GIVING BIRTH TO HISTORY

One of Chicago's mayoral candidates is known for his political acumen: "Every crisis is an opportunity not to be wasted." To some, the sound of cynical calculation. To others, not so fast.

Not to the weary General at Valley Forge; to the mourners at the Gettysburg cemetery; and to the nation after the tragedy in the Harbor called Pearl, in the streets of Dallas, Oklahoma City and the Twin Towers of New York. Something deeper than calculation was going on here. Just as in the case of happy images like the flag being raised over Iwo Jima, the Moon landing, and the Hubble space telescope.

Our senses can witness such collective sorrows and joys, but the spirit alone can experience them. Deeply. Profoundly. Still, even at that level, a people don't at first know what to do with their feelings. Which is when the opportunity for leadership shines through the swirl of events. There are always stars hidden inside the swirl. The glimmer of something important that might be given birth here.

Like the surgeon who helps a painful delivery, leaders are in a unique position at these times. They don't bear the child, but they can make this birth something transcendent. A moment in history that is not allowed to simply happen. It is frozen in time to be held high before the people. To be remembered and respected as something which has somehow changed us forever.

Not everyone can deliver such grandiosity without sounding like cheap grandiosity. It may be a witness to the event whose image is forever captured by a camera. Or perhaps a piece of film footage at the scene. Or later a powerful docudrama. But more than likely it will be someone in authority who can speak to the moment. A survivor, a mayor, a president. People need to hear from someone who can make some higher sense of it all.

Its history can turn a people skeptical. Tributes these days are a dime-a-dozen on television award shows. Likewise so are candle-lite memorials and tributes. We cheer and we tear on cue. After awhile we even realize our own programmed performances.

But still....

There are these inner sanctums in us all which crave filling. When we celebrate, we itch for someone to make higher sense of our joy. When we weep, we beg for someone to make higher sense of our sorrow. As children there was always mom and dad. Now on our own, we still look for this filling to come from outside our little selves

Enter a leader. Enter someone who can lift our joys and our sorrows up to some higher altar on which we can place our best beliefs and strongest efforts. Finding such leadership -- ah, now there's the rub.