A heart wise and shrewd

The Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream and said, ‘Ask what you would like me to give you.’ Solomon replied, ‘Lord, my God, you have made your servant king in succession to David my father. But I am a very young man, unskilled in leadership… Give your servant a heart to understand how to discern between good and evil, for who could govern this people of yours that is so great?’ It pleased the Lord that Solomon should have asked for this. ‘Since you have asked for this’ the Lord said…. ‘I give you a heart wise and shrewd as none before you has had and none will have after you.’

1 Kings 3:5f

We were all young once, and the heads on our shoulders didn’t possess the wisdom, knowledge and skills that we now possess. Not unlike the young Solomon who sought the gift of discernment, for a heart wise and shrewd. The gift of Solomon’s wisdom has persisted in our corporate memory and remains as an extraordinary standard.

Solomon’s need for such a gift is his assessment of his youth and his lack of leadership skills. Age can be acquired by calendric time or by experience. Leadership skills are certainly part natural talent but are enriched and enhanced by having access to opportunities that grow those skills. But there are several qualities which can be recognized in successful leaders: Honesty, ability to delegate, high order communication, sense of humour, confidence, commitment and persistence, positive attitude, creativity, intuition, ability to inspire, ability to plan and organize, be strategic, able to accept responsibility for mistakes. All these and more are the aptitudes and attitudes which hone the skill of the leader.

One would imagine that being (King) David’s son alone would have given Solomon significant advantages. Solomon, of course had unseated his elder brother Adonijah, as king and just as surely had him put to death for presuming to ask Solomon to take his step-mother as his wife. So he also possessed significant political and dynastic nous.

Just as sure is that each of us possesses a capacity to lead, and for all of us, the development of our leadership skills depends on opportunity, the preparations we have made in developing and sharpening the skills we also have, and most often having someone trust us to exercise our leadership, to mentor, encourage and nurture us.

Solomon, of course, reigned for 40 years, but he lost much of his kingdom to Jeroboam because of his infidelity. In the biblical sense, fidelity, is the key to real success. This indeed leads to a heart wise and shrewd. 

A warm welcome back to Term 3.

Peter Douglas

Catholic Education Week 

Great blog!

Have you read or subscribed to Jonathan Doyle’s Being Catholic blog? Check out http://beingcatholic.com.au. Also see his excellent discussion on Catholic school identity 


Peter's whereabouts for the next 2 weeks

Meetings coming up

Please forward any agenda items for meetings (with some indication of time required and context) to Carole at carole.goodwin@catholic.tas.edu.au or Mark at mark.webb@catholic.tas.edu.au.

From Our Lady of Mercy

From St Thomas More's

From St Patrick's Latrobe

From Larmenier

From St Peter Chanel

St Joseph's Queenstown

St Joseph's Rosebery

From St Brendan-Shaw College

From St Anthony's

From Matt at Sacred Heart, Launceston

From Marist Regional College

From St Patrick's College

Work and gratefulness

‘Come to me, all you who labour and are overburdened, and I will give you rest. 

Shoulder my yoke and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, 

and you will find rest for your souls. 

Yes, my yoke is easy and my burden light.’ 

Matthew 11:28 - 30

It is well and good to be driven to work hard, to produce great results, to gain satisfaction from a job well done. But where do we draw the line about how much we do to achieve those results. Hagiography is full of self-sacrifice, pain, suffering, loneliness, bullying and overwork – often leading to early deaths. And this is often glorified as ‘giving their lives to Christ’. No doubt some are called to give more, but we are not all called to do the same (1 Cor 12:4f).

The Christian life for the vast majority is living out the Gospel in their daily lives. Those who live ‘at the edge’ – in mission fields, with refugees, the homeless, the mentally ill, the abused, are those who remind and prompt us about how grateful we should be and encourage us to provide the spiritual and financial support they need to do their work.

That doesn’t mean that we view the world through a television screen, on the contrary, being grateful (from the same root as the word grace) means pleasing, acceptable, agreeable and welcoming. It should not be seen as something passive, to be entertained by or to experience pleasure. As a Christian being grateful means being generous with my time and resources, so that I might please God (see Philippians 4:18f).

There is no doubt that those who do the Lord’s work can indeed be overburdened. No one said it would be easy. The task of educating and supporting our young people in our Catholic schools is a vocation:

“…we must remember that teachers and educators fulfill a specific Christian vocation and share an equally specific participation in the mission of the Church, to the extent that it depends chiefly on them whether the Catholic school achieves its purpose.” (The Catholic school on the threshold of the third millennium).

As educators and support workers we bring our whole selves to this work, but we remain parents, spouses, friends, colleagues. Finding the balance between our work and wellbeing is and always will be a challenge, but it is true that when the going gets tough – turn to the Lord.

For those of you who are having a break over the next two weeks, rest up! For those who labour on, work well, work smart.

Peter

Whereabouts during the break

I'll be on leave most of next week (except Thursday).

In week two of the break I'll be in Hobart Monday to Wednesday, in the office Thursday and on leave Friday.

From Sacred Heart, Ulverstone

 

From St Brigid's Wynyard

From Stella Maris, Burnie

 

 From St Peter Chanel, Smithton

 

From Our Lady of Mercy, Deloraine

From St Joseph's Queenstown

 

From St Finn Barr's, Invermay

 

From St Thomas More's, Newstead

From St Joseph's Rosebery

From Larmenier, St Leonards 

From St Patrick's Latrobe

From Sacred Heart, Launceston