The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.  ~Frederick Buechner

This quote was going through my mind when I recently watched the movie Woman in Gold.  I’ll explain what I mean while being careful not to require a spoiler alert.  The movie is based on the true story of the late Maria Altmann, an elderly Jewish refugee, living in Los Angeles. Maria, together with her young lawyer and family friend, Randy Schoenberg, fought the government of Austria for almost a decade to reclaim Gustav Klimt’s iconic painting of her aunt which was confiscated from her family by the Nazis in Vienna just prior to World War II.

Prior to helping Maria, Randy’s law firm was failing; some would say he wasn’t succeeding as an attorney.  But there was a pivotal point in his career, and his life.  He traveled to Austria with Maria to meet with the government.  During that first trip he visited the Holocaust Memorial and saw, firsthand, the names of his grandparents engraved in stone along with others who lost their lives.  That moment tugged (hard) at emotions, so deep it appeared to reach all the way to his core.  For Randy, it was the place where his deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger met.

I’ll insert my own interpretation of Buechner’s definition of gladness and suggest that it’s where we feel most passionate.  If we feel a tremendous sense of passion about what we do, that usually translates into a sense of fulfillment or gladness.

I think this is also a distinguishing transitional point for people who become leaders.  I believe that we all have these moments in our lives, but the people who act upon these moments and allow themselves to be transformed by them, are the leaders we all desire to follow.

We choose not to act on these moments for a variety of reasons.  Some might not act on them out of fear of failure, for others it’s insecurity, for some it’s an unwillingness to give up something, etc.  For Randy, it was a huge risk, a battle many believed was impossible to win.  But the transformation of who he became as a result of acting upon that moment is inspirational, to say the least.

Another Buechner quote hints at the transformation for Randy Schoenberg.  “Compassion is the sometimes fatal capacity for feeling what it is like to live inside somebody else’s skin.  It’s the knowledge that there can never really be any peace and joy for me until there is peace and joy finally for you too.”

As leaders, can we say that our compassion is so intense that we believe we can never really experience peace and joy until there is peace and joy finally for others too?  Maybe that’s the place where our deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.