The role of leadership is not to choose sides or one arbitrary view, but to listen to all views expressed by community, to chart as safe as possible a course forward, and to change the course as necessary. 

Individually we can choose to separate ourselves from each other according to our beliefs, but despite how different or contrary they are from each other, our individual gifts and uniqueness don’t need to separate us if we simply accept that we all potentially have a place, and usefulness.  Who of us don’t believe we belong in our community?  How prone are we to consider beliefs that don’t agree with ours to be wrong, and the people holding them wrong too?  Do we seek to understand why they’re different or do we just write them off, denying their potential for belonging, and their value to community? 

What works will thrive and what doesn’t will not, and that is the way of nature, the way of the ecology of our Earth home.   Are we each not truly a part of that?  How can we be anything but part of it? 

It is vital for leadership to put the best interests of community before any particular ideology or belief, however apparently justifiable or popular, even if it is science.  Science is alive.  It changes.  If ideology is put before community, people will be excluded.    Ideologies, and beliefs alone ultimately divide us.   Together, we thrive.