Last weekend, I unplugged for 48 hours and returned feeling physically, mentally, and spiritually refreshed. This week, I took some time to reflect on gifts and talents—especially the undervalued gifts that society doesn’t always appreciate.  

Welcome to the 60^th edition of The Sunday Spark, a series with weekly thoughts and highlights, nuggets of learning, and a decluttering challenge for the week. In addition to the praise of undervalued gifts, this week’s edition looks at National Gardening Day, daylighting buried rivers, climate change and your morning coffee, and decluttering media.  

On my mind this week: In praise of undervalued gifts

Last weekend, I unplugged and participated in the weekend away with the Alpha Course group from my church. I came back from the weekend fully refreshed—and that feeling of calm carried over into the work week. It felt so wonderful to unplug completely. I ended the weekend wondering why I don’t do it more often.

The focus of the weekend was how the Holy Spirit works in our lives. We spent time learning about and discussing the gifts and the fruits of the Holy Spirit. Even if you’re not religious, there are lessons to be learned about the gifts and talents each of us have been given.

History provides many examples of people who have devoted their lives to making the world a better place. Yet, in today’s consumption-driven and power-hungry world, we look up to people who have material possessions, charisma, and eloquence. But are those the gifts that really matter?

Each of us has many gifts and talents, but we often use them for our own personal gain rather than the greater good. During the weekend’s discussions, we were given a long list of gifts of the Holy Spirit. I noted a few gifts that are undervalued in a world where paid influencers and power-hungry leaders set the standard for what is good.

5 examples of undervalued gifts

Here are five gifts that, if nurtured and appreciated, would make the world a better place.

• Service involves identifying tasks that need to be done and then devoting time and talent toward making those things happen.

• Giving is closely linked to service, but it relates to contributing material resources to various causes—even better if we do it quietly and without fanfare.

• Helping involves investing our own talents to help others increase the effectiveness of their own gifts.

• Encouragement is about building up others through words of comfort.

• Finally, mercy relates to perceiving the suffering of others and ministering to them with compassion and empathy.

In his book Longevity Lifestyle by Design, Redefining What Retirement Can Be, Mike Drak discusses five different types of retirees. One of those is the “Angel”, who embodies all of these gifts and dedicates their time to helping others. (If you’re interested in reading Mike’s book, download the free e-book here.)

As I look ahead to my retirement in a couple of months, I’m spending a lot of time thinking about how I can use my gifts and talents to replace the sense of purpose I currently get from my job. I don’t have all the answers, but there will definitely be elements of all these undervalued gifts in any activity I undertake.

I’d love to hear what you think about these undervalued gifts. Drop me a comment below to let me know.

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Three highlights of the week

It’s important to celebrate big milestones and simple pleasures in life. Keeping the trend going, here are three highlights and simple pleasures of the week gone by:

• On Sunday, I joined my mother-in-law and my sisters-in-law for afternoon tea to celebrate my mother-in-law’s birthday. It was delicious.
• On Wednesday morning, I drove my mum to Toronto for a medical appointment. I usually choose the train when I need to go to Toronto, so it had been several years since I’d driven into the city’s downtown core. Thankfully, traffic was good and the medical appointment went well. We were back at my mum’s place in time for lunch.
• One of my 60 before 60 goals was to try a reflexology treatment with my friend Sandy who started her own practice after she retired from her full-time job. I did that on Friday and it was wonderful.  

Three things I learned this week

Life is all about learning. Here are three things I learned this week:

National Gardening Day

Today is National Gardening Day—a day set aside to encourage people to get outside and start planting.

We’re at least six weeks away from the final frost here in southern Ontario so it’s too early to plant outdoors. Even so, I think I’ll set aside a few minutes today to plan that pollinator’s garden that’s on my 60 before 60 list.

Daylighting buried rivers

As the world’s cities have grown over the last several hundred years, many rivers and creeks were diverted, buried, and paved over to support that growth.

This week I read a fascinating article about daylighting—the practice of returning buried rivers to the surface and integrating them into the city landscape. Daylighting can be part of the solution to many of the problems faced by our cities today: urban heat islands, flooding, pollution, and loss of ecosystem diversity.

There are initiatives in Canada’s three largest cities (Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal) to study these lost rivers and bring some of them back to life.

(Source: CBC News)

Climate change and your morning coffee

I’m not a coffee drinker but I know many people can’t start the day without it. Did you know that climate change could put your morning cup of coffee at risk? Experts predict that while demand for coffee is increasing in traditional tea-drinking areas of the world, more than half of the land currently suitable for growing coffee could disappear by 2050. Basic economics tells us that this shift in supply and demand isn’t good news for your morning jolt of caffeine.

There is some good news though. Many innovative companies are working hard to find alternatives to the traditional coffee bean.  

(Source: Grist.org)

This week’s decluttering challenge – Media

In 2024, I’ve been revisiting the 52-Week Decluttering Challenge I completed in 2021. This week’s challenge was media. I took some time to look at my large collection of DVDs, CDs and records, but I’m not quite ready to let them go. I did, however, get rid of 12 items. You can find the details, along with my tips and learnings, in this week’s decluttering post.

If you’d like to join the challenge, visit this post to download your free checklists and jump right in with this week’s task.

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I’d love to hear what you think about any of this week’s topics. Drop me a comment below and let me know your thoughts and ideas.