Tenison Woods and MacKillop Centre News: 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.