Anam Cara

In the Celtic tradition, the first of May was a precarious date. The Celts guarded their wells at this time; negative or destructive spirits might want to destroy, poison, or damage them. Such negativity is illustrated in a story my uncle used to tell of a neighboring village. One May morning, a farmer was out herding his animals. He met a strange woman pulling a rope along the meadow. He greeted her by saying a blessing: “Dia Dhuit.” But she did not answer. Rather, she turned and disappeared, leaving the rope behind her. It was a fine rope. He coiled it and brought it back to the house and threw it into a barrel in one of the outhouses, where it lay forgotten. The following harvest, the neighbors were helping him bring hay home from the meadows with the horse and cart and they needed an extra rope to tie the load of hay. Someone asked if he had any other rope. He said, “Níl aon rópa agam ach rópa an t-sean cailleach”—that is, “I have no rope but the rope of the old hag.” He went to the shed to find the rope, but when he came to the barrel, it was full of butter. The old woman was no innocent visitor; she had stolen the cream and strength of the land on that May morning. When she dropped the rope, the power remained in the rope, and the cream of the land filled up the barrel. This story shows how sometimes the harvest and the reward of work could be stolen at the precarious threshold of May morning.

PRESENCE AS SOUL TEXTURE

In the modern workplace, a negative atmosphere can be very destructive. When we speak of an individual, we speak of his presence. Presence is the way a person’s individuality comes toward you. Presence is the soul texture of the person. When we speak of this presence in relation to a group of people, we refer to it as atmosphere or ethos. The ethos of a workplace is a very subtle group presence. It is difficult to describe or analyze an ethos; yet you immediately sense its power and effect. Where the ethos is positive, wonderful things can happen. It is a joy to come to work because the atmosphere comes out to meet you, and it is caring, kind, and creative. If the ethos of the workplace is negative and destructive, then when people wake up in the morning, their first thought of going to work literally makes them ill. It is lonely that so many people have to spend so much of their short time in the world in a negative and destructive work ethos. The workplace can be quite hostile; it is often an environment of power. You are working for people who have power over you. They have the power to sack you, criticize and bully you, or compromise your dignity. This is not a welcoming atmosphere. People have power over us because we give our power away to them.

It is an interesting exercise to ask yourself what image you have of the people who have power over you. A friend of mine works in a school that has an insecure principal. He is weak and defensive and uses his power in a very negative way. Recently at a meeting, to start the school term, he berated the staff. The next day my friend ran into this man in town with his wife. She was shocked to recognize that outside of his power context, he looked totally insignificant. This startled her because she had projected such power onto him as school principal.

Sometimes we allow people to exercise destructive power over us simply because we never question them. When falsity masquerades as power, there is no force that can unmask it as swiftly as a question. We are all familiar with the story of the emperor’s new clothes. The emperor paraded through town in what he thought was his new suit, though in reality he was stark naked. Everyone cheered and said what a wonderful suit the emperor wore. They were all in complicit agreement until a little child blurted out the truth. The word of truth is completely powerful. The New Testament says, “Live in the truth and the truth shall set you free.” This maxim is relevant to every situation. Gentle, nonconfrontational questions that pursue the truth, as you see it, can prevent a person from taking over all the power in a situation. This will save complex and gentle people from being reduced to the function of an external controlled role.

WEAKNESS AND POWER

Frequently people in power are not as strong as they might wish to appear. Many people who desperately hunger for power are weak. They seek power positions to compensate for their own fragility and vulnerability. A weak person in power can never be generous with power because they see questions or alternative possibilities as threatening their own supremacy and dominance. If you are going to be creatively confrontational with such a person, you need to approach that person very gently in a nondirect manner. This is the only way that the word of your truth can reach such a frightened, powerful person.