by C.S. Lewis, reprinted in Plough (May 18)
In this excerpt from God in the Dock, the scholar turned amateur apologist argues that struggling with difficult people is likely one of the most theologically revealing activities. We learn more about God’s perspective on free will and human choice when we confront the challenge of seemingly intractable people.
One of the biggest challenges for school leaders is working with a multitude of people of diverse temperaments and various degrees of character. The vices of human nature are legion, requiring school leaders to develop structures and routines that draw upon the better angels of our nature.
Hopefully, Lewis’s reflection on what we learn from difficult people can provide us some space for self-reflection, along with the necessary and practical prod to become more what each of us is called to be: “Of all the awkward people in your house or job there is only one whom you can improve very much. That is the practical end at which to begin.”
