America needs citizens to extend the compassion of our country to every part of the world ... We have no intention of imposing our culture.  But America will always stand firm for the non-negotiable demands of human dignity:  the rule of law; limits on the power of the state; respect for women; private property; free speech; equal justice; and religious tolerance.

Yet many organisations rely heavily on what can be called 'passive' authority.   For example, in a simple dialogue in the long-running comedy series Spin City, the nerdish James says to the rakish Stuart, "You can’t do that!"   "Why not?"  "It’s not allowed."  Most of us have this kind of conversation all the time, often inside our own heads!  Institutional attitudes coalesce around such norms - largely unread and sometimes unwritten codes of behaviour which have got into our social fabric. 

They usually appear to be negative because we only think to mention them when someone infringes one.  Passive authority is the kind of authority we grow up with at school, and it drives most businesses and almost all professional establishments. 

The US government is particularly concerned at the moment to protect "the American way of life" - and readers of this e-letter in Canada, Britain, Australia, and South Africa may recognise that their own governments can speak in an equally 'moral' and defensive tone.  Unless the country sees its values and way of life as in crisis, political leaders seek popularity by staking their claim to passive authority. 

(Aspects of power and authority are explored more fully in ForgivenessNet's feature article The power to initiate forgiveness.)

Perhaps the central attraction of the crime genre in literature and film is that an individual can achieve a kind of moral stature, briefly, by "bringing someone down" as if this were all "justice" entails.  Initially this meant bringing a 'clearly bad' person to arrest and trial.  In today's more sophisticated culture, we know that there are as many criminals inside the criminal justice system as without.  Therefore the genre now includes as many examples of a small, good-hearted figure (for example Sylvester Stallone's mesmerising performance as Sheriff Freddie Heflin in James Mangold's brilliant 1997 movie Copland) finding the courage to "nail" or "take down" corrupt and powerful police officers in league with the Mob or profiteering business interests.

A leader's greatest obligation is to make possible an environment where people's minds and hearts can be inventive, brave, human and strong, where people can aspire to do useful and significant things, where people can aspire to change the world.

One of the greatest books of spirituality in the last century was Reaching Out, by Henri Nouwen.  Nouwen identified a framework of three journeys or growths in human spirituality, which have resonated with many of us ever since.  Perhaps the most fertile of all was the "movement from hostility to hospitality."  What he said about hospitality was:

Hospitality, therefore, means primarily the creation of a free space where the stranger can enter and become a friend instead of an enemy.  Hospitality is not to change people, but to offer them space where change can take place. (Reaching Out, pp 68-9)

In Nouwen's hospitable space, people tell their stories.  There is always some unresolved issue, some enmity, between people, waiting to surface when triggered.   Yet here, enemies become friends.  The wrongdoer has the same space as the wronged.  The aim of the space or court is to assist listening and understanding, not nailing someone or allowing the wrongdoer to achieve revenge on his or her accusers.  

The host - the convener of the space - does not bring people to his or her point of view (say the "American way of life" or the "British way of life"), but trusts that the mutuality of meeting will have a spirit-changing effect on all.

There are always good reasons, complexities, mutual responsibilities for what went wrong, damaging responses to an initial wrong, and so on.  As we hear a wrongdoer, or an accuser, or a victim, tell his or her story, we see aspects of their inner dignity and worth, and it becomes more conceivable to forgive them and begin a new relationship with them.

Jo Tufnell, the daughter of one of the British politicians killed in the 1984 Brighton bombing by the IRA, began to recount her experiences at victims' workshops, and met a senior Sinn Fein representative.  She says, "He heard my story and I heard his.  It was another bridge being built."  She asked to meet the chief bomber Patrick Magee (released in 1999 under the Good Friday agreement), and did in Dublin in November 2000.   Jo said in a recent BBC interview,

"He said, 'I want to hear everything you have to say.  I want to hear your anger.  (And) I want to share what I've been through and why I did it. ... My sense is that he felt through taking up violence he's lost some of his humanity.    Now, with the peace process happening, it was time to redress the past ...   One way is to see humanity in people who would be your enemy."

When forgiveness becomes an issue in wounded relationships, it is often not clear who should make the first step.  Even for a hurt party to pronounce forgiveness can seem like unjust arrogance, if the hurt party's inadequate responses seem to have contributed to the present impasse!  When relationships have broken down, everyone becomes hurt, and we approach a meeting with defensiveness, even fear.  Creative leadership takes the initiative, and invites all parties into an hospitable space.

Nonetheless, Nouwen carefully and brilliantly explored this creative role of making space in the 'safer' areas of parenting, teaching, and medical care.  Parents who view their children as guests; teachers who listen for what new insight their pupils have to offer; healers who, while bringing expertise to bear in one area, allow their patients to sometimes empathise with other parts of their own lives. 

As for the more controversial aspect of community and political leadership - well, this is less familiar to us.  Indeed South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission is still the only high-profile example of it.