DISCOVERING AND DEVELOPING MY TALENTS OR IMITATING OTHERS Have you ever sat down and wondered how your life would have been had you obeyed all the good, correct and certain advice given to you by your parents, teachers and friends? Or do you ever think about the kind of person you should have been had your parents, relatives, friends and teachers had allowed you to exercise those good and correct desires that you wanted to? I sometimes muse over these questions and laugh to myself. Deep down in me, I know I should have been more intelligent and wiser than I am today, had I taken time to listen and learn from the good people who wanted to teach me what was right. I had other priorities in life that had very little or nothing to school. School, till I sat down and reflected in lower sixth, was sometime my parents forced me into. It was not my idea. So I repeated two classes in primary school, not because I was stupid or because I was a special educational need pupil, but because I cared less. I remember very vividly how I used to tell me friends: ‘if I pass, fine; if I fail, fine’. In secondary school, I was contented having an average mark. Anything beyond that was scholarship. This made me to study just what would give me that average mark. Any subject that gave me stress, I decided to abandon in the fourth year secondary school. Not that I could not do them, but because they took the precious time I needed to chat with my friends, play around, go for adventures and why not, sleep. So I abandoned physics, chemistry and further maths, not to mention French, which I hated for political and social reasons. On the other hand, I grew up in a home where one was not allowed to go and play with friends. I remember the day my father gave me good lashing when he caught me playing football with my friends. According to him, playing and mixing up with friends were not what he wanted for his boy-child. He wanted someone who was studious and God-fearing and that is why we had to study, go to church and say our prayers. For my mum, doing the everyday chores at home was what she demanded from us. She was a sort of spy for my father and would report me if I dodged out of home. I think most of you have your stories to tell and it would be good today to take some rest and review or tell your own story to yourself. From my story, there are all indications that I am not truly the person that God intended me to be. But I am so grateful that God gave me chances to correct myself and at least, get a better self. These second opportunities came when I was put in crisis situations. In each of these situations, when I was asked to become a classroom teacher, head teacher, formator and now parish priest, I had to turn to my survival instincts. From my survival instincts, I came to discover that there are lots of potentials in me. While developing techniques of living and managing people, I have come to see that studying is so beautiful and that there is really no difficult subject as such. I have never sat down in a building and construction classroom; but I have overseen the construction and decoration of buildings. I have never studied landscaping, gardening (vegetable and flower), but I have found myself excelling in the. Lastly, agriculture has become a real passion for me just because I had so my land at my disposal and I did not want to see my students go hungry. I know I still have lots of talents in my. To be honest, I fear developing them they may make my superiors add more responsibilities to what I already have. The temptation of still having time and enjoying myself is still there… so strong! What is the relation of this narration to the readings of today? The first reading talks about the perfect wife – woman who has spent her life learning the wisdom she needs to manage her home. One can just feel the loving artistic way in which she plays with her fingers and whole body as she carries on her chores. The responsorial psalms calls her, a fruitful vine. Yes, from vine comes wine and good wine cheers the heart. Her children are described like shoots of the olive! Who does not know or appreciate the value of olive oil? In other words, her children heal wounds, smoothens and brightens the body! Imagine how delicious and tasteful are Mediterranean food cooked with olives! These are the fruits of the perfect wife. In the gospel reading, we are presented with three people who were given talents to invest on. Two of them worked hard and had a 100% return while the last person buried his for fear what he had heard, and not what he had experienced, about his master. The fear was strong that he even forgot to put the talent in a bank to reap interest. Instead he buried it somewhere. How often do we, like the perfect wife sit down to develop ourselves towards the vocation or profession we want to embrace tomorrow? If many of us are suffering today, it is because instead of working for the wisdom we needed for our respective professions or vocations, we spent most of our times on things that did not matter as such. You just need to see all the fanfare around weddings nowadays! Most often, instead of understanding what marriage means and the psychodynamics in building up relationships, especially when children start coming, most people are concerned about the impressions to give their guests: dressing, drinks, food, hotel or environment the celebration will take place, car to use and so on. Most often, during the nuptial Mass, you find the couple spending most of their time conversation, posing for postures and giving very little attention to the reflection of the priest or the words they are saying. No wonder, most marriages do not last! No wonder, many women are not the fruit of the vine and children shoots of the olive! When we refuse to look at our and accept our strengths and develop them, we postpone problems in life. When we spend our time trying to look like others, behave like others, celebrate like others, we exert unnecessary stress in our systems and that ends up destroying the very good we are striving to achieve. We need to sit down quietly and ask: who will copy or imitate me before I die? Secondly, there are lots of us who have not developed our talents because of ‘hearsay’. Teacher ‘A’ is wicked! President ‘B’is corrupt; minister ‘C’ is tribalistic; Cameroon is ‘terrible’ and so on. These statements drain all the energies we need in us to fight hard; they make us think that life could have been better; they make us to easily give up and allow ourselves to enter into cliques that have no other good in them than to drink without limits, talk aimlessly, spend time watching and talking about sporting events, films and so on… talking that leaves the actors worse than they were before they met each other. Please, like me, you have loads of talents in your person. All those crises situations you find yourselves in are opportunities God is giving you to re-awaken the talents in you. You just need to come out of the crowd. You just need to become friendly with the sound of silence and listen to yourself. You just need to believe you can do it. You just need to accept that you are blessed as everyone around you. You just need to believe that the world needs you. Lastly, you just need to be confident of yourself. With this recipe in you, you will find yourself doubling all the energies found in your person. Stop working on ‘hearsay’. Work on what you believe in and have experienced. God bless….. HAVE A GRACE-FILLED SUNDAY.A
Posted on: Sat, 15 Nov 2014 14:48:54 +0000
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