From Connolly to Dylan   Win O'Toole • 8 May 2004 “Don’t follow leaders, watch your parking meters…forget the dead you’ve left, they will not follow you”…Is there anything Dylan didn’t get right? Connolly said as much in his time. What mattered to him was improving life for people. His spirit today favors no style, no method, no technique. His approach was radical because it focused on essential questions. In their Easter speech (3 May) the IRSM “welcomes with open arms any member who shares our perspective.” I thought uniting meant welcoming all perspectives. Instead of plotting a course that would change the way people deal with change and loss, the speech plotted a safe, old tough-sounding course of action. Will anyone say, I don’t know the way forward. A plan for the future is only our best guess today. What are we going to do differently today? Now there would be a speech. But who would make this simple admission? It would not sound like leadership as people prefer it. “You’re the leader. If you don’t show us the way we’ll get someone who will.” And, as the saying goes, we change horses instead of highways.       Index: Current Articles + Latest News and Views + Book Reviews + Letters + Archives

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