AN EYE-OPENER Love and Not Performance John Powell was to give a presentation at a conference at Loyola University, Chicago. He had given innumerable speeches in public and had been rarely nervous. But that day he was nervous. He was the third speaker at the conference.   So while each of the other two theologians spoke, he began to pray silently. In that atmosphere of silence God spoke to him: “You are nervous because you are getting ready to give a performance. You want to impress your listeners, to make sure they realize what a ‘gem’ they have in you. I don’t want a performance. I want an act of love. Your brothers do not need to be impressed by you, but to be loved by you.”                                                                     – Adapted from the writing of John Powell   Rossini, the Italian composer, having discovered one day, that some of his admirers were planning to erect a statue in his honour, asked, “How much will it cost?” “About ten million francs,” they answered. “Ten million francs?” gasped Rossini. Then he suggested, “For five million I will stand on the pedestal myself.” We sometimes waste a lot of money putting up statues of a public person when we could have usefully honoured his/her memory by building a school or charitable institution where thousands would benefit!