The Mentors Pen
[Music]
i can feel my four-year-old heart
breaking my four-year-old stomach
aching as jamaica with all her smells
heat and uncertainties fill every pore
of my little being sad
and scared i never could have seen where
i am today
through those tear streak dies for the
next six years
without a father in sight my mother gone
to educate herself so i
can have a better future i was passed
from one relative’s home
to another always
feeling like a guest
always visiting but never
belonging now those are the first few
chapters of my life’s journey
chapters written by others holding
powerful pens
who started writing my story even though
you
you ultimately become the the author
throughout each chapter of your life
there’s been someone else’s pen
that has written a few words or a few
lines
in your book of life we didn’t get to
where we are today
and we will not get to where we’re going
by ourselves
no one journeys alone
you know whether you realize it or not
we’re all holding a powerful pen that we
used to write in someone else’s book
influencing how their journey in life
may turn out
i really believe the world is like one
big book club and we’re all
everyone’s just adding a line or two or
more
to each other’s stories this
is why i think it’s important for us to
remember the power
we’re holding in that pen of ours
a pen that changes life stories now in
joseph campbell’s famous
heroes journey there’s a part where the
hero of the story arrives at the meeting
the mentor moment
where a few lines get written into the
the hero’s book that guides them in the
right direction
just helping them to find their path i
believe
we all have the power to be that mentor
just helping others write better stories
for themselves
now i remember the day the meeting the
mentor moment became so so clear to me
as i stood beside this hero struggling
on his journey in chapter 38 of my book
i meet a young man who is known to the
police as this notorious car
thief now he really didn’t fit the
stereotypical profile of what we think
a notorious car thief looks like he was
he was vertically challenged quite stout
innocent looking
as long as he wasn’t sitting in the
driver’s seat of your car
i i remember the day we we discovered
that we both had a passion
for aquariums and tropical fish you know
we were standing in this pet store
together
birds were squawking aquariums bubbling
when he began telling me the most
detailed
characteristics of each of the fish
now i i was new to mentoring at that
moment at that time but i knew i had to
start
feeding his passion i use it as a hook
to
redirect his attention to focusing on
a more positive hobby just so to say
our young man he truly he began spending
more time at home just caring
for his new finned friends
he began opening up just having long
conversations
sharing his vast knowledge about fish
he literally ditched hanging out
stealing cars and it wasn’t too long
before the ministry of children and
family
were calling checking in on him just
wondering why they hadn’t received any
sort of critical incident reports about
him
that was the moment i realized
how a few simple uncomplicated
non-clinical non-academic lines
written in his book encourage him to
want to write a better story for himself
now i know what it’s like to want to
write a better story for yourself
i i didn’t stay in jamaica my mom’s pen
started writing my story of
of you know my experience of moving to
canada
where a few amazing mentors would help
me
write a better story for myself and that
story was all about becoming a football
star in the cfl
like i said no one journeys
alone now for me it started
with dave now dave was a former football
player who mentored me through positive
words and speech
next it was my football coach bill
who encouraged me and and and helped me
mentored me by providing opportunities
and finances
where need be now after bill was coach
coach doug
who mentored me by encouraging me
and teaching me the importance of of
being prepared in life
each one of them with their mighty pens
helped me to write chapters
in my life that had so many successes
and experiences
and those successes and experiences made
my story turn out
so much better and now my present mentor
a
great prophet of god my pastor
because of these great men my mentors
with their mighty pens
chapter 39 of my book of life i became
the co-founder of the pathfinder youth
center society
along with my wife ruth where we still
mentor
at-risk youth and i tell you i remember
a young man
who came to our our job training and
mentorship program
no hope he had no hope never smiling
low self-esteem health issues and
just no direction now
10 years later he’s full of confidence
he smiles he went back to school he’s
now peer mentor
for other youth in our programs and he
runs a really cool coffee shop called
bean
and a bookstore actually called being
around books
he’s went back to school he’s become a
mentor for other youth in our programs
he’s also created a business that helps
other at-risk youth
talk about writing it forward a few
simple uncomplicated non-clinical
non-academic lines creating that meeting
a mentor moment
just helping them to want to write
better stories for themselves
now we didn’t get to where we are today
and we will not get to where we’re going
by ourselves
no one journeys alone
you know the awful truth is this
most of us have chapters in our lives we
don’t want anyone to read and some of
those chapters
we play and just want to just rip them
out and just rewrite them
but you see those are the chapters
that connects us
most of us have chapters written about
some sort of trauma abuse
abandonment or addiction and it’s
through
sharing sharing the lessons learned
during
those tough times the hard chapters in
our lives
sharing the story of how you made it
through
that that can become a part of
somebody’s survival guide
this is what mentoring is
it’s deciding with purpose
the lines you’re going to write in
another person’s book just
helping them to write better stories for
themselves
now back in chapter 40 2004 i’m
introduced to this young lady from
afghanistan
slim built laser-focused eyes she’d been
assaulted
she escaped death from the taliban she
was assaulted molested
she lived through school bombings
now despite her situation she was she
was filled with a lot of
energy and a lot of hope
and i might have been trying to mentor
her through finding
positive pathways in her life but really
and truly let me tell you
it was her that was mentoring me in
tenacity and courage
and then keeping hope alive in dark
times
she won the 2020 courage to come back
award
and now she has her own foundation that
gives
voice to the voiceless women of
afghanistan
with her powerful pen she’s now writing
in the book of life
of so many individuals here and around
the world throughout the world
through that non-profit organization on
her hero’s journey
she too is writing it forward
now when it comes to changing a life for
the better
a positive pen can truly
be mightier than a damaging sword we’re
all heroes on our journey sometimes
meeting a mentor sometimes
being that mentor someone needs to meet
with powerful pens in hand let’s let’s
decide
with a purpose the powerfully positive
words
we write in another person’s book
helping them
to want to write better stories for
themselves because
we did not get to where we are today and
we will not
get to where we’re going by ourselves
because
no one journeys alone
thank you
you