real leadership

Manipulative Leaders Create Distrust and selfishness

Transactional Leaders Create Mediocrity and complacency

Motivational Leaders Create Positivity and Action

Influential Leaders Create Growth and Empowerment

Servant-Leaders Create Authenticity and Explosive Growth

Transformational Leaders Create Change and Leave Legacies”

                                                               Farshad Asl

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Will live in a quid pro quo world

In a highly transactional world

I’ll do this, if you do that!

We see it everywhere

It is the only paradigm many of our leaders understand

I’ll vote for, or against this bill, if…

you will give me money (its just lobbying, not  bribe)

you will vote for me

It is the way too many relationships are run

I will give you nice things….

if you give me sex

I will not hit you….

if you do exactly what I say, and isolate yourself from all others

It is the some parents function

I will love you and be proud of you if…

you get good grades, or do well in sports, or….

It is the way companies work

I will let you keep your job if….

you work 60 hours a week and agree to be underpaid

you all know what I am talking about

you have probably been a victim of quid pro quo

you might have played this game with others

something bad happens

when everything becomes transaction

important things can be lost

generosity can be lost

kindness can be lost

forgiveness can be lost

Today I read as someone suggested

the pandemic might be a good thing

Why?

Because it would “cull” those people

who in a highly transaction world, don’t have worth

with a little luck, this person insisted

it would kill those who from a transaction position

have little to offer

You know, the disabled

The mentally ill

The people who are homeless

Those who need some sort of aid

The old

The infirm

If those people died, it was suggested,

we could use all the money we currently spend helping them

we could use those nursing homes for “something useful”,

to help those who are valuable

those with “more to offer”

Wow!  Just wow!

To hear someone actually say out loud

They think there are too many people, and the answer is "culling"

Just allowing the poor,

the homeless,

the terminally ill,

the elderly in rest homes,

the "drains on society" to die

or actively be removed…..

As to access to health care?

Well, "medical debt is your own problem –

if you can't afford to live, then don't."

So pandemic, bring it on

The fit will live

The unfit will die

No big deal

A benefit, really!

And it occurred to me, that as bad as this is

What may be worse, is that the religion that calls itself Christian

Has made God a quid pro quo

Transactional deity

“Follow my laws

Accept Jesus

Say the right formula

Believe the right thing about the Bible

And I will give you heaven

Don’t do what I ask, and you will be tormented for eternity”

Faith has become a transaction

not a love affair

I can’t help thinking about the words for love in the Bible

Two of them are conditional, transactional

Eros, the love that happens when there is “chemistry”

when hormones decide to dance

If you are beautiful and you turn me on, I will love you.

Phileo, the love that comes when one has common values

Interests, priorities

If you support my ideology, my political views

We can be friends

But then there is agape

God’s love

What is agape all about?

As I read it, agape is love without demand

Love without conditions

Agape doesn’t love the other because they have value

Agape love creates value in the one loved

Agape love is about

Acceptance

Kindness

Inclusion

Forgiveness

Generosity

It is all those things, lived out

If we want to know what agape love we need only look to Jesus

We need only read (listen to) Jesus’ words

We need only look at how he treated the poor and the outcasts,

The “little ones” of the world

Love your enemies

Do good to those who harm you

Give to the needy

Expect nothing in return

If we want to look at agape love

All we have to do is look at he cross

Where Love was given

Where it was clearly not deserved

Where forgiveness was offered to those who harmed

Where acceptance was given to those who had erred

Where peace and love (instead of retribution) were offered to those who killed

Where evil was overcome with good (love)

Jesus proved God is not transactional

God does not function according to quid pro quo

God is love

God loves

And God creates lovers

Which is of course

A different way of doing life

A better way of doing life

A much

Better

way