(Trinidad Guardian) – There is a problem with leadership in T&T, according to Archbishop Jason Gordon– they don’t serve.
In his address to the congregation at the traditional washing of the feet ceremony on Holy Thursday, Gordon pointed out the shortcomings in leadership locally.
“If something that’s gone wrong with us in Trinidad and Tobago, it’s here in leadership. We don’t see our leaders, we don’t see ourselves when we are leaders as people who serve. We see ourselves as people who have everybody else, wanting to lord it over everybody else. Brothers and sisters, it’s creating challenge in society,” he said.
He added: “Somehow when we get a little elevation everybody who was with us before—them have to feel the full wrath of we rod and we mouth. True or not true? Why?”
This, he said, was even witnessed within the household dynamic where some children were treated badly.
“How often have parents treated children badly, talk down at them, belittle them in public, make them feel less than…a cent of shaved ice in the sun?”
This he said goes on to perpetuate the misguided views of leadership in the country.
“If the first experience that children have is that people who are big is make you feel small then when they grow big, what they going to do? Make people feel small,” he said.
“Is only small people does make people feel small.”
He said it’s why the country needs to take an example from Jesus’ washing of his disciples’ feet as a reminder of the importance of serving others.
“If we understand what Jesus does when he washes feet, what he’s doing is talking about leadership and saying that the leader is not the one who lords it over (others), the leader is the one who serves everybody else,” he said.
He said everyone needs to ask themselves two questions: “Who do I need to serve and how do I serve them better?”
