c. 1998 Religion News Service

(Tom Ehrich is the author of”On a Journey,”daily meditations available through Journey Publishing Co. If you have feedback or want to suggest a question for a future column, send e-mail to: journey(AT)interpath.com)

UNDATED _ I found it strangely reassuring when I called a salesman and got the recorded message:”The baby was born! Eleni Vita is here!”In the multimillion-dollar world of big-time sales, a daughter mattered most of all.

Similarly, after cruising a this-could-be-anywhere street in Corpus Christi, Texas, lined with a Wal-Mart, a K-Mart, a Target and a Macaroni Grill, I found it reassuring to learn that the waiter serving franchise Tex-Mex was a college student working to get by. And again, when I found myself standing before a church audience surrounded by implements of internecine warfare like the Bible and the Prayer Book, I found it reassuring to see a woman fighting cancer and a failed marriage being hugged.

Every now and then, statistics are revealed as people, institutional agendas are set aside for human needs, and the anonymity and sameness that could crush our spirits are obliterated by the sudden gurgle of a child.

There is no profit, of course, in uniqueness.

Wal-Mart thrives by anticipating mass behavior. Barnes & Noble turns a seemingly idiosyncratic enterprise like book-browsing into cookie-cutter merchandising. The coffee house, once a venue for radical poets, becomes Starbucks in every mall. And automakers continue to turn a symbol of freedom into a badge of class identity.

But the human spirit breaks through. Not even McDonald’s can get away forever with selling the same food to everyone. Mastering the technology of food preparation won’t automatically satisfy human appetites.

Marketers try to ride the wave of human quirkiness, but even the most clever lose it, as individuality seeks new outlet. Even supposedly conformist teen-agers recoil at seeing their image reflected in every mall store. Indeed, one reason trends happen is because people resist being part of trends.

In this quirky free-spiritedness, would-be leaders struggle.

Washington may or may not be a moral cesspool, but its offending sin is not having any clue as to what real people are going through. Vietnam showed us that even the most determined leaders cannot convince people to do what they don’t want to do. Nor does pandering work for long. Voters eventually stop listening. Sen. Trent Lott’s saber-rattling against Iraq fails to remember that anti-communism died of its own internal absurdity.

The most effective leader in this chaotic environment is the one who listens. Dell Computer Corp., for example, has swamped its competition by selling customers exactly what they want, rather than using clever pitches to unload the unwanted. While makers of push-up bras found they couldn’t sell discomfort to women, hospitals heard women’s desire for human-scale birthing rooms.

The world of religion shows free-spiritedness in glorious full flight. America has nearly 300 Christian denominations, at least in part because the ornery won’t be pushed around. While denominational executives struggle to preserve a fading heritage, congregations live free. Approved hymnals rarely leave the pew rack in many churches, as the spiritually hungry discover Taize chants, black gospel music and trans-denominational rousers. Worshipers endure visiting hierarchs, then go back about doing church their own way.

It is perplexing that leaders don’t figure this out. If American political, religious and cultural history shows nothing else, it shows we won’t follow blindly for long. We insist on being heard.

Whether one is a synod chief or a store owner, it always seems easier to talk at people than listen to them, to sell one’s own desires rather than hearing the needs of others.

It is hard work to sit in people’s offices and homes and listen rather than dictate memos. It is hard work to lead, rather than compel or frighten. It is hard work to raise the child, rather than command the child.

Most leaders aren’t good at listening, or even good at pretending to listen. That may be why we don’t entrust them with much that matters. But to those who do listen well, who honor our freedom and our needs, we give great trust.

I pray that Eleni’s father will be a listener.

DEA END EHRICH