Blessed are the meek. For they shall inherit the earth. (Matthew 5:5)
The Beatitudes are so beautiful. And so arguable. If you are prone to doing so, perhaps after a Sunday of Mass and football games, you can get into tangles in bars over beer over what ‘meek’ means, or whether the leading Gospel of Matthew should be held above the more accessible versions of Evangelists Mark or Luke, or the intellectual allure accorded to John’s version.
Meek, however you see it, is a complex word of quietness, of one not so very tall or perfect. Of a mystery man of meaning, watching and observing. Like being a snake in the grass, a Gollum looking up to it from his cave and its soil. Or a quiet and innocent Frodo walking through that grass, carrying an extraordinary ring.
Of being humble before a deity.
It is used on occasion in communications, for this very reason. Meekness is accessible, even mythical to us, but also vague. Vague in the sense that we know what it means but it’s too darn emotional for us to understand or describe. It has something to do with each person’s version of reconciling to their own joyful or disturbed version of yesterday.
When was I meek? Was I hurt, or did I grow from this? Was it both?
Governor Mitch Daniels of Indiana, at the outset of almost every talk I’ve seen him share, is about the meekness of the political. And everything it means. He’s the guy that makes art of the words, “I don’t know.” He says them quite often.
Meekness, in a sense of The Beatitudes, is beyond description by words. But let’s touch it at the edges. As best we can.
It is about listening and knowing exactly what is going on. A chance at Wisdom.
It is about not just giving ones shirt, but one’s cloak as well. An absence of Need.
It is about being immune from the wiles of power, beyond pain of whim or moment. You are beyond hurt, and immeasurably beyond your attacker, so why don’t you…
Turn the other cheek?
Meek is a big deal. It may be a cultural thing, wonderfully embracing and certain to some, and for others a question – why? If this guy’s so smart, why doesn’t he just come out there and say so?
Why is he being so humble? Is he playing a trick? Is there a method to this whole thing? Perhaps.
Governor Mitch Daniels spoke on May 4, 2011 to the lunch crowd at AEI. He joked, as he ascended to the podium, that they’d all been misled.
For a moment, all stood on edge, at attention.
All the people in the audience. All the viewers like me on AEI livestream. That this wasn’t to be any major policy address despite what the well known Arthur Brooks might have said in his inspiring and polite introduction.
Daniels was just here in DC for food. For a meal. Because as Calvin Coolidge said, a guy’s got to eat sometime.
And so we do.
Context established. Branding alert. If you’ve been in this town for even a moment, you just got code. In a twang that wasn’t all about the city.
This guy listens. This guy eats. Ear to the soil, ear to the rails, ear at the fence between your field and mine, the physical – not virtual- locus of where the local news gets distributed.
What he said, in a hard duality that the whole room was waiting for in real words?
I’m not Obama.
Your question, upon hearing this. So is he running for President?
Here’s the link to the AEI broadcast. I’ll include the same link in my next 2 posts.
Continued, part 2. I’ll discuss communicative style, primarily, within the topics Daniels addressed. When does he blink? And when does he stand tall?