Our age has been called the age of anxiety, and I think it ¢â‚¬â„¢s a good description for this time. We no longer know where our foundations are. When we ¢â‚¬â„¢re not sure what is certain, when the world and our worldview keep being redefined every few months, we ¢â‚¬â„¢re going to be anxious. We want to get rid of that anxiety as quickly as we can. Yet, to be a good leader of anything today ¢â‚¬”a good pastor, bishop, father or mother ¢â‚¬”you have to be able to contain, to hold patiently, a certain degree of anxiety. Leaders who cannot hold anxiety will never lead you to anyplace new.

Expelling what you can ¢â‚¬â„¢t embrace gives you an identity, but it ¢â‚¬â„¢s a negative identity. It ¢â‚¬â„¢s not life energy; it ¢â‚¬â„¢s death energy. Formulating what you are against gives you a very quick, clear, and clean sense of yourself. Thus, most people fall for it. People more easily define themselves by what they are against, by who they hate, by who else is wrong, instead of by what they believe in and whom they love.

Richard Rohr