Forgiveness and Power in the Age of Atrocity: Servant Leadership As a Way of Life

Description

Forgiveness and Power in the Age of Atrocity coexists alongside the quiet subtleties of mercy, and people and nations currently encounter a world inIn a fresh rendering of the role of leaders as healers, Forgiveness and Power in the Age of Atrocity which not even the certainties of existence remain even as grace can sometimes arise under the most difficult circumstances. Ultimately, Forgiveness and Power in the Age of Atrocity is a book about the alienation and intimacy at war within us all. Ferch speaks to categorical human transgressions in the hope that readers will be compelled to examine their own prejudices and engage the moral responsibility to evoke in their own personal life, work life, and larger national communities a more humane and life-giving coexistence. In addition to a primary focus on servant leadership, the book addresses three interwoven aspects of social responsibility: 1) the nature of personal responsibility 2) the nature of privilege and the conscious and unconscious violence against humanity often harbored in a blindly privileged stance, and 3) the encounter with forgiveness and forgiveness-asking grounded in a personal and collective obligation to the well-being of humanity. Modernist and postmodernist notions of the will to meaning are considered against the philosophical notion of the will to power. The book examines the everyday existence of human values in a time when we inhabit a world filled as much with unwarranted cruelty as with the disarming nature of authentic and life-affirming love. The book asks the question: Can ultimate forgiveness change the heart of violence? In Forgiveness and Power, people are challenged not only by the work of profound thought leaders such as Mandela, Tutu, but also Simone Weil, Vaclav Havel, Emerson, Mary Oliver, Martin Luther King, Paulo Freire, bell hooks, and Robert Greenleaf. The hope of the book is that people of all ages and creeds come to a deeper understanding and of personal and collective responsibility for leadership that helps heal the heart of the world. FORGIVENESS AND POWER IN THE AGE OF ATROCITY Contents Publications Acknowledgments What Is Servant Leadership? Servant Leadership in the Present Day The Power of Servant Leadership: Foreword Balefire: The World of Violence and Forgiveness: Preface PART I. SERVANT LEADERSHIP, FORGIVENESS, AND POWER Chapter 1. A Fine Grace Chapter 2. When We Rise Chapter 3. The Dignity of Life Chapter 4. The Eloquent Question Chapter 5. Of Love and Human Violence Chapter 6. Emerson on Love Chapter 7. Sand Creek Chapter 8. The House of Light PART II. PERSONAL CONSCIOUSNESS, INTERIOR FORTITUDE Chapter 9. Shame and Forgiveness Chapter 10. The Family, the World Chapter 11. The Way of the Child Chapter 12. Martin Luther King Jr. and Desmond Tutu: Voices of Light in the Dark Chapter 13. The Question of Love and Power: Gratitude, Forgiveness, and the Conscious Cultivation of Servant Leadership Chapter 14. Before the Velvet Revolution: How We Begin to Deepen Our Consciousness Chapter 15. The Practice of Consciousness Chapter 16. Servant Leadership Consciousness and Listening PART III. A NARRATIVE OF HOPE AND RESPONSIBLE ACTION Chapter 17. The Inward Road Chapter 18. The Illumined Nature of Persuasion Chapter 19. People of Self-Transcendence Chapter 20. Shadow and Light: Forgiveness, Power, and Love in Practice Chapter 21. A Cree Man’s Journey: On Mother Loss and Mother Love Chapter 22. The Nature of the Forgiving Touch: On Father Loss and Father Love Chapter 23. Healing the Heart of the World Acts of Courage and Clarity: Afterword Endnotes References Recommended Readings in Servant Leadership Index About the Author Other Publications