The destiny of a pencil

Have you ever wondered what an amazing journey pens, pencils and other writing instruments have, depending on who uses them? I remember once in 1996 when a young girl named Gillian gave me a pencil as a little gift. Then I thought of the different journey this pencil would be going through when it’s used by me instead of little 6-year-old Gillian. So now instead being handled by those tiny fingers writing the 1 2 3 or ABC or drawing stick figures or scribbles which would up on her mother’s refrigerator, colored with crayons, now they would be writing homilies, notes and articles in Maltese and English, Spanish and Latin. Just yesterday I was distributing communion to our residents when I noticed a bunch of skinny pencils in a plastic bag on a table. I politely asked if I could have one of them and the answer was of course ‘absolutely!’ I asked her why she was using them for and she told me they use them to mark their numbers on the Bingo sheets. So of course I told her the destiny of that one pencil changed instantly as now it will be used by me to write music notes for my flute melodies, sketching designs for my watercolors, and of course homily notes, articles and other notes. It’s amazing how the destiny and future of a simple pencil can change so quickly depending on who uses it !