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Gubio is a small city in Italy, close to Assisi, where St. Francis was born and grew up. In those days, the people of Gubio were proud of their city and of themselves. When they would travel and someone would ask, “Where are you from?” they would say, with great pleasure, “I? I am from Gubio.”

Once the city of Gubio was in a great deal of trouble. A townsperson was found dead on the streets one morning. He was partly devoured. People were horrified.

A few nights later, another person was murdered in a similar fashion. A woman claimed she was looking out her window and had seen the shadow of a giant wolf.

The town panicked. People barred their doors and did not go out after sundown. Police walked the streets in pairs, but one night two policemen were killed together. The citizens demanded that their mayor do something.

The mayor had heard of a holy man in the next town, Assisi, who was reputed to be able to talk to animals.

“Have him come and talk to the wolf,” a council­man shouted. “Have him tell the wolf to go away.”

“Yes,” said another, “tell the wolf to go to some other town.”

So the mayor sent a delegation to Assisi. At the town’s piazza, the gentlemen asked for the holy man who could talk to animals. A young boy pointed out Francis, who was talking to people at a corner of the piazza.

“Him? He’s dressed in rags. He looks like a beggar, not a holy man.”

They approached Francis anyway, and explained their situation. “You must come and help us.”

Francis agreed to come.

A few days later, the people of Gubio saw a small man walk into the forest at the edge of their city. “That’s St. Francis,” someone said. They crossed themselves; this holy man would surely be devoured by the wolf.

At sundown, Francis emerged from the forest with a huge gray wolf at his side. The wolf was indeed a giant. The two walked to the piazza. Word spread quickly and everyone rushed to the piazza to see the wolf and hear the holy man banish it. Or perhaps he would let them kill it.

Francis raised his hand for silence. Then he spoke. “The wolf will not harm you any more,” he shouted.

The townspeople roared their approval. He raised his hand again and the crowd quieted.

“But,” he said, and he paused, “you must feed your wolf.”

The townspeople did not roar. They fell silent.

Francis turned and walked the wolf back to the forest, then started back down the road to Assisi. He disap­peared into the dusk.

The people were upset, angry. “What did he mean, feed our wolf?” ”It’s not our wolf.” “We should have killed it when we had the chance.” “The holy man is crazy.” “He was no help at all,” and so on.

That night, all doors were barred again and no one dared go out on the streets.

One little girl, who had been in the piazza, asked for large helpings at the dinner table and secretly dropped the food into her apron. Later, she put it all on a plate and, trembling, afraid the wolf might be wait­ing right outside, opened the front door and put the plate of food on the step. In the morning, the food was gone.

She told her friends what she had done. The next night, many children put plates of food out for the wolf. At first the adults were angry. “We should be poisoning the wolf, not wasting good food on it.” But when weeks went by and they noticed that no police­men or soldiers were killed on patrol at night, they had to agree that the children were right. They set up a rotation among families so that food would be put out for the wolf every night.

The killings stopped. People went out of their houses again without fear.

In time, word about their feeding the giant wolf got around. When they would travel, and someone would ask them, “Where are you from?” and they would answer, “I am from Gubio,” the person would say, “Gubio? Don’t you have a wolf?” and they would say with pride, “Yes, we have a wolf.”

Years went by, and finally the wolf grew old and died. The townspeople buried him with a great cer­emony and many flowers.

And a lament rose up from the people of Gubio, and they cried, “How shall we now feed our wolf?”

One way to interpret this story is to think of the wolf as our fears, or as those parts of our personality that we don’t like, won’t acknowledge, want to keep hidden away. Carl Jung, the noted psychologist, called this aspect of ourselves the shadow. We put parts of ourselves that we wish to keep hidden in our shadow. Interestingly, positive aspects of ourselves that we don’t want to acknowledge also go into the shadow.

Denying our shadow doesn’t make it go away. It’s part of us, like it or not. When we deny our shadow, it leaks out, usually in the form of projection onto other people. Once, years ago, when I was ragging about someone else’s shortcomings, a friend said to me, “You know, what you don’t like in others is often what you don’t like in yourself.” He was speaking of my shadow, my wolf.

Positive aspects of ourselves kept in the shadow can take the form of excessive admiration or hero­ worship. When I was in high school, I worshipped James Dean, the actor. He was everything I wanted to be-sexy, brooding, sensitive, intense. Rather than explore or develop those aspects in myself, I chose to see myself in Dean. It was easier, safer. It’s like saying. “I want to be a painter, but I could never be a Van Gogh, so why bother? Instead, I’ll admire what he accomplished and never pick up a brush.”

The Rabbi Zuzya once said, “When I die and meet God, He will not say to me, ‘Why were you not Moses?’ Instead, He will say, ‘Why were you not Zuzya?’”

To be complete, we must acknowledge our shadow side. We need to own it. We need to do the work to accept all parts of ourselves, the good, the bad, the ugly. That’s feeding our wolf. By doing so, the wolf doesn’t go away, but it does stop eating at us, gnawing away at our confidence, our power, our ability.

Once upon a time, a king in a far-off land be­came preoccupied with the concept of peace. He wanted a painting of perfect peace to hang in his throne room to inspire him. He invited artists throughout the kingdom to submit their renditions.

He received many paintings, studied them all, and rejected all but two. One was a beautiful painting of a quiet lake in front of a majestic mountain on a sunny day. As the king looked at it, he felt a rush of calmness well up within him. It made him smile. It was beauti­ful. Everyone in the court agreed that this was indeed a picture of perfect peace.

The second painting was not so beautiful. It also had a majestic mountain, but the day was not sunny. The skies were dark and foreboding. A waterfall spilled down the jagged rocky slopes of the mountain. Look­ing at this painting was troubling to the king. He wondered why he was even considering it. It wasn’t about peace at all. Yet, it intrigued him for some rea­son. Everyone in the court made rude comments under their breaths. They thought the artist was crazy.

The king looked closely at the painting. Then he noticed something. Behind the waterfall, the artist had painted a tiny bird sitting in a tiny nest in a scrawny bush growing out of a cleft in the granite. The angry waters rushed by, but the bird sat, unruffled … in peace. The king felt an even greater sense of warmth and centeredness in his body.

He turned to his aides and noblemen who were watching him closely. “I choose the second painting as the most realistic portrayal of peace,” he said. There was a murmur throughout the court. The king ex­plained:

It’s easy to be at peace when life is good and the road is smooth. But when we are able to be at peace in the midst of turmoil, when we can remain calm when there is noise and strife and conflict, ah, my friends, that is the real meaning of peace.”

A water bearer in India delivered water in two large pots that he balanced on a long pole across his shoulders. One pot was sturdy, but the other pot had a crack in it. In the time it took the water bearer to walk from the stream to the master’s house, the flawed pot lost half of its water. This went on every day for two years.

The sturdy pot was proud that it did its job so perfectly. The flawed pot was ashamed of itself. Finally, it spoke to the water bearer as he was filling it at the stream.

“I must apologize to you. I am embarrassed,” the pot said.

“Why? What’s wrong?” asked the water bearer. ”I’m broken. It’s no secret. I can’t hold all the water you put in me. I lose half of it as you walk to the master’s house. I’m of no use to you.”

The water bearer nodded. “I understand. But as we deliver the water today, I want you notice the flowers growing by the side of the road.”

The pot agreed, and on the path to the master’s house, it saw a long row of beautiful flowers. But it was still depressed because once again, at the end of the journey, it had lost half of its water. Again, it apolo­gized.

The water bearer smiled. “Did you notice there were flowers only on your side and not on the other? I’ve known about the crack in you all along. I decided to take advantage of it by planting flower seeds on your side of the path. You water the flowers every day. I’ve been picking the flowers and giving them to my master to put around the house. If you didn’t have your flaw, he wouldn’t be able to enjoy the beauty of fresh flowers. And they give me pleasure too-I see them every day as I walk the path. Because of your crack, I’m able to do and experience something I wouldn’t be able to if you didn’t have it.”

We are all flawed vessels. Like the pot, we’re ashamed and embarrassed by our flaws. If we could see past them as failures and ask how we can use them to our advantage, if we could learn to embrace them instead of pushing them away, we too could create beauty in the world for others. Our flaws can be the source of our strength.

From the Portland Oregonian, June 14, 2010, dateline Redmond, Washington: “On a blustery January morning, Michel Laprise found himself in a private conference room within Microsoft court’s labyrinthine campus here, surrounded by 15 of the company’s sharpest analytical thinkers.

“Loprise started his presentation by dumping a pail full of sand on top of the conference table, alarming executives who worried about the wiring embedded in the table for PowerPoint presentations and technology demos. Armed with three rocks, a small wooden elephant and a flashlight, he spent an hour weaving a tale of a boy on a quest to locate meteors that have fallen from the sky and to uncover their meaning.

“At the end of his talk, the artistic director for Cirque du Soleil got a standing ovation.”

The head of Microsoft’s video game division said, “He used the power of words to share what he saw in his imagination.”

This article excited me as much as a game-winning home run in the bottom of the ninth. I can’t help it, I love stories of wildly successful talks, whether it’s a business presentation or a sermon. I love knowing what made them work so well. In this instance, it was a masterful use of props and storytelling. The talk also incorporated the element of surprise. Laprise was certainly bold and willing to take a risk.

I’m reminded of the song “Razzle-Dazzle” from the play Chicago: “Give ‘em the old razzle-dazzle. Razzle-dazzle ‘em and they’ll beg you for more. Give them an act with lots of flash in it, and the reaction will be passionate.”

I’m not advocating tricking an audience or being phony, far from it, but I do believe we can be bolder, a little more dramatic, a little more surprising. As a result, our congregations will listen more closely, be more emotionally involved, and internalize your message more deeply.

“Razzle-dazzle ‘em and they’ll beg you for more.” And bring a pail of sand.

It’s a funny thing about eye contact – most of the time we’re not aware of it. At the same time, it’s a really big part of face-to-face communication. Try this – sit down with a partner and agree to take turns talking about any topic for a minute or so each. The rules: whoever is the listener should be silent and should have consistent eye contact with the speaker for about 30 seconds. Then the listener should look away (look anywhere and don’t look back at the speaker) and this is important – the speaker should keep talking for another 30 seconds or so. Then the speaker can describe their reaction to the listener having looked away. Typical reactions are, “I felt ignored,” “you were rude,” “I wanted to yell at you,” “I wanted to stop talking.” Many speakers will start laughing self-consciously. Then switch roles so both get to experience their emotional reaction that occurs even when we know what’s going to happen.

The point of this little exercise is that good eye contact matters, and not just in one on one conversations, but also when the speaker is addressing a group. It is an essential component of feeling connected to another person. Here are some suggestions for having powerful eye contact:

1. Scanning the congregation doesn’t count. You may want to sweep your vision from side to side so that you include everyone. Don’t do it. People don’t feel noticed.
2. Look at one person for a good 4–5 seconds. Then look at another person in another area of the sanctuary, 4–5 seconds, then another, then another. Don’t get into a pattern, looking left, center, right, again and again. Mix it up and don’t look at the same people all the time. We have our favorites – our fans, anyone who’s smiling or nodding, but resist the temptation to give the sermon just to them.
3. If you think trying to estimate 4 – 5 seconds is too distracting, try this: look at one person for a complete sentence. In the pause between sentences, look at someone else. Repeat. Repeat.
4. You might think “I’ve got enough to think about while delivering the lesson without adding this.” Yes, I agree, however, this is a critical aspect of your nonverbal communication. Critical. Besides, this isn’t something you’re conscious of all the time. If the idea is new it will take a while to get comfortable with; after you’ve established a habit with it you’ll just check in mentally every once in a while – “How am I doing? Oh, I haven’t looked at this section for a while. Okay hold, hold the contact longer here.” And so on. Build this into your rehearsals.
5. Be sure to have strong eye contact with one person when you are saying your core message or something essential. You might think that would result in everyone else feeling that they’re being excluded, but the reverse is true–when we see you having strong direct eye contact with someone else we feel more involved and connected. Odd but true.
6. If you script your sermons and read from your script, you’ll have a tough time having this kind of extended eye contact. If you accept the importance of good eye contact, you have a couple of choices: one, rehearse more so you memorize more of your talk so you’ll be able to look up more; two, consider switching from script to an outline format, again, so you’ll be able to look up more. For people who have been relying on a script for years, this can be a big deal. (See the essay on “Notes in the pulpit.”)
7. You may have heard that if looking at people while you’re talking makes you nervous, look over the tops of their heads. That’s not good advice. With groups of a hundred or smaller, people can tell when you’re not looking at them. Besides, you want to being looking in the eyes of your congregants in order for you to be aware of them as individuals, so you’ll know you’re speaking to real people, not just a faceless group.
8. One last thing, if you’re fortunate enough to be videotaped (and brave enough to watch it) watch a portion with the sound off. It will make it easier to observe your eye contact, as well as other nonverbal behaviors. (See the essay on “Recording your sermons.”)

Bottom line, strong eye contact is essential to effective communication. Ignore it at your peril.