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Connections&
February 4, 2001-- Fifth Sunday of the Year
"Put out into deep water and lower your nets for a catch& Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching men. Luke 5:1-11
Nikki, the five-year-old psychologist
A child psychologist writes that one of the most important lessons he has learned in his field was taught to him by his own five-year-old daughter Nikki.
One afternoon the psychologist was busy weeding the garden, a drudgery that he just wanted to be done as quickly as possible. Nikki, meanwhile, was having a wonderful time throwing the weeds into the air, singing and dancing around. He yelled at her, demanding that she stop. Nikki walked away, then came back and said, "Daddy, I want to talk to you."
"Yes, Nikki?"
"Daddy, do you remember before my fifth birthday? From the time I was three to the time I was five, I was a whiner, I whined every day. When I turned five, I decided not to whine anymore. That was the hardest thing I've ever done. And if I can stop whining, you can stop being a grouch."
The psychologist was stunned at the wisdom and insightfulness of his daughter. He realized that he was, in fact, a grouch and resolved to change. He writes:
"This was for me an epiphany, nothing less...First, I realized that raising Nikki was not about correcting whining. Nikki did that herself. Rather I realized that raising Nikki is about taking this marvelous strength she has--I call it 'seeing into her soul' - amplifying it, nurturing it, helping her to lead her life around it to buffer against her weaknesses and the storms of life. Raising children, I realized, is vastly more than fixing what is wrong with them. It is about identifying their strongest qualities, what they own and are best at, and helping them find niches in which they can best live out these strengths.
[Martin E.P. Seligman, Professor of Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, in American Psychologist, January 2000]
CONNECTION: "Catching people for God," as Jesus invites the Gennesaret fisherman to do, is exactly what Nikki does for her father--and parents should do for their children and we should all do for one another: to nurture the goodness and talents each one of us possesses, to make the lives of one another more fulfilling and productive, to inspire and enable one another to become the people of God has created all of us to become. Those who have embraced the real spirit of discipleship are able to celebrate God's love and grace in their own lives and, with compassion, humility and trust, help others to realize that same presence in theirs.v
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