful leaders and information about all the “dirt” one can dig up on public persons in power, the tendency is to develop a defensive posture of protectionism, to hold one’s cards close to the chest, to keep private one’s inner thoughts and feelings and never expose themselves fully to another or even themselves.  Consider our US Presidents, both recent and past;  Barack Obama or George W. or H Bush, Bill Clinton. Or consider leaders within the systems in which we live; schools, workplaces, churches, community circles.  What makes one a “great” leader in the eyes of history?  I wonder who our leaders closest friends are and if any had or were an Anam Cara.  How vulnerable are their souls, their inner spirit, that very place where God resides?

We all know leaders who have led out of power seeking, or led in self-promotion, led by various fear motives, led without knowing their own heart and soul, led by forcing themselves to accomplish all that the external realities demand of them.  Those leaders tend to be followers of the trends of this world, finite, shallow.  Leaders who know their own soul, with all its holiness and human fraility lead in a different way.  Those who are soul friends value all of life as sacred and expose themselves to the infinite, what is mystery and lasts beyond today.  “Authenticity” may be a key. “Being” and “Longing” may be telling.

Lovers like to think their loved one is their “soul mate”.  More often than not what is meant is that they found someone who understands them, loves or likes the same things, shares a common view of life, and makes them feel secure.  While that is wonderful, it is not the same as Anam Cara. A soul friend does not protect us from the hard questions, from calling a spade and spade even when the spade is the self, nor refrains from pushing us over the edge when it is time to take flight.  A soul friend is one who knows and reads the deepest longing and being of that person, and does not let one avoid being who their soul calls them to be.    Sometimes we are our own soul friend.  Sometimes another person is soul friend to us.  Sometimes soul friends are mutual to one another, but never is soul friendship a common reality. To be Anam Cara to oneself or to have found an Anam Cara in another is a rare and precious gift. Rare, like David and Jonathan.

David and Jonathan’s souls were bound together, more than good friends, more than companions in war or in peace, more than brothers-in-law.  Their souls were bound to one another, known, pushed, affirmed, wept over, embraced, challenged, committed in life and beyond death.  This is a story of friendship that holy writers valued and exalted because it was extraordinary.  The holiness, perhaps, in this friendship of souls is what enables this story to become part of the sacred story.  David, the greatest king, has deep sensitivity toward his own soul, listening to soul force, the divine spark deep with the soul, and also had that soul friendship with another, Jonathan, which perhaps made him such an exceptional leader, flaws and all.

We know David as the famous political leader and the ancestor of Jesus.  The greatest thing about David perhaps was his ability to be true to himself, his soul, and his spirit, within relationship.  He was fully human, was able to know and be know, was vulnerable enough to recognize his weaknesses, his questions, fears, and mistakes, and to write poetry, confessions, and even sing about them, to weep and lament, to dance naked before God, to live fully and unashamedly always knowing his being and longing resided in God whether he succeeded of failed.  David was soul friend with himself, soul friend with Jonathan, and I believe, soul friend of God.

I wonder how things might be different in our world if more leaders had a soul friendship, with themselves or with another?  I wonder if we recognize, celebrate, hold dear those who come close to soul friendship?  I wonder how we might encourage one another as leaders and followers to open ourselves more to the depth of soul work?  O that we might have more Anam Cara people in this world and in our relationships.  And dare we think of ourselves as an Anam Cara? 

Thank you, to mine.

 
O Lord, my heart is not lifted up,
my eyes are not raised too high;
I do not occupy myself with things too great
and too marvelous for me.
But I have calmed and quieted my soul,
like a weaned child with its mother;
my soul is like a weaned child that is with me.
O people, hope in the Lord
from this time on and forevermore.  (Psalm 131)
 

 

 

 

 

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