BY Bill Reagan
Many Harlingen residents will remember Mayor Bill Card. Mayor Card was one of Harlingen’s finest leaders. I knew Mayor Card through a Bible Study we both attended. He was not shy about voicing his opinion, or raising a question — even a difficult question — in our Bible Classes.
I noticed two themes in Mayor Card’s contributions to Bible Class. He classified most problems as leadership problems, and his solution was always faith. On the surface this approach may seem simplistic, but it is really quite profound.
Leadership is really stewardship. A man or a woman may hold an office for a period of time, but they only occupy the office. The individual is not the office. Our leaders do not hold their offices by divine right. They serve for their designated time and the office passes to another. To understand that the leader is a steward takes the focus off the individual and puts it on the issues to be resolved. That’s how work gets done.
Great leaders always have a vision, not of how important they are, but of how great things can be. They inspire us to see the solution to our problems within ourselves.
Lincoln called upon us to live by “our better angels,” Kennedy to “ask what you can do for your country,” Reagan, to be the “shining city on a hill.”
You see, that’s faith – “the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” And faith is always the solution. Problems are solved because we believe they can be solved. Real leaders know that.
Leadership is on everyone’s mind as we approach Tuesday’s vote. Neither major party candidate has offered anything remotely like the inspiring leadership our country needs. Some people are natural leaders, others are shaped for leadership by the burden of their office. Perhaps the burden of the presidency will make our new president a leader.
That’s going to take some faith.
Bill Reagan is executive director of Loaves & Fishes of the Rio Grande Valley.
