Leadership

This morning, while cleaning up an old closet with my mom, I discovered an article about pursuing a steady course in a 2005 Ensign. Not surprisingly, the resounding clarity this article (by President Hinckley) provides is impressive, if not incredible, particularly in contrast to the grappling, frenzied "let's get a handle on things" type leadership I witnessed this entire week on the Oprah program. Particularly noteworthy to the article is the following quotation, taken from the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Barbara W. Tuchman:

"When it comes to leaders we have, if anything, a superabundance- hundreds of Pied Pipers...-ready and anxious to lead the population. They are scurrying around, collecting consensus, gathering as wide an acceptance as possible. But what they are NOT doing, very notably, is standing still and saying, 'This is what I believe. This I will do and that I will not do. This is my code of behavior and that is outside it. This is excellent and that is trash.' Of all the ills that our poor...society is heir to, the focal one, it seems to me, from which so much of our uneasiness and confusion derive, is the absence of standards. We are too unsure of ourselves to assert them, to stick by them, if necessary in the case of persons who occupy positions of authority, to impose them. We seem to be afflicted by a widespread eroding reluctance to take a stand on any vallues, moral, behavior or esthetic."

I have been thinking for some time now to publicly state what I am for and what I am against, just for the record, so that I can become a clear leader for those who concur and a clear target for those who don't. However, it would be too time consuming and redundant. I will say however, in summation, that I actively and resolutely support and pay allegiance to the teachings "which have come to us from those whom we have sustained as prophets of God." Including, comprehensively, their stand on traditional marriage and family life. Nothing brings me greater joy and happiness than knowing that I belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints, and that, more importantly, I believe and know, especially in these troubled times, that it is true.