a work from a reluctant minion

My work is really simple. I scout for potentials. Then I push them to their limits. “Magis” is what the Jesuits would call it. Every year I get to handle a bunch of them. I tell you it’s such a privilege to work with these little geniuses. I call them my minions. Some take my challenge and work on becoming the best of who they can be, while others just put them to waste. Sad really.

Anyway, I had this student who’s a genius in his own right. He plays a lot of musical instruments and my golly he's deep! Last week I kind of forced him to write something. Here’s what he handed over:

With stacks of readings and a pen in hand, I was at a standstill. Eight hundred words into my essay and I find myself speechless. And then the inquisitive child in me surfaces and asks why I am forced to write. Why must a man bother to narrate the business of the world? Or at least do so in a climate with such burdening pressure and most intricate but exhausting detail?

And then I think of the artist, of art. If a painter were to be forced to paint, his canvas may color, but it is highly unlikely to be his masterpiece. If a lyricist were compelled to write, a song might emerge, but probably not the best he has made. If God were forced to make us, we would not be the precious creation He sees us to be. For it is not necessity that delivers art, but willful expression.

Talking from personal experience, I find that most people function better when they act freely, or when they feel that they are in control. Is this because we detest the pressures of subordination or hunger for power and authority? I think not. I think it is simply because the level of our expressiveness peaks when nothing limits or holds us back.

God has planted the seed of beauty in each person, and this seed will ripen and bloom each time one pours his very being out and shares it with the world. This is true expression. Some call it talent, others call it faculty. I believe it is just men doing what God put them in this world to do.

And now dear friend, let me excuse myself, for I need to find that seed and finish my essay.



Now tell me, isn’t he a genius?! A deviant little devil whose defiance is too subtle to be noticed but too deep to be ignored!

Someday he’ll thank me for pushing him. Or not. :)