Steward: someone who takes care of something. Owner: someone who possesses something. The world would be very different if we all lived our vocation of stewardship to the fullest instead of acting like owners of everything.
If I’m a caregiver of something that was lent to me I will definitely care for it with a lot of attention and responsibility. Well, have we really thought about what exactly our life is? Is it not a gift from God that He gave me to care for and then return to Him? Are we not here just passing by, living off of God’s goodness and His creation?
Well, if so then why do we act as owners of our own life? We claim rights that are not ours and that’s why at times we mess things up and we experience frustration.
In Haiti this experience is very tangible. As in most third world countries, it is easier to find owners than stewards. There is so much corruption and indifference towards the less fortunate, because the leaders of this country and of many countries don’t act as stewards and they act to protect their own interests, not the interests of the whole. They possess themselves and they fend for themselves.
Today at the school of the Arc Tent City I meet Wideline, a 14 year old girl. We were doing some crafts but I noticed she and two others were too old for it, so I pulled out some copies of “connect the dots” following the alphabet or numbers (back in the US this is an activity for pre-K students). I realized that Wideline was having trouble connecting the dots, but with some help she got it! She was so excited with her accomplishment that she just wanted to do more and more. At one point I asked her to write her name on each one, and she stood up, ran to the back of the classroom and brought with her a notebook. She started copying her name from the notebook to the coloring pages. Yes, a 14 year old girl didn’t even know how to write her own name. Yes, she was just a girl, but, as I found out later, that girl was already a mom of a one year old baby girl.
The circumstances of life had forced her to “skip” some of the basic “rights” of any human being, like education, childhood, family.
I asked myself what would have been the fate of Wideline and many others if instead of owners the world would be ruled by stewards who would take care of each other as the most precious gift. What would have been the fate of all those kids in one small wooden classroom in the Tent City if someone would have taken responsibility and used the resources properly and given all these families an opportunity in life?
Today I ask myself: do I act as a steward or an owner? And I ask for the grace to the most Sacred Heard of Jesus not to lose sight of who I am and who I belong to: My God, my Lord, my Savior, My Redeemer.
