Talents

I looked up the word talent this morning. It has several meanings yet all of them are related. Talent can be a gift, aptitude, characteristic bent, flair, endowment, unit of weight or money, a measure of giftedness, or ability. The dictionary quotes the story of the talents in the Bible. Matthew 25:14-30. The story goes that a higher power has given a different amount of talent to three individuals. It is assumed that the talent is money. It could be anything, really. The talent is your gift. One of the people buried the talent because he didn’t want to ruin it and perhaps lose it. He later gave it back to his owner untouched. The other two people, used their talents and increased them. When the owner came back they had grown in talent, both of them. They got to keep using their talents and continued to grow, but that first person has his talent taken away from him because he didn’t use it. I think everyone has some talent or gift. It may be helping, with money or things. Maybe it’s artistic and creative. Perhaps it’s something else like caring for other people. That is a gift. Nurses, teachers, service providers, there are a lot of people in those fields but some are really gifted making a difference in another persons life. One talent isn’t really more important than another yet some are valued more than others. Musical talents are held in high regard by most. We mostly all love some kind of music. Music is deep in our souls. It’s not just using our voice or instruments it’s much more than that. Music is in the ground reverberating all around us, a rhythm. The birds and bugs and flying things and creeping and crawling things all in time with time. Roots and wiggly things, moving and growing and bursting out. Children clapping, shouting, running, crying, playing. It’s all music. The ocean heaving, sighing, crashing and rivers spilling, it’s all a song. We all have it. Breathing, blinking, shivering, relaxing. Music is everywhere and it is definitely a gift and we all love some form of it. Some folks open their mouths and it is beautiful music. Not everyone can do that. Some have gifts with children and really caring for them, like foster parents and others who give their time making a difference in the lives of children. You know there are so many gifts, the more I think about it the more I realize that I’m surrounded by gifted people doing awesome things in this world.

I remember sitting in church and hearing about gifts and talents and using them. I could never figure out what my gift was, though I tried and tried. I thought perhaps it was taking care of children, but then their was always those really annoying ones. I thought maybe it was music, but I couldn’t get the rhythm nor could I hold a tone. I struggled to learn every note on the piano and every instrument I could lay my hands on, but none of them bonded back with me. I love to listen to music, but I don’t think that counts as a gift. I thought maybe it would be in crafts, but while I’m great at following someone else’s plans I don’t have any real gift there and I quickly get bored with it. I couldn’t be a nurse because I don’t like to clean up after other people and I faint at the sight of blood. I couldn’t teach a regular classroom because I think kids should be outside playing and I fall apart at the whining. Anyway I’m much too childish. I love to cook but I wouldn’t call it a gift. That’s more of a need, really.

I loved it when I worked in a company that let me develop the entire plan and structure for publishing their books and then develop my own skills in graphic design and proper layout and pagination. Working with the public and taking pride in my work. That job got deleted because someone from the big city came and bought the company out, taking it away to automation. Thankfully I had already left the company to be a stay-at-home mother and wasn’t left stranded like so many others. I could take my skills somewhere else but the methods have changed and their are so many gifted people in that field that have three year degrees in graphic design or four years in management. But skills and interests are not the same thing as gifts and talents.

So what is my talent? I like to talk. I like to tell stories, and listen to people. Inside me is an undeveloped and much neglected desire to write stories. To write them down. To find the truth and explore it in my own words. To show in writing the world as I feel it. My mind is inquisitive, not about real things, but about hidden things. Things between the lines. Curios about what isn’t seen and can only be felt. To find the words and write them down. Things we have all felt but brushed aside. To capture a moment in words much as an artist captures with oils on canvass a feeling in colors, hues and textures. It is a gift which needs to grow and develop into a skill. To use your gift is to become more skillful in it. To discover it more fully and find the joy in giving it, like a nurse who feels the blessing of having blessed the helpless. Like a crafter who has something of value to give and a musician who’s music is chosen to celebrate defining moments in other’s lives. Like the helper who knows exactly when to help and what is needed. The discovery of using the gift is as much a part of becoming skillful as the continued use. So the writer’s gift doesn’t grow and become more skilled without the reader. I am discovering my talent is in writing and am sharing it with you before it becomes lost or taken away.