We do not get the Leader we want.
We get the one - and that which - we are oriented towards.
It's been a long time since I've written any of my thoughts on the Bible's Stories and their symbolic meanings.
We should return to that much more, shouldn't we?
Anyway. I found myself thinking of one of these old stories in the wake of the parliamentary election. One that keeps repeating itself - not just in history, but in us.
It doesn't only unfold in the desert, in a distant land thousands of years ago, but in every society, in every time, where people attempt to find direction, order, and security. As we do at this moment.
It is the Story of King Saul and King David.
It begins with a people losing its orientation - just as the Europeans and Scandinavians have done over the last five decades - not necessarily because they are evil or unenlightened, just as we are not, but because they - as people do - begin to look around. Look at the other peoples. Look at other systems. Other ways of organizing themselves. And slowly an unrest arises, a feeling of lacking something, a sense that perhaps one stands outside what looks strong and ordered.
The people in the Story therefore go to Samuel and say - "Give us a king!"
They do not do this because it has been revealed to them that this is the truth. But because they wish to resemble the others. To feel secure. To be able to point and say - there is our leader, there is our structure, there is our answer.
And they get what they ask for.
Saul steps forward. And he is, in every human sense, the right choice. He is taller than the others. He fills the room. He looks like a king. If one were to draw a leader from the idea of strength and authority, one would draw him. And that is precisely what makes him so dangerous. Not because he is corrupt or evil in the beginning, but because he is born from the people's gaze - not from Truth itself.
Rather like our time's leading politicians are created from our collective gaze. The caring mother of the nation who makes the population weep at the meeting with her.
Back to the story.
It is almost imperceptible at first. But something begins to shift in Saul. He begins to listen more to the people's mood than to what is right. He begins to act from the fear of losing, rather than the will to stand firm. He begins to sacrifice the essential to preserve the visible. And slowly that happens which always happens when a human being - or a society - loses its inner orientation...
The exterior begins to crack.
Not immediately and not dramatically. But inevitably. The order and cohesion weaken. Become fragile.
For that which is not anchored in something Higher than man's own mirroring cannot bear in the long run.
Hold that thought.
Meanwhile, somewhere completely different, outside the spotlight, outside the election, outside the recognition, a boy stands in a field.
David. He is not chosen. He is not seen. He is not part of the Story currently unfolding before everyone. But he carries something that cannot be measured from without. An inner direction. A connection to something that does not depend on others' gaze.
When the time comes, and the old order begins to fall apart, Samuel is sent out again. And he does as we all do. He looks at the strong, the obvious, those who resemble leaders. But he is told, by God, that he is looking in the wrong place. That man looks at the exterior, while what truly matters lies somewhere else.
And then David is chosen.
Not through a vote. Not through a campaign. Not through the majority's will. But because he already, in the hidden, was oriented rightly.
This is where the story opens itself, for those who have eyes to see and ears to hear.
For it is not first and foremost about two historical persons. It is about two ways of being in the world. Two ways of making choices. Two ways a society can move.
Saul is not just a king. He is the part of us that seeks recognition BEFORE truth. That which aligns itself with the mood. The spirit of the age. That which adjusts itself to preserve position, acceptance, peace. He is what arises when we choose what LOOKS right, over what IS right.
David is not just a king either. He is the quiet direction in Man that is not necessarily seen first. The part that stands alone, if necessary. The part that cannot be persuaded by the majority, if the majority has lost its orientation. The part that is connected to something that cannot be voted into existence.
And perhaps that is where the story becomes uncomfortable. For you. For me. For us.
For a people does not just get a leader.
A people REVEALS ITSELF.
What we choose is rarely accidental. It springs from what we are already oriented towards. What we fear. What we hope for. What we - most deeply - worship, without necessarily knowing it.
Therefore the question after an election is not as simple as it appears.
It is not just - 'who won?'
It is - 'what in us was said YES to?'
For if the orientation has fallen, Saul will always appear as the obvious choice. And if the orientation is restored, David will - sooner or later - step forward, often long before anyone notices it.
The quietest, but also most decisive layer in the story is this, though - that the shift does not begin on the throne, the structure, or the system - that is, within the system, the government, or Parliament - but in Man, Consciousness, and Direction.
And therefore the real question is not political.
It is existential.
Whether we orient ourselves towards what looks right.
Or towards what IS right and true - even when it is not rewarded, not seen, and not chosen.
For in the moment a Human Being - or many Human Beings - begins to turn that direction back, something happens that no vote in itself can create. And no state, power, or structure can dam up.
Something begins to shift.
Quietly at first.
Then inevitably.
This is where we stand today.
For beneath all the visible - beneath elections, systems, and shifting power - there lies an Order that is not created by man, but which man either orients himself towards or loses connection to.
And it is in that relationship that everything is decided.
So regardless of who becomes prime minister - be assured, with heart filled with trust and confidence, that these ancient forces still work, quietly, immovably, and sooner or later bring what is turned rightly forth into the Light.
Good Thursday, friends ❤️
