The Mystery of the Eagle

 The Eagle, full of the boundless spirit of freedom, living above the valleys, strong and powerful in his might, has become the national emblem of a country that offers freedom in word and thought and an opportunity for a full and free expansion into the boundless space of the future.
--Maude M. Grant

Generations time and over again find a soft spot for the Eagle and by thus find a place for learning within its course and life. Kings and kingdoms from ancient civilization even to our modern context find the Eagle relevant as their symbol of representation. Rome's standard and symbol of legion was the Aquila. The Aquila was an Eagle-shaped symbol that was of extreme significance to the Roman Military. The world's greatest empire then used the Eagle as an emblem of its strength and power. United States of America, the most powerful nation in the 21st century still finds the Eagle worth representing its strength and sophistication. The National emblem for the USA is the Bald Eagle. 

Albania, Armenia, Austria, Czech Republic, Egypt, Germany, Iceland, Iraq, Mexico, Nigeria, Poland, Russia, Romania, Serbia, Yemen, Zambia and my own homeland Ghana are all countries among many others that find essence in using the Eagle as a symbol of national emblem. This post attempts to answer and provoke a thinking around the single most piercing question of why the Eagle among many other things has such significance in religion, nations and cultures all around the world.

My fascination with Eagles was heighten when I discovered a very profound scripture in the book of Proverbs chapter thirty verse eighteen and nineteen: " There be three things which are too wonderful for me, yea, four which I know not: The way of an eagle in the air; the way of a serpent upon a rock; the way of a ship in the midst of the sea; and the way of a man with a maid." These are four incredible concept of wisdom summed up in a single statement of awe and excellence besought of deep curiosity. Dr. Bill Newman in his book Soaring with Eagles, provides tastes for seeking some of the mysteries of the Eagle. I share some of the reasons why the Eagle inspires nations and remains the wide representation of leadership, honor, and all that ruling and reigning is about.

1. Bill tells the story of an unborn Eagle which must break its own shell for existence as the beginning to his first chapter. The representation of the Eagle is one that bear true independence. The newly hatched Eagle keeps jumping, hopping, stretching its wings and voluntarily flying right from its beginning. Dependency can be a deadly clutch to hang on but unfortunately most of us grow with no sense of responsibility and confidence in our own ability. The Eagle knows its wings are meant to soar the highest part of the skies and by thus it does not rely on anybody to take it to the heights. Africa my home is overly dependent even after years of assuming independence. The spirit of the Eagle is primarily one of a boundless spirit of freedom, a limitless launch into its potential. True independence is a need and prerequisite if true heights of greatness must be achieved.
2. I have often wondered about how the Eagle manages the tides, storms and harsh cold conditions. I wonder how it glides pass flow of wind that are against it. It is amazing to learn that the Eagle harnesses whatever natural force there maybe to hinder it. For instance, the Eagle has a way of locking its wings to allow itself to be born and propelled by tides instead of exerting energy against it. The Eagle understands clearly the environment it operates in and adapts to the changing times appropriately. The Eagle knows how to live successfully in changing times without complaining and hanging on unto old way. Advancement, change, growth and taming the wild is the joy the Eagle pursues.
3. The incredible vision of the Eagle is one of its most spoken-of feature. It is said the Eagle can clearly detect a moving mouse while it soars hundreds of feet above the ground and yet keep an accurate sight over a five-mile area at the same time. This is an amazing description of sight and vision characterized by two fundamental truth, accuracy and long-range. The challenge and lesson to learn is to grow pass vague and parochial thinking. The Eagle is a sign of precision of vision yet broadly and widely encompassed.
4. Courage is for Eagles. The Eagle is one bird which is never afraid to attach or go for what it must. It has the courage enough to be patient, the strength to be focused and tact for persistence. Courage, as often agreed on is not the absence of fear but the boldness to confront fears. An Eagle is never timid!!! A spirit we must pray and encourage in the African.
5. A common usage of the Eagle in the Bible is the reference to its ability to renew its youth. Youthfulness is passion and zest, its energy! Gracefully the Eagle never runs out of energy. It retreats, plugs its old wings, and gathers fresh energy on its wings to soar. Renewal is the breath of freshness we all need when we get stale, old and weary. Energy is the driver and the Eagle never runs out of it until death.

These are five noble characters among many others that endears the Eagle to all of us including God who created it.

Let me end with a reflection from the prophet Isaiah, "but they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint." I believe there is no place to harness and birth the spirit of the Eagle within humanity better than the peaceful corridors of worship in the presence of the Lord. May we find ourselves back to the arms of worship that we may find our reflection as Eagles in Jehovah!

A Lesson in History

It is exactly one week since the news of Ghana, my motherland, lost its first sitting president, Prof. John Evans Atta-Mills. The news was a mixture of shock, sorrow and most definitely a hard learning curve for all of us.

Reflecting on the incidence and the many reactions since the news broke brings to mind a story I heard as I grew in my early days of my pursuit for truth and wisdom. The story has it that a man on board of a bus had just lost his wife at a hospital with his two sons. His sons were happily playing in the bus. A stranger in the bus descended heavily on the man for not been a good father and not being a responsible father, leaving his son to disturb public peace.

Not knowing the loss of the man, he in judgement treated the man who had lost his dearly beloved wife meanly. The man called his sons with tears in his eyes and calmly said to the stranger, "I am just from the hospital where I just lost my wife, I had to pick my boys from school,  they were happy, playing and joyful and thus I could not break the news to them but I guess you gave me the courage to share their loss with them. Thank you"

The story continues that, the sons became very quiet and started sobbing and weeping greatly together with their father. The stranger became all apologetic and sympathetic whiles everybody in the bus calmly watched him. The obvious question to me is, will the stranger have treated the man who had lost his wife differently if he knew of his loss?

The answer is obviously a yes! Death has a magical spell of bringing all humanity to terms with its own frailty and futility and the death of Ex-President Mills is no exception.

STRANGERS

For me, there are no my people and strangers, no bad people and good people. All people are equal for me.
Viktor Yanukovych

This statement by the Ukrainian Statesman and President is the summary of this conviction I share with you in this post. The theme of strangers came to me after my experience with three different people I was very well meaning towards but because they considered me a stranger, they will not connect and thus lost the opportunity to connect to a new person. It equally reminds me of the many people I have considered strangers and have therefore lost the opportunity as it were to connect with them.

Being in the corporate world now, I fully understand what social acquaintances are really worth. The value of teams and customer service can never be over-emphasized. I write this in perspective of love for humanity and personal branding.

I am pretty familiar with the childhood advice of 'Do not talk to strangers' because I received it quiet often. I know such upbringings have definitely had a tone on our welcoming of strangers. I do not seek to advocate for a whole sing along open all doors policy, I only write on the lines of prudence and good judgment.

Good sense will basically teach that, all the relations a person has, even of the closest ones, such were ones strangers. I know some people who are reading at this point are switching in their defenses, just before you do so fully allow me to tell you a story:

A lawyer ones asked a wise man, what it will take for somebody to be judged as righteous, innocent and worthy of praise. The wise man pointed the lawyer to the basic intent of all laws, to deal lovingly with ones neighbour. The lawyer pushing the bounds asked who then a man's neighbour was.

The wise man told a story of a man travelling from a far city who suddenly met a group of thieves. The thieves took everything he had and beat him and left him lying half dead in the middle of the street. The man in his desperate need for help heard footsteps and thanked God for sending help because the man was dressed as a priest. Unfortunately for him, his groaning did not touch the heart of the priest enough because he was so much in the 'Spirit' going to minister.

Similarly came near him one who obviously was a servant in the godly courts. The wounded man faintly screamed for attention, moaning on the ground, at least deserving of pity. But the Levite could only think of the offering he had to render at the altar, so he left the man to die in order to make time for service. The half dying man, in so much pain of both rejection and physical hurts,  gave up all hopes of ever been helped and thus retired faith, waiting for dead to cease him.

He then heard a touch on his body, struggled to open his fading eye only to see a Samaritan, one he didn't even like neither was he liked by him. Reasoning with himself among two options, either this Samaritan is sent by death to finally end his pain and misery or he is an angel from God. But he wondered if God would send such a stranger as an angel.

The long and short of the story is that, the Samaritan helps the dying man, takes him to the hospital, pays the bills, feeds him and gives him allowance for contingencies. All an act from a stranger!

At this point Jesus, who told the original story, asked the lawyer who a man's neighbour was, the Priest, the Levite or the Samaritan? This story has gone down history isle to be called The Story of the Good Samaritan. I just told my paraphrased version but the essence for me is that, the seemingly godly people were the most culpable of the stranger's phobia and therefore treated him as such because he was not their neighbours.

The next time you are tempted to write off a stranger, think of him/her among two things, he/she is either in dire need of help and looking onto you as the angel sent by God or the stranger you are rejecting is the solution and the addition that will jazz up your life unto purpose.

For those who will reason among rational lines of what if the stranger is not good enough for you, or what if they come in to hurt you or things like that, I honestly may not have an answer for you but to wish you well and pray that you are guided by prudence in all your choices to strangers, but remember 'Never distrust a person until he/she has given you enough reason to do so', for Abram received angel into his house without knowing. I guess he was only been calmly with strangers.

May we all treat each other with the respect and love we desire and most certainly deserve, Love and relationship are universal quest and need because we all are supposed to be the universal solution to loving and relating!

TO OUR COMMON HUMANITY- CHEERS

Courage for the Uncharted Waters

"There are seasons, in human affairs, of inward and outward revolution, when new depths seem to be broken up in the soul, when new wants are unfolded in multitudes, and a new and undefined good is thirsted for. There are periods when...to dare, is the highest wisdom." 

William Ellery Channing

There is perhaps no magic that turns dreams into reality like courage. Courage is a human virtue that keeps society growing, adapting, evolving and becoming better. Yet education in my homeland robs us of this nobility instead of enduring us with such. How well is courage taught or  how deliberate should we be in passing this gem through education? These are the concluding thoughts we provoke in this part of the Education Overhaul series.

Courage is the ability to confront fear, pain, danger, uncertainty or intimidation. It is one noble virtue admired all through time and it is surely the foundation for all forms of good or bad. Winston Churchill in an insight put it this way, "Courage is rightly esteemed the first of human qualities ... because it is the quality that guarantees all others". The character trait of fear, giving up in the times of pain, avoidance of danger, avoiding a course in a maze and absolute lack of confidence for intimidation has become a 'normal' description of the African. To make it more unfortunate we confuse such cowardice with humility and call it cautiousness. 

Confidence should at least be the most notable scare education leaves on a person. The time when the African youth became confident is long overdue, it is time we broke the fear, pain, danger, uncertainty and intimidation of poverty, disease, superstition, cultural limitation, unemployment, western influence, political biases and corruption and rose in courage to tell a new African story. A story of courage and progress, one of innovation and initiatives and of drive and results.

We consider Christopher Peterson and Martin Seligman's four subcategory of courage and draw key educational lesson from it below:

1. Bravery: It is defined by Peterson as “the ability to stand up for what is right in difficult situations.”^[11]  He then goes ahead and puts bravery in several forms:  Physical bravery involves acting in spite of possible harm to one’s body. Moral bravery involves acting in a way that enhances what one believes to be good in spite of social disapproval and possible backlash. A third, theoretically newer, definition of bravery is psychological bravery which involves things such as overcoming one’s own addictive habits, irrational anxieties, and harmful dependent relationships. Our educational content should be placed in a context of promoting bravery. What we need are minds and hearts strong enough to solve the problems and not just to talk it. Our educational system must make sure it produces such bravery because there is no doubt such unconfident youth is a product of the current system.
2. Perseverance: Perseverance involves the ability to seek a goal in spite of obstacles and perhaps failure. A person high in perseverance is able to overcome the fear and intimidation of low self-esteem and estimations that one cannot do the task as well as discouragement from peers. This is where our educator will have to focus at producing finishers and not just starters. It only takes courage to be persevering and our education must endeavor to train student to be persevering and not unstable, emotional people as the case barely is now.
3. Honesty: Honesty and authenticity as a subset of courage means more than simply telling the truth. It involves integrity in all areas of one’s life and the ability to be true to oneself and one’s role in the world across circumstances. Honesty and authenticity require a great deal of courage.  I have wondered time and over again why corruption is always labeled as Africa's biggest developmental problem? This may provide a clue to how courageous our leaders are! Honesty is not an option if a group of people must grow and develop, it is a prerequisite and we must see it as such and educate ourselves with the intent of becoming honest to ourselves and to society.
4. Zest: Seligman and Peterson finally consider Zest as a character trait of courage and defines zest as, feeling alive, being full of zest, and displaying enthusiasm for any and all activities. They believe Zest most often comes forth as a character strength in the midst of trying circumstances which is mostly true. When there are shiver across the spines, it takes courage to posses your energies and seek change. We must therefore train people to posses energies that are strong enough to tear down the walls of cowardice. 

 Let me end with a quote from David Humes who was a Scottish philosopher, historian, economist and essayist from his part I, essay XXI titled, Of National Characters (1758), "Courage, of all national qualities, is the most precarious; because it is exerted only at intervals, and by a few in every nation; whereas industry, knowledge, civility, may be of constant and universal use, and for several ages, may become habitual to the whole people."  The delicate yet important nature of this virtue makes it imminent to be guarded and taught. The Eagles' Wing Foundation stands for this cause of educating and guarding such treasures but it is more of all our collective effort and thus we invite you to take the task of courage as your personal charge. Always keep yourself in remembrance that, Victory goes to those with courage!

Let's bear the torch of faith and courage through our time. Let our own acts of courage inspire others to hold onto theirs and together let us build a new continent, for, "Cowards die many times before their deaths; The valiant never taste of death but once." William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, Act II, scene. ii (1599).

What Should Exist?

This is an amazing question to consider today in this blog. What should exist honestly might appear a fanciful or utopian wish on a fairy land. But the reality of this question is far more reaching than a pursuit of a wishing soul.

What should exist is one question among many others any innovator or pioneer of change will have to ask. A careful consideration of this question does not only open one up to search for the answer for a change process but it redirects and streamlines social discourse and actions. 

The beauty of innovation is noticed in our recollections of Steve Jobs yet how many of us have sat to ask what should exist in the next decade as we reflect on the life of one who lived in the essence of this question.

An analytical mind which seeks to know what should exist gleams multivariate data in such an exercise and thus stand the chance of building a system which will champion the vision of what should exist.

The birth of any vision is on the altar of this same question:What should exist? The stronger the question of what should exist the more compelling it is to draw a clear plan of how to chat that course.

Leadership is a path of daily questioning and pursuit of what should exist and then leading the way there. Since I am one of the ardent believer of the universalism of human leadership  I can rightly suggest that until one can clearly answer in his/her own terms what should exist, life is yet to really begin for him/her because it means the inherent nature to lead has not been explored yet.

Exploring our full individuality is tied around our pursuit of innovation for common good but the question of what should exist does not automatically set anybody on a leading end. We suggest below how to ask this all important question of what should exist. We also seek to help you in building a lifestyle that constantly asks this question and thus help you lead a way to changing the world much more real by the lessons shared.

• Ask with Prejudice to None: A red-tainted sunglasses will most definitely make the world appear red when the world is viewed through them in a sunny day. Judgement of the world by such lens is most certainly flawed. Perception counts and may mean a lot of things. Everybody who can see what should exist should be able to first see what is without prejudice to none. If somebody lacks the ability to see it as it is then it most predictably asserts that he/she can't chat a course from here to where he sees because the problem under review is not even clearly comprehended. It is therefore key to be able to know prevailing realities in the light of what should be. The key lesson here is to be able to answer what should exist, first answer what exists?
• Who pays the price: When the answer for what should exist is diligently sought, one truth that comes to bear is that somebody must be willing to pay the price for the transition. Your answer of what should exist does not magically bring it bear. You must pledge commitment and passion to transform the birth vision. Like a baby born somebody must have enough dedication to nurture it until it can survive on its own.
• Leverage on Synergy: Gathering talented people around your answer of what should exist is a sure way to at least see your vision succeed. Such people who may have bought into your vision of the future or perhaps have a similar hope for the future help in reshaping the road map for success. They may not only serve as companions on the way but they are healthy contributors to an overall change process. Treat people therefore with respect and in a collaborative spirit which harnesses individual strengths around a single question of what should exist.

Commitment is a sure way to leading this part of the world to what we see, if I may share my own answer of what should exist, then I see a new African Leader without corruption and ill-vision but one passionate about African unity and growth brimming with endearing visions. I equally see talented African minds leading the way in technology, communication, the body of knowledge, arts in the fear of the Lord and for the creation of a new Africa without war, poverty and preventable diseases; a new healthy and hygienic African with cutting-edge infrastructure and respect for the image of God in every man. A new continent with new people leading the world to find solutions.