A Crazy World

Looking around the world, the nation or even some neighborhoods, we might come to the conclusion that the “world has gone crazy!” Actually, if you look at history, the world has always been crazy. There has always been wars, murders, revenge, corruption and more. Somehow, however, we expect more from those who live in freedom and in a democratic society. Regardless of creed, race or political preferences in Americans, we would like to believe that most people have enough maturity and self-control to do the right thing in one’s behavior and actions. Is this a false hope?

Many of you remember the English poet, Rudyard Kipling. Kipling was a poet and writer, famous for an array of works like ‘Just So Stories,‘ ‘If‘ and ‘The Jungle Book.’

As a young child, he was abused by a foster parent and later in life, tragedy struck when he lost his dearest daughter, Josephine, to whom he dedicated his Just So Stories. As he read to her nightly or told her stories, she would always tell him, “Father, tell them just so.” In 1907, he received the Nobel Prize in Literature. At his death, he was buried in Westminster Abby at Poets’ Corner, along with Thomas Hardy and Charles Dickins.

Remembering Kipling and his fine writing, I put together a copy of his words in the famous poem, “IF“, as he advises his son how to act even if everything was going wrong or out of control. Even though this is written as advise to a young person, perhaps it has some wisdom for all of us today.

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IF

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!

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“God’s Spirit makes us loving, happy, peaceful, patient, kind, good, faithful, gentle, and self-controlled. There is no law against behaving in any of these ways.” Galatians 5:22-23:

VIDEO: The poem, IF, and a few words, for our thoughts, by Sir Michael Caine. (Turn on sound)