June is up and running! And it’s Day 4 already. How time flies; already in the very 6th month of this year, which is half the journey to the tail end of 2016. The one million dollar question for especially this morning is: how far?

Afu-Himself, Rev. Fr. Francis Afu I mean, my longstanding mentor and friend, reached out to me this morning with an answer I couldn’t keep for myself alone. And so, I care enough to share, especially in the understanding that the only way to make the pie bigger is to spread it.

Bon appetite!

A couple of weeks ago, I had a chat with Anto, who happens to be born into a middle-class family. He is endowed with rich talents and great ideas. At the beginning of our discussion, I was thrilled and challenged by the novelty of his dreams. But at the end, I left sad and disappointed in him. I could not imagine why a person of his type should make the following degrading statements: “I would have done it if my parents were very rich.” “I would have been very intelligent if my parents had sent me to the best school in the country.”

These statements of his put me off. I saw in him a number of us who take pleasure in living the life of others: when we depend solely on them for our success, so much so that their limitations become ours. Or, a majority of us who glory in self-pity, and are giving in to giving excuses why we are incapable of doing a thing or becoming what we can be. This, indeed, are the reasons why many of us born RICH die POOR.

O how painful it shall be to realize in the grave how rich we were; and how poor we lived and died! This realization is the HELL we hear about. The reverse is HEAVEN. And Wilma Rudolph, the fastest woman on the track in the 1960 Olympics; as well as Oprah Winfrey, one of the richest women in the world, are souls, who are candidates for this “heaven.” They, unlike Anto, did not say, “I would have… if not for so and so.” Rather they said, “I can make it in spite of my physical impairment and family background.” Let us therefore spent this month saying I CAN MAKE IT.

HAVE BLESSING-PACKED MONTH. Coming from someone ordained to bless, this is more than a mere wish; I bless you in those words.