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| The ring bearer |
I am grateful for all of the father figures that I have had in my life, including my own dad, Ronald Golden, my grandfathers Milladge Griffin and Pierce Turner, and my beloved uncles. I am also cognizant that as the mom of two sons, I am raising boys to be men and potentially fathers. For that reason, I am reflecting on the lessons that I want them to master, the characters I would like for them to embody, and the discipline I would like for them to gain.
Be a man of good courage, my son
As someone who was raised to value education, I want them to be learned men. However, as important as that, I want them to be strong, wise, slow to anger and full of love. Many of the lessons that I want them to learn were written by Rudyard Kipling. I know that many of my Panhellenic brothers know this poem well...
Happy Father's Day!
If
By Rudyard Kipling
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!
Source: A Choice of Kipling’s Verse (1943)
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