One of my friends recently Tweeted (I think that is the correct verb form) this view: “The Dalai Lama is the most consequential spiritual leader of my lifetime by a significant margin.”
When he forwarded that Tweet in an e-mail to a group of people, another friend gave his own list of who he viewed to be the ten most consequential spiritual leaders in his lifetime. His list was (and I’m not sure if these were in his order of significance or not):
Pope John XXIII
Archbishop Desmond Tutu
C.S. Lewis
The Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King, Jr.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
Thomas Merton
The Dalai Lama
Sister Joan Chittister
Henri J.M. Nouwen and
Walter J. Burghardt, S.J.
So here is the exercise: Who makes your list of the most consequential spiritual leaders of your lifetime? Making such a list obviously requires spending some time reflecting on what it is that qualifies someone to be considered among the most consequential spiritual leaders we have encountered. (I add that because the person who initially tweeted responded to our other friend’s list by observing that he thought Desmond Tutu and Martin Luther King belonged on a different list…not a list of the most consequential spiritual leaders in the way he understood that designation.)
My own list would include some of the ten listed by my friend and some others he did not include. How about yours?
Creo en Dios! 