Thought Picnic: Cultivating profitable relationships

Who are true family?

Then Jesus told them, “A prophet is honoured everywhere except in his own hometown and among his relatives and his own family.” [Bible Hub: Mark 6:4 (NLT)]

Sometimes, as I begin to write, a verse of scripture comes to mind around which I can build a context and a story. I am not a prophet, nor do I seek honour, however, just being noticed and acknowledged can help, but that is not the purpose for which I have a blog.

Yet, anyone who has visited my blog finds out there is much to learn about me, my life, my story, my trials, tribulations and afflictions, my triumphs, successes, and blessings, most evidently my thinking and opinions. I remember some friends who had not spoken to me for a while saying, they always checked the currency of my blog to ascertain if I was fine. I am grateful for their consideration, nothing is hidden, I write better than I speak, talk, or tell.

Nothing is hidden

In the past six months, just by engagement of my social media postings, a majority of which refer to my blogs, it would be impossible not to notice that I have had an experience that will pass of prostate cancer.

Yet, I find it bizarre that those who saw my GoFundMe post last year and were quick to preach their bad tidings to Jerusalem, to Judea, and to the ends of the earth by reporting to my parents and relatives along with anyone who listens to their gossip have not found the scandal to interest and occupy them.

They do not mean well, they never meant well, they found joy in the report but never extended a hand to help, a Machiavellian bunch of invisible never-do-wells, will not have the stories or the blessings I get to tell and that is not a curse, you reap what you sow.

The people who matter

What I have better cultivated in life is the genuineness of friendships than the comfort of family. When I was alone battling cancer in the Netherlands, I was blessed with the generosity of strangers who cared for me, cooked my meals, did my shopping, gave me money, and stuck closer than those related by blood. How can I not be grateful for angelic presences I have not deserved?

At that time, there was a clear reading that I was in the hospital, however, someone thought, if he could write, he must be well. Some view life in terms of incapacity, I see things in terms of ability, capability, capacity, and opportunity.

My blog is a journal, I can now refer to things I have written over 20 years of blogging and find the context of the journeys and adventures I have experienced.

Cultivating profitable relationships

What has really helped me in recent times is to have better husbandry of the lands of my life, the orchard trees that need pruning, the crops that need weeding, the livestock that need care, understanding what is sapping energy from what is productive and profitable.

The pruning I took on with gusto, those who during adversity complained rather than gave support were fair-weather friends, it did not matter who they were or how close the affinity, things that bear no fruit get chopped.

Lest I be caught lacking any self-awareness, I am probably just as unfruitful in another’s orchard, and they have rightfully chopped me out of their lives and set me up in the rubbish that needs to go up in a bonfire of vanities. It is well and thank you to those many, even in China who have read my blog daily; some come for a regular dose of another man’s many stories.

To them, I can dare to be honoured because they see something like a prophet in me. At the end of this blog, this is not what I set out to write, not that most of my blogs have ended the way I intended, even to me, it is a wonder to behold. We move, we thrive, we give testimony and write better stories. Amen!