Talents

I have been thinking about Talents lately. I heard someone pray at church a few weeks ago, before a musical program, to "bless the people with talents that will perform". It hit me wrong. As it was, I was thinking about what good prayers this person said in public. I viewed him as talented in Praying as much as he viewed us as talented in Music..... But he spoke as if musicians were the only people "with talents".
Now, as much as I feel untalented in Praying, or teaching children at church, I am not excused from having to try to pray or teach. And I think that in church, even the "untalented" should participate in the music, by at least joining in singing the Congregational hymns.
So I have thought about the parable of the talents found in Matthew chapter 25. It says that the Lord gave his servants talents. Unto one he gave 5, to another 2 and to another 1.
My interpretation is that the Lord is God. That we are his servants. That He gave every servant at least 1 talent or gift. And since God is Good, he gives Good Gifts.
What are these good gifts that he has given at least some to everyone.
I think that the 1 talent which he gives to everyone is TIME; life on this earth, with 24 hours every day to do with as we will.
The parable says that the servant with the one talent who did nothing with the talent but buried it and waited for the Lord to return, was called slothful. After the parable of the talents he talks about good things to do with our time and life: Feed the Hungry, Clothe the Naked, etc.
To another servant, the Lord gave 2 talents. Some of us, besides receiving life on the earth and time, have also received favorable circumstances. That may be a comfortable living environment, security, safety, supportive parents, or money beyond that necessary to meet our basic needs, etc. which make development of special skills possible. If we receive 2 talents and fail to work to develope skills, we will also be considered unprofitable.
A special gift God can give us would be knowledge of what skills we could be succesful at developing.
We should consider it a gift or blessing from God when we are put in a situation where we can find a special person who has the skills that we want to develope and they are willing to teach us.
We should never confuse Talents with Skills. Too often, we say someone is Talented when what we really mean is that they are Skilled at doing something. Or that they have been well trained. That training comes from a lot of work, and perserverance, and not quitting. Remember the story of the person who said they would give their life if they could play the cello (or some other instruement) like Yo Yo Ma (or some other musician). And the Musician said, and what do you think I gave. Another gift God could also give us is joy as we work to train our skills.
And finally, these talents or skills that we all have, for music, or praying, or teaching, or leading, or speaking, etc. are for helping others, and not for ourselves. Just like a man with the Priesthood cannot give a blessing to himself, skills developed should be used to help others, not to make ourselves better.
Yo Yo Ma, when talking about the musicians of the Silk Road Project said they had Virtuosity and Generosity. They all did something Very Very Well, but they did not want to keep it to themselves. They wanted to share it and make the world a better place.
That is why God gives talents, so that people can develop many different skills to meet many different needs in the world and ultimately, while serving our fellow men, make the world a better place.
And when we have skills, and we are willing to help someone else who wants to develop that skill, we can be the gift that God wants to give to someone else.