Mentoring: A Vow of Great Price

I originally published this hub last year and I'm very grateful for the response of my followers. After re-reading it this week and in view of recent events I decided to send it back out across the ether with new energy and vitality. Why? Because I hope people will recognize the value in loving another individual enough to help them develop their dreams and aspirations.

There are some really phenomenal kids out there who have dynamic potential for good. I wrote this to encourage people, (especially men) to make time to stand beside them as Mentor stood beside Telemachus to experience and become themselves.

I looked into the eyes of Mentor and asked

What say you of poverty my friend?

Mentor said to me, it is a vow of great price

It escapes you because you are not open

What escapes me Mentor?

I do not understand, explain it please

What say you of poverty my friend?

Mentor said to me, its riches are infinite

How can that be I asked, how can that be?

Who would desire such a fate?

What bypasses my intellect, my strength?

It is not a matter of intellect, or strength Telemachus

Tell me then Mentor, what is it I lack?

Your mind and body are strong my son

Yet within your eyes the light fades

Tell me Mentor, how will I see?

With your heart Telemachus, with your heart

Poverty is a condition of the mind and heart

What do you believe? Where is your heart Telemachus?

There are men who have much, yet are impoverished.

There are men who have nothing and lack exactly that.

You are young Telemachus and can move from place to place

Yet bound by the poverty you want to avoid.

Embrace it, feel it, experience it, love it for it too, is a gift

For which, like gratitude, has only one appropriate response

Gratefulness!

For in the vow of poverty there is no desire, no need

only gratitude, and the presence of goodness and purity

much like the core of the Magnolia, Fragrant, alive, new!

Thank you Mentor, you have given me what I need

Thus I can pass it on.