Isn’t this what God asks of us every day? To be all that he has created each one of us to do? Somewhere in life our rush, our haste outdoes our imagination, our greatest gift to one another. Let’s make a plan to do something so wonderful for ourselves every day that we anticipate the morning to create for another entire day. Springing to life in all of us the joy that plants a seed so deep that the world can't undo.
Do you ever wonder what someone on the other end of the world is doing? And in 2006 when I was in Ghana I met 2 people that changed the world for the better, my life was forever changed. Anna was a 65 year old teacher that was devotedly religious. Church was at 6:00 prior to our teaching day and at 6:00 at night. Her words were few yet fierce. When discussing gender issues and men thought it alright to fondle their high school female students. Her force came alive. I was asked to mediate and quickly relinquished the floor to her. Quietly, serenely her words cut through color, gender and skin.
“God is our witness, our compass, and in times of temptation, CRY TO HIM, SCREAM TO HIM, yet never let your hands touch another woman.”
Silence was deafening.
There are few people that followed God as closely as she did. I feel so blessed to have met her, listened to her wisdom, and pondered her silence. She died 6 months after we left Ghana. The world will truly miss her.
An elderly man, that is a proverb, as there are so few with the onset of aids. Walking in the side street on our day off I met him days prior to leaving. I was chewing on a raw carrot I’d bought at a road side stand…..not fully paying attention….I noted that he cocked his head as I passed by. I stopped and drew near. Boys were playing soccer with a make shift ball made out of plastic bags wrapped around and around in the background. Hunched over with grey hair he said.
“The saddest day in a man’s life is when he thinks he can do it on his own.”
When I returned a superintendent at work asked me the most profound thing that has happened in Africa….. 70 years of discretion fell on deaf ears, how utterly tragic.
Their motto is “And this shall pass too.” Referring to principals that will leave schools for their tyranny is unsurpassed. Another is “It is my way or the highway.” Proverbial said by most principals and superintendents, too utterly scared to face their own demons, themselves, those that lean solely to use them as climbing limbs. This district sees differences as threating.
A week later I was asked in to this same man’s office.
I wanted to know if he was man enough to tell me the truth……when we met for my review for an advancement. God has graced me or cursed me with the gift of discernment. I already knew that he, would never hire me. I prayed while he found minuscule comments to speak about..... He asked why how excited I was? Without taking my eyes from his I said, “My work for God is not done.” He knew then that I knew that there was no job.
When our chief of staff left there was a reception and I congratulated the same man on his speech.
His exact words were, “Thanks…..and good luck with your future career.”
As if I needed his permission to move forth….. this wearing scales he remained blind.
I learned more about him in those few words than a life time of his good intensions.
He has stood before me speechless at numerous engagements. It is not I that has lost years of advancement it those that he has misused of God’s….and those can’t be supplanted.
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