lifebank: 12th week thursday
Two nights ago I opened a youtube documentary entitled the 10 biggest banks in the world, banks with trillions of dollars in assets. Curiously it started with a quotation from God knows where, and it says: “Give a man a gun and he will rob a bank. Give a man a bank and he will rob the world.” Frankly I do not know how you would react to that quote, but I am beginning this homily with this quote on purpose because I do not want you to take this as a homily, that is as gospel truth and accept it just that, hook, line and sinker. No. The reflections that follows is something I would like you to discuss among yourselves after I leave. You may agree, you may disagree, you may expound further, cut short, alter completely or you can just simply tear it apart and throw it out. The point is it is my wish that this will trigger you to reexamine yourself more closely, your purpose, your mission, your vision and dreams, what you love about this place, what you hate about it, what you want from this company and the people you work with and the people you meet with every day.
Today LifeBank celebrates its foundation day, the 23rdanniversary of the Sta. Barbara Branch to be exact, and the 48thyear of the bank itself, going to 50 years in 2020. And today the gospel seems to cooperate very well with us because it asks the very questions which matters to us today. And what is that? On what foundation are we built?
Foundations are important. You may have the best roof, you may have acquired the strongest steel, your building may have been beautifully painted but when the foundation gives way, cracks would appear, the pretty, spacious building will be nothing but dangerous, and even the strongest steel will not hold.
So, on what foundation are you built? Do you know? Do you even care to know? Do you take time to revisit it?
Most often things start well. Well, things do get bumpy at the start, but at the start the intentions are always good, the vision are always well placed, the plans are at best very comprehensive and thorough or at the very least just exciting enough to start things going. It might be good to revisit that. What can be better than setting your sights on alleviating poverty through microfinance loans. But it might be good to ask if it is still the priority, since things, opportunities and events can sometimes distract us along the way.
I am told that you are undergoing a values realignment. Things cannot get any better than that. But are these values the values of the company at large, are these values company policies, or do they also reflect the values of individuals working in the company, the beliefs of the people who work here and in every branch, the values of the same people who meet the people they intend to alleviate if not to lift out of poverty?
Foundations are worth revisiting and as we do, it might also be good to recall how these foundations fared through time. Foundations are tested “when the rains fell, the floods came,and the winds blew and buffeted the house.” Only then can we be sure that the foundations are strong.
How did we fare then? And this does not just refer to the company but to every individual person we dealt with. With whom did we succeed? With whom did we fail?
Jesus said, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’will enter the Kingdom of heaven.” It means that there are things, there are decisions, actions which are simply “not good enough.” After quite some time when we have mastered the ropes, the temptation is always to settle for less, to settle to what might be judged as not good enough. It is not sufficient therefore to just merely identify the good and the bad. It might also help further to identify what is “not good enough.” It means too that we also ask ourselves, in the transactions I made - did I excel enough, did I care enough, did I share enough?
I believe I have talked enough, no? You know your way through better than I do. My role is just to trigger the thinking and the examining. And to pray too that God who has begun the good work in you bring it to fulfillment. Amen.
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