Temperaments and Expectations on Leadership
The nature of leadership is fluid. Styles of leadership, as well as the focus and expectations of leadership need to be responsive to the different phases of a community's shared life. While there are many ways to define leadership, it is nonetheless still an abstract concept, in part because of the many ways in which takes shape, depending on the needs of the organization at any one time. And it may even be flexible enough to be exercised in multiple ways, by the same people, at the same time, in different parts of the organization. Thus, the idea of "leadership" as one thing with a hard and fast definition does not match with experience.
Thomas-Kilman Axis on Leadership Styles
One way to depict the changes in leadership by the context in which it is being exercised in by referring to the Thomas-Kilman Axis. This tool is usually used in relation to defining approaches to conflict, but it also is instructive on identifying five types of leadership. Each of the styles is appropriate, but not for times and situations.
The Thomas-Kilman Axis looks at leadership in relation to "Issues" (the vertical axis) and "Relationship" (the horizontal axis). Together, the axis of issues and relationships can be easily laid over Ephesians 4:15, which states, "speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ."
Looking at the types of leadership, five positions can be elaborated. Actually, these five types could be more finely defined with more distinctive positions all over the map. However, these exiting five set up parameters defining edges and the center.
First, in the upper left corner is "forcing
Second, in the lower left corner is "avoiding" leadership. By nature of its name, this does not even seem like a leadership quality. However, it is an "editing" kind of leadership. That is, there are times when issues are of little importance and almost no impact on relationship. These issues don't need to be dealt with and can be set aside for other more pressing concerns. Avoiding may be necessary to stuff away esoteric theological controversies, or even practical local issues, but still has to make the discernment that these are not issues vital to the community.
Third, in the middle of the map is "compromise". I chose to use a chicken as the icon for this position, only because compromise is too often misused. When misused, compromise demonstrates a lack of willingness to pursue some very difficult issues that actually need reconciliation and definition. On the other hand, it may show significant leadership to hold something in balance for a time. There are issues that are polarizing, yet neither side may have adequate information or understanding, making any action inappropriate. Compromise may work best then as a holding cell for a time.
Fourth, "collaborating" becomes a crucial leadership skill in settings of high relationship and high concern for an issue. For some, this is a default position because everything is important or because every relationship feels vulnerable and thus must be highly valued. As a default position, it may restrain leaders from taking immediately responsive steps or hinder healthy delegation and the empowerment of others to act independently in a permission-granting environment.
Fifth, "accommodating" although there is nothing wrong with highly valuing relationships, there are times when this leads toward an attitude of anything goes. This position can step over the line from creating a permission-granting environment to becoming a permissive environment. Eventually, an ideal will be violated, or a cause not championed, for the sake of relationship. Then, over time anxiety builds and implicit conflict may emerge, often in passive-aggressive ways. However, accommodation is a crucial capacity when the issues can be accurately assessed as of minor importance.
Thomas-Kilman in Action-Reflection
Read over the above mentioned types of approaches to issues and relationships. For each:
- Consider the positive qualities of the approach.
- How does this build up the community?
- How is this capacity seen in action?
- How might these qualities be passed on to others?
- How does this build up the community?
- Each of these approaches have a history:
- Tell stories of when these different approaches became apparent.
- Consider which, if any, has become a default. When did that occur?
- Which if any of these approaches has been especially helpful in the past? Which has been problematic?
- Tell stories of when these different approaches became apparent.
- Each of these approaches assumes that a community and its leaders can make clear discernment about issues and relationships. How do you ascertain the "high" or the "low" of the relationship or issue?
Next Steps
As a community becomes more familiar with its approaches to issues of relationships and issues, there can be greater clarity in the way choices are processed. Eventually, trust will build up within the community, due to the clarity and shared understanding of how things are discerned. To make aspects of this analysis a part of meetings and working sessions can provide needed reflection and ongoing accountability.
Within the Quaker tradition is the process of discerning the "spirit of the meeting." At the conclusion of a meeting for action, a designated person, known for the impartial discernment, is asked to describe how the spirit of the people in the meeting functioned and how the Spirit of God moved among them. Reflecting on these approaches and how they may have emerged in a meeting may be instructive.
Epiphany 3C
John 1.5
This past week, Debbie Blue wrote:
"We believe the community gathered around the gospel is always dismantling devotion to culturally constructed practices of power. We are disciples of another way. We are dissenters—disrupting, disturbing, disarming. People will become cooperative dismembers…."
Thus, at her church, rather than having a membership campaign, they are I the midst of a dismembership campaign.
Disconnect to Connect
Recently in a mediation on the beatitude, "Blessed are the poor in spirit," I contemplated on our need to disengage, to let go of things. The poverty in the Matthew's text is not exclusively a poverty of material wealth, but also one of perspective. In a world that still oddly ("oddly" after the Great Recession, we've been going through globally) believes that "you can have it all." But we cannot have it all. It is impossible to even try. When we choose relationships, we let go of independence, when we choose to have children we let go of assurance (and sanity), when we choose Christ, we let go or our life. No, we cannot have it all. But even more important, much of what we presently have actually has us. We are sucked into political arguments, cultural assumptions, material possessions, unhealthy relationships, and mix of idolatrous allegiances. So much of becoming united to each other in Christ requires that we disconnect, that we dismember ourselves, from others that seek or claim our devotion.
This week's epistle reading for the third week of Epiphany (I Cor 12:12-31) tells us that, contrary to many examples to the contrary, we are members of one another:
For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. 13For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.
Perhaps this shared membership is not always evident. Of course we live at a distance from others. Our schedules don't often correspond well. Frequently on matters of import, we disagree. Nonetheless, we profess a unity that goes underground. That lay hidden, but is no less real. While there may be pressures and forces to pull apart the body of Christ (and to reattach us to "culturally constructed practices of power"), it is in our power to be stewards of what God has created. How might we give fuller and deeper expression to the levels of connection through the Spirit of God that we have to one another and to others who follow Christ in different settings? Epiphany
A Query
How might I, in the week to come, express unity with others in the Body of Christ? How have I felt this unity in the past? Are there ways in which I might be able to welcome others to dismember themselves from destructive connections and find new community in Christ?
The Market Idols: A Brass Ring and a Golden Calf
I have been reading through the new book by Jim Wallis, Rediscovering Values: On Wall Street, Main Street, and Main Street. While I don't want to go through a long review of the book and it's outline, I am struck by several aspects of Wallis' approach to understanding American culture. What has struck me most was the explanation of the degree to which we have become an impatient people seeking who seek insight and direction from the Market.
Quoting Harvey Cox, Wallis describes the power of this abstract "Market" as the power of a god. One which we have sought to appease and in which we have lost ourselves. Focusing on the recent global experience of the Great Recession, it is easy to see the degree to which this approbation may be right on. My own experience of devotional awareness to this abstract god has been identified. As I, over the past 18 months have watched my own income decrease in concert with the Dow Exchange. As the Market went down, so did my ability to make ends meet. The Market each day could tell me, I thought, to what extent I would need to brace myself. I looked to see if the bottom had been yet hit. Looking at the Market became a daily commitment to view. As much as daily Bible reading and prayer, I found myself daily checking with the Dow. To what extent was the Market informing my prayer, and visa versa? Thanks to Jim Wallis quoting Harvey Cox, we can now think about it together.
But what happens when we think about it? I hear from people all around me (folks who have even less of a chance of grasping all the promises of the Market than do I) that the Market needs to be free to deliver its promises. In the face of this failing god, there are still those "true believers" not wanting to let go of their devotion. There is the hope, the aspiration that the brass ring needs to be kept large and promising. There needs to be a greed in place f
In the Bible, one of the stories of righteous anger describes Moses and his reaction to the people who had just made an idol out of gold. These people had just come out slavery that had lasted for hundreds of years. The slavery in Egypt had been enforced and strengthened by the economic, political, and religious goals of Egypt. The enslaved had often seen animals forged of precious metals. These gods could receive sacrifice, function as divine mouthpieces, and serve as icons and trademarks of the kings. But out of impatience, frustration and fear, the former slaves, now in the desert, forged an Egyptian-ish statue and bowed to serve it. Created with their own hands and imbued with their own mythology, these people were willing to worship the god they made. We have become so similar in our own ill conceived relationship to the Market. We may not have directly created, but we prop it up and imbue with power that is not within our power to give, nor within its power to deliver.
While there are those who have avoided the market, from freegans and dumpster divers, and the bartering networks, most of us do not know where to turn for alternatives. The hope for changing something as abstract and powerful as "The Market" seems daunting and impossible. However, there is wisdom in simplicity and empowerment in local investment. There are personal and community-based ways of checking the power of the Market. Most of the tools at our hands for changing the power of this idol are more akin to recovery programs as well as community development. We are all in this together.
Helping Haiti: When Technology Has a Heart
"For those interesting in helping immediately, simply text "HAITI" to "90999" and a donation of $10 will be given automatically to the Red Cross to help with relief efforts, charged to your cell phone bill."
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
Just Trying to Make Sense of it All
"The flows and ups and downs of social order are tolerable if one feels those are normal fluctuations rather than some kind of testimonial to one's own shortcomings. In the last analysis, organizing is about fallible people who keep going."
Yup!
Epiphany
the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it...John 1.5
Some things just can't be hidden - and shouldn't be hidden.
A Google search on the phrase, "hide your light" came up with many explaining the idiom, "don't hide your light under a bushel." So far, so good. But the first 5 attempts of individuals to explain the idiom were all failures. Don't be shy, don't lack confidence in your abilities and talents, and become powerful and assertive were the tone and tenor of these attempted explanations. It was all about self, about one's own self-manifested luminescence.
The idiom comes from Matthew 5: 14ff:
You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hidden. No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.
The light we shine, me be ours to share, but it is not a light that emerges from within us. It is a mandate, an imperative command to provide that which was provided to us through Christ. Jesus said, "you are the light of the world." It is because God spoke it into being through Jesus that it could be so.
Epiphany is about letting the appearance of Christ to continue to shine forth. Not ending with the Magi and shepherds, but radiating outward, infinitely. The word "epiphany" comes from the Koine Greek, ἐπιφάνεια "appearance", "manifestation." This is an appearance, that over the weeks of Epiphany radiates like light moving outward. As we reflect on the stories of Christ's appearance, and the appearance of God among women and men, we have a fresh opportunity to consider where the light of Christ in us is shining.
Each week of Epiphany, I will provide a weekly query. In the Friends tradition, queries are questions for reflection to encourage us to live out the convictions we share.
For this, the first week of Epiphany:
Do you, as the way opens, share the principles of Christian faith with non-believers in simple, clear words? Do you witness to your Christian/Mennonite faith by letting your life speak (letting your light shine)? Can you help to make non-Christians feel welcome and a sense of belonging in your meetings for worship?
Let the light of Christ shine!
Desperation Scripts (Re-Written)
Somewhere scripts were written in our collective imagination that has led so many of us to have sought speculation for rapid growth of our resources. Now that those speculative hopes have been dashed by the recession, what will we imagine when recovery comes?Bernanke Saw His Shadow
Somewhere in New York, or maybe Washington D.C., the Federal Reserve Chairman arose from Penn Station, or the Metro, and like Punxsutawney Phil, saw his shadow.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said that “the recession was ‘very likely over,’ as consumers showed some of the first tangible signs of spending again. Mr. Bernanke, who had become cautiously more upbeat in recent weeks amid signs of third-quarter growth, said for the first time that forecasters agree ‘at this point that we are in a recovery,’” (reported, WSJ, 9/15/09).
Today
According the Associated Press (1/3/10), “Some analysts worry that the Fed, which has held rates at record lows since December 2008, could be fueling a new speculative period and potentially a future economic crisis…Bernanke suggested the Fed might have underestimated the full force of the recession, which struck in December 2007…There's concern about how vigorous the recovery will be once government supports are removed later this year.”
As an economic thaw may be approaching, churches may now begin to reflect on their future and begin looking seriously at the things that may have been unattended over the past year and a half.
We’ve had important ministry taking place, meeting needs and dealing with the brokenness the recession has revealed. Yet some deeper and systemic issues continue to grow unaddressed.
How long will it take for the desperation scripts to be re-written? What are the new imaginaries the will give serve as templates to our views of jobs, economy, and community?
More on this later...
Buried Under the Rubble
Today's scripture from the lectionary asked us to envision "grace upon grace." Meditating on this phrase led me to think of being buried under grace. Grace so thick - there's no escape.
Karla reminded me of a movie that we had finally gotten around to seeing, Henry Poole is Here. Interstingly, the climatic moment comes as Henry Poole is buried under the rubble of a wall that collapsed. A wall that he tore at with a sledge hammer.
While people may still be in the Christmas spirit, check out this movie.
Yellow Feels Like Summer
Spring to Summer
There are two things I like about late-spring/early-summer:
- I move my "office" inside to the back porch. I take my laptop and my cell phone and sit outside doing "office" work. I know I am envied for that.
- I enjoy cool suppers on hot days. Today I am making deviled eggs and pasta salad for supper. Maybe even a rhubarb compote.
Diminishing Returns?
I saw today's news as a good sign. I hope. It seems that the number of people becoming unemployed is not only slowing down, but hopefully turning around. And at an 8.9 percent jobless rate, we could be doing worse.
But what happens when the system has shed itself of all employees? Theoretically, there would be no new jobless claims then either. Looking at jobless claims numbers only tells us when we are running out of employees to layoff. It doesn't tell us when we're ready to turn around. If the system is slowing down in its shedding of unneeded human capital, is it prolonging the difficult healing? In other words, are slowing down the process of ripping the bandaid off because it hurts, but only prolonging the sting? Or, do we need to rip it all of at once, scream a bit, then get on with healing.
I don't know anything. I'm just thinking out loud. But as a regular working class person, who is friends with other regular working class people, I worry that the system is not going to be calling us back to work anytime soon. I hope I am wrong.
If you know more about this kind of stuff than I do, let me know.
An Archaic Moment for an Early Adopter
I would not have done t
his if there were a lot to go through...but I had only two. Pieces of mail that is. With bills inside. I actually opened the check book, wrote out the amounts, placed the checks into the return envelopes, licked the envelope and shut it, then placed a stamp on it. I have not paid bills like that in years.With most aspects of technology, I am an early adopter, as long as I can afford the technology. Using online bill pay has been my practice for years, especially after I calculated the costs of stamps, envelopes, and checks. It was kind of a no-brainer. I do remember have a few problems with it as some payments did not arrive at the destination on time. But the banks were always willing to speak to the payee and settle things if that occurred.
Today, just on a whim of sorts, I decided to use the US Postal Service to help me pay my bills. And it felt weird, maybe in a meaningful way:
- I had a more viceral connection with the process of thinking of that money leaving my control as I filled in the amount numerically, and then had to spell the amount. Somehow, in these financially axious days, that put me more in tune with the costs of our decisions, and forced me to consider, either with gratidute or with scorn, the amounts that were flowing out from my bank. To type a number online, and just hit send is too quick and easy to reflect on the meaning of the action.
- I had to laugh at the lack of security. I remember when people first started using the Internet buy things and pay bills. There was a lot of discussion about privacy and the fear of having personal information, especial financial information up for grabs. I must admit, it happened to me once, someone made an online purchase of flowers in Paris with my MasterCard. I guess I'm glad they found some other way to pay for their travel to France. Anyway, as I sealed up the envelope it dawned on me, I had no print out of the bill having been paid, no confirmation number indicating that the money had gone through. All of a sudden, I felt vulnerable, not to strangers going through my mail, but to the Postal Service and to the payee. What if I needed proof? We've come a long way, at least for me, that I feel safer paying bills online than by mail.
- Finally, I am occasionally reminded of how bad my writing is. I am guess there are schools for employees in accounts receivable. I hope they can read what I wrote on the checks. And I wrote only two. If I had a stack of bills to go through, my hand would hurt like it did in the old days, and my writing would become increasingly illegible.
Another Bubble Burst
An acquaintance of mine is a lay scholar of folk traditions. This man is a genius. He went from being a rocket scientist in a super-secret government project. Somewhere along the way, he had a conversion that led from those projects to wandering the back roads of Idaho. Listening to him sing in Christmas eve services with his daughter, it would seem that folk music is a deep-seated family tradition.
This past week, my acquaintance emailed the following story and poem. An interesting perspective on the history of this poet's context is that he is an Idaho poet prospector, writing around 1900. I'm not sure if this poet was a silver miner, but at the time of his writing poem the silver market had expanded like the contemporary housing bubble. The economics of the marketplace are intricate and interconnected. In the 1890's too many railroads had been built. More than could be paid for, and more than could be used. I guess silver had something to do with the backing up the securities that financed the railroads. When the railroads failed, so the silver market crashed.
Lest we think there is something unique about the hard times in the present, see the poem below that will be in the book/CD I am working on about the poems, songs and life of Idaho's Poet Prospector Clarence E. Eddy (1876-1936).
This plaintive composition was published in "Pinnacles of Parnassus." The poem deals with deep spiritual and humanitarian aspects of the impact of the poor economic conditions of the mid and late 1890's. The Poet Prospector included the following note with his poem:
"Written upon report of the press dispatches, in December, 1898, that hundreds of poor were dying of cold and starvation in New York City."
Today, in all the world my faith is dim;
Earth seems indeed a weary vale of tears;
All brokenly my heart goes back to Him,
The Weeping One, within the far-oof years.
Thou hadst not where on earth to lay Thy head,
Oh, pure and loving, Meek and Lowly One.
A crown of thorns and cruel cross instead
Were thine, oh Maiden Mary's Mystic Son.
I think of Thee beside the lonely sea,
Thy sweet, sad face suffused with silent tears,
Oh, man of Nazareth and Galilee,
Now gone from earth almost two thousand years.
Today with aching heart and streaming eyes
The trodden poor in heaven raise and prayer -
"How long! Oh, Lord, how long!" ascend their cries,
Mid pain ad hunger's helpless wild despair.
Ye say, "Ah, well, such things as this must be,
What matters it to us, so long as we
Are the favored ones who real the spoil?"
This is the sluggard's and the coward's view,
The cause of all the wrongs that curse the race.
Oh, for a day if man to man were true,
That day alone would every wrong efface.
With serving Mammon we have gone astray.
Our inmost souls with sordidness are blind.
We cannot see "the angel in the way."
We live for self and not for all mankind.
The age is drunk and blind with lust for gold,
And deaf and dumb to dying virtue's cries.
Yes, honor, friendship, even love is sold
And honesty is made a sacrifice.
Is this, oh men, the way His words you keep?
He warned you evermore to watch and pray,
Lest, i the spirit, you should fall asleep
And wander in temptation's downward way.
We sorely need within the world today
Some Godlike soul - grand, solemn, tender, true -
One that no worldly lust can lead astray -
A mighty work there is on earth to do.
We need a voice sublime and thunder-toned,
To speak the truth till all shall understand.
Till frauds and shams and falsehoods now enthroned
Be banished evermore from every land.
Awake, oh men, awaken from your sleep.
Cast sordid selfishness and lust away.
Oh then, but not till then, shall dawn the deep
And pure, sweet light of perfect freedom's day.
Sketch credit: Pinnacles of Parnassus:
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Developing Discernment
Our youngest son teaches us continually about the merits of good discernment. Perhaps it is because of how well we have taught him that he creatively moves in another direction, like an improvising jazz musician.For some reason, our warm and friendly extroverted son, doesn't always know when to stop talking class and is developing the nickname "Blurt."
We have taught him the value of friendships – but friends won out over homework for awhile and actually threatened his baseball season due to low grades.
We taught him to give back and pay it forward, but is choice of giving back to his school was misdirected when he autographed the inside covers of several text books (as one friend put it, he'll be famous some day and those autographs will be worth a lot.)
I really love him. He is so cool and is always keeping us on our toes.
Bearing the Mark of Cain
From his latest album, Working on a Dream, the song "What Love Can Do" concludes with these stanzas...
Here our memory lay corrupted and our city lay dry/Let me make this vow to you/Here where it's blood for blood and an eye for an eye/Let me show you what love can do/Let me show you what love can do
Here we bear the mark of Cain/But let the light shine through/Let me show you what love can do/Let me show you what love can do/Let me show you what love can do/Let me show you what love can do
Over the past several days, I've been thinking about the phrase, "We're all in this together." It has been used in commercials. The concept is being applied to the cultural and emotional responses we are taking to the global economic recession. On the face of it, I guess that's a fine sentiment. To my more jaded world-view, it may be that some advertiser is just trying to tell you that they understand my stress and that because of their magnanimous empathy, they deserve my few bucks over those other unfeeling louts.
Well, back to Springsteen. I've rarely been let down by his insights (I know, Tunnel of Love was bit lacking). But he's redeemed himself several times over. As Bruce sang, What Love Can Do, I heard him step outside of our paternalistic assumptions. It wasn't that he understood in a condescending way. Actually, the lyric grabs all of us and places in the midst of a curse and challenge.
Biblically speaking, we have tended to look at the curse placed upon Cain as a curse that was his, or, to the more bigoted among us, that this mark lasted as a mark upon an entire race. God placed the mark on Cain our God's great frustration at humanities sickening addiction to getting even. Behind which, of course, is the shallow basin of our self-deluded thoughts about sound judgments and justice. As the mark of Cain is told in Genesis, it is a protection for Cain, but also for the rest of the world. Yet, it is also a mark of sin, failure, and the need for responsibility. The world knows that Cain killed Abel, and the earth itself cried out to God at the spilled blood shed on the virgin soil.
But the mark of Cain wasn't to be only Cain's. We all have the mark of Cain. We are all a sign and warning to one another to stop our vengeance, self-justifications, and condemnations. We all are walking with the same mark on us. We are all in this brokenness together. And out of our weakness and heartache, God's mercy allows that there is still light that can show through, and that we can show what love can do. We are victims, but only of ourselves. We are sources of love and light from an unrelenting Source, who empathizes with our brokenness more than any advertiser telling us "we're all in this together."
Amusing Ourselves to Obscurity
I've been reading a surprisingly heady book, Homer Simpson Goes to Washington: American Politics through American Culture, edited by Joseph Foy. It is a collection of essay, some of which look closely at the cultural and political debates that arise in The Simpsons.
While it is amusing at one level, the essayists, would argue, The Simpsons are not a mindless amusement as such. One essay in particular concluded by looking at the assumptions of the American Dream held by the members of the Simpson's household. One essay in particular seemed to drive at our current socio-emotional malaise, which demonstrates itself in our current economic plight. The third essay of the book, "Political Culture and Public Opinion", by J. Michael Bitzer is striking for its present applications.
The work of James Truslow Adams is cited in analyzing the notion or the reality of the American Dream. Interesting to note is that his study took place at the beginning of the Great Depression, publised in 1932. It would also make one wonder if amusing ourselves with a mindless pursuit of the American Dream might mitigate toward a depression, or a grand recession. James T. Adams writes: "There has been the Ameriican Dream, that dream of a land in which life should become fuller for every man, with opportunity for each according to his ability or acheivement." But noting the conflicting realitiy of classism, he continuted, "those on top, financially, intellectually, or otherwise, have got to devote themselves to the Great Society, and those who are below in the scale have got to strive to rise, not merely economically, but culturally. We cannot become a great democracy by giving ourselves up as individuals to selfishness, physical comfort, and cheap amusements."
With those last lines, I wonder if we've lost sight of an American Dream that is worth dreaming about? While there's a pull in public education to become culturally more sensitive and strive "upward" by challenging thinkers, is there a similar trend among the "have-made-it" crowd to become sensitive toward those that are "below?" While James T Adams indicated in 1932 a two-way flow toward a meeting in the middle, we seem to thing the middle is not the meeting ground of the American Dream. If it is not, then the "dream" is only attainable to a certain class. But, at the same time, is there a acquiesence to the elusiveness of the dream. If we never can attain the American Dream, can we just lower our sights a bit and just be happy where we are. In this scenario, it seems that we become slaves to the marketers who will define happiness for us. In James T Adams words, "by giving ourselves up... to selfishness, physical comfort, and cheap amusements."
In conclusion, the essay quotes de Tocqueville,
In democratic peoples, men easily obtain a certain equality; they cannot attain the equality they desire. It retreats before them daily but without ever evading their regard, and, when it withdraws, it attracts them in pursuit. They constantly believe they are going to seize it, and it constantly escapes their grasp. They see it from near enough to know its charms, they do not approach it close enough to enjoy it, and they die before having fully savored its sweetness.
Perhaps, not only is de Tocqueville correct, but is describing a healthy disregard for simple satisfaction of attainment.
Just a thought...