Leadership calls on us to step out of our comfort zones. Everyone can see when something is unjust and wrong, yet not everyone will act to be part of the solution. The status quo seeks to have individuals keep their thoughts and actions to themselves. Leadership means surmounting the power of the status quo and providing alternative ideas and actions. Leaders need a network, a community, a circle.
In today’s society we are taught to put the “I” before the “We”. This contradiction revokes our desire to understand that from the start to the end of our day, we each have an interconnected role to play in society. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. refers to the circle as the “interrelated structure of reality” and suggests to us that to ignore that fact, pushes us as a community farther away from peace on earth. In the same way the body circulates what it needs to take care of itself, communities need to circulate, and sustain circles, for life.
Every day is a day to conceptualize how the circle applies to you. Make that change within yourself to be in a circle, address injustices, as an injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. Circles offer connections that allow us to step out of that which is familiar, safe, and known, and to step into that which can transform, uplift, and create anew.