The greatest possible success we teach our children … is not popularity or power or profit or pleasure, but service, connection, community and love. So we will challenge them to set … the goal of becoming the most loving version of themselves.**
Brian McLaren

If you don’t realise that you have power, you might not be able to exercise it. The power to speak up, to participate, to invent, to lead, to encourage, to vote, to connect, to organise, to march, to write, to say ‘no’ or to say ‘yes’. It’s tempting to imagine we have less power than we do. It lets us off the hook. For now.^
Seth Godin

There is the power that comes with status, title, or role,
That is, from the outside,
Though better the power that comes with abilities and talents –
From the inside, and
the right things being done by the right people at the right time for the right reasons –
Yet this still needs help from the power that flows from deep character:
Service and sacrifice, connection and community, hope and invention, risk and activeness,
And most of all, understanding and love;
We may have to wait forever to be afforded the first kind of power, but
the other powers are waiting for us to use them today.

*A little music to listen to while you’re reading.
**Brian McLaren’s Faith After Doubt;
^Seth Godin’s blog: Unaware.