Strength

My husband Mark’s theater company is undergoing tough times right now.  A perfect storm of both long and short term financial stressors, combined with sudden staff losses, have made their future look more than a little precarious.  It’s an odd juxtaposition, because they’ve actually been doing extremely well.  Subscriptions are up, ticket sales are strong, audiences love the shows, and the work consistently receives rave reviews in the press.  Actors and designers enjoy working there because Mark creates an atmosphere of safety and respect where artists feel free to do their best work.  It’s really an amazing little company.

In strategizing their recovery, both Mark and his board are having to undertake some rapid maturation, and learn to overcome their fear of The Ask.  Fast.  It’s not an uncommon fear.  It takes a special type of joyous, hardened soul to constantly encourage people to open their wallets, and doubly so in moments of crisis. 

In the past, the board has been insistent that they come to The Ask from what they call “a position of strength.”  And yet, in order to achieve Maximum Ask Impact in this critical moment, they must also convey the gravity of the situation.  The paradoxical question du jour seems to be how do you convey the simultaneous truth of strength and weakness? Abundance and need?  The uncertainty of how to do it can be paralyzing – even when they know that not asking at all will result in only one unfortunate outcome. 

Still, no matter how imperative, it’s a hard task to juggle.  Part of what’s tough is that both realities are simultaneously true, and they must be balanced.  Convey too much strength, and  you diminish the true depth of your need.  Show how much the blows have hurt, and you might repel assistance.  As one potential donor and board member expressed, nobody wants to jump on a sinking ship. 

Their salvation, I think, is going to come from both celebrating what’s truly remarkable about the company, while acknowledging where mistakes have been made – not to lay blame, but to display maturity and learning.  If they can articulate the arc of growth in their knowledge and experience, display the map of the potholes they’ve stumbled into along the way, openly admit their weaknesses and how they’ve learned to transform them, that will convey the true strength. 

It won’t be strength from force and will, but from humility and wisdom, which, bolstered by immediate financial assistance, will keep the company vibrant and viable for many years to come.

But more than that, they need to challenge the common assumption that strength sits diametrically opposed to need, and that need itself automatically connotes weakness.  It’s an absurd myth that anyone can actually go it alone, and yet this culture reverently cultivates that myth and allows it to be the very crucible in which our most cherished legends are born. 

It’s interesting having all this reflected in the light of the Presidential election, our relationship to the rest of the world, and the kind of leadership for which people so piquantly ache.  We are so afraid of our own imperfections, so threatened by paradox and ambiguity, and so mortally terrified of being weak.  Being wrong.

We’ve been in a fight-or-flight response for three years now, perpetuated by an administration and media which irresponsibly continue to stoke our fears, rather than dare ask the hard questions of why things are the way they are, and – more to the point – what responsibility we might have in the situation or what mistakes we might have made.  The deep fear, of course, is that if we admitted any responsibility or fallibility, if we were honest with ourselves about our past behavior, we might lose any claim to being a right and righteous power, and somehow, like a child, think we deserve our pain.  We’re so scared to look at the truth, we’re actually in a state of simultaneous fight and flight.  I’ve heard it called “learned helplessness,” though often it feels like plain freaking out to me. 

How else to explain the vast numbers of undecided voters or the people who claim to disagree with everything the administration has done, but continue to support the President because, “he’s a Christian” – no matter how serious, well-documented, and unchristian-like his behavior.  How else to explain the clenched, vitriolic partisanship, and the sense that winning a Phyrric victory would still be fundamentally better than losing an honorably run race. 

How do we raise our children?  We tell them to be honest.  We tell them to admit their mistakes.  We tell them it’s ok to fail, because that’s the only way you learn.  We tell them to be kind and share and not to hit or steal.  We tell them to have love and compassion and to do unto others...  We have told them, but we have not taught them.  That kind of teaching can only happen by mature example. 

We think we will never tolerate doubt or failure or mistakes in our leaders, but when have we ever experienced that degree of honesty, or truth, or open-hearted revelation?  When have we ever allowed them to be human?  Perhaps we couldn’t bear it.  It would be like the moment in adolescence when we realize our parents aren’t perfect.  At first we hate them for it – partly because it forces us to grow up, and test the limits of our own strength.  Ultimately, it’s exactly what we need.

So, perhaps that’s what we need to do now, for ourselves and this beloved, confused, convulsive country, which suffers so profoundly from a massive case of arrested development.  We need to grow up, and assume the mantle of true strength and inspired leadership.  We must find a maturity born from the capacity to embrace pain and ambiguity with patience and grace.  It’s time for each of us to take a long, deep breath, and consciously ease ourselves into adulthood.  It’s time to choose the only path which will assure us our survival.