Reflections for 2/8/13

"I appeal to you then be imitators of me."(1 Corinthians 4:16)

If you looked at all aspects of who you are, who would you say you imitate?  Who was your role model in your vocation?  I have several priests that I imitate aspects of how they lived into their vocation.  I am not a perfect imitation of any of them, but I didn't learn my craft in a vacuum.  No matter what you do for a living you picked up some habits or ways of doing it from someone you admired in your field.

As a parent I'm sure that some of how I interact and treat my sons is based on my own experience growing up.  It is also true that there are things that my parents did towards me that I don't do.

We learn speech by imitation.  I used to laugh when my sons would say something and I'd wonder is that my phrase or Gail's phrase.  I know this because I'm sure they imitated me as they learned how to be a human being while also growing into something unique.

For me I guess to become your own person can still be imitating because we incorporate our experiences into who we are.  Maybe when all  we become is that other person then we are nothing but a cheap imitation.

The final question for me would be as I become a person who might be imitated am I offering something worth imitating or not?

Blessings,
Ed