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;

From "If", by Rudyard Kipling

If has been called the longest word in the English language. "If only" is a phrase that can lead to so many thoughts, words and emotions. "If only I had done this or that" is usually a preface to a sad story of regret and remorse.

But "if" as referenced by Rudyard Kipling is a much more hopeful and instructive if. It recalls - at least for me - my Algebra axioms "If A, then B. If B, then C. Therefore, If A, then C". I think of this "if" as the logical or the contingent "if".

But Kipling's "if" is much more the hopeful if - as in "if you eat your vegetables, you will grow up strong and healthy" - the many "if's" we heard from our parents and teachers.

I think it important to consider the "hopeful if" in these days of fear and anxiety. With recent world events - from Brexit to President Donald J. Trump - there are so many fearful if's. If we don't stop this thing, if we don't block that action, then all we've accomplished will be lost, etc.

Such statements tend towards arrogance in my book, because the future is always in doubt - and has always been. So many heroic and foolish acts have been motivated by dubious assumptions. During our past wars, there were so many battles that were considered pivotal at the time, that were not. And, conversely, there were many decisive results that were overlooked at the time of their happening.

As the Apostle Paul wrote in Corinthians, "we see through a glass darkly, but then face to face". The fearful and arrogant if makes no room for doubt or hope. It assumes that our vision is clear and our foreknowledge infallible. If history teaches us anything, it is surely that neither of those assumptions are correct.

Kipling's if speaks much more to the controllable if, rather than the unknowable if. Our choices, our emotions, our purpose is much more in our power than all those external things governed by others.
And Kipling continues his instruction to us…

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! '

Surely, if the first stanza was difficult, these two are merely impossible it would seem. How can we display such calm courage?

Even a heretic like me can recognize wisdom when it is offered. The sayings of Jesus in the Gospel Parables offer advice in the tradition of Proverbs and Ecclesiastes.

In the oft quoted (but seldom lived) Sermon on the Mount, Jesus is said to have taught the unwashed masses with these admonitions:

Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat, nor about your body, what you will put on. For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing. Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds! And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?  

O you of little faith! And do not seek what you are to eat and what you are to drink, nor be worried. For all the nations of the world seek after these things, and your Father knows that you need them. Instead, seek his kingdom, and these things will be added to you.

Sell your possessions, and give to the needy. Provide yourselves with moneybags that do not grow old, with a treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches and no moth destroys.
For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also."

From the Gospel of Luke, Chapter 12

Wow. If Kipling issued a challenge, then Jesus uttered a seeming impossibility. I suppose one could point to a Mother Teresa or Mahatma Gandhi as examples of "sell your possessions and give to the needy", but I'm not sure I have seen it myself - or even aspire to it.

For me, the much more impactful words of Jesus are those "O you of little faith!" These words sting a bit, but at the same time offer hope to me. Because I think the common thread that runs from Jesus to Kipling is the idea of calm courage in the face of adversity.

"If you keep your head when all about you are losing theirs", it will be because you see something they do not. "If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you", it will be because you know something they do not. "If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster, And treat those two impostors just the same" it will be because you have faith in something that can neither fully explained nor debunked.

How can we heed the call of Kipling? I think the words of Jesus have the answer for us. In the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 17, the teacher taught us:

I tell you the truth, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move; nothing will be impossible for you."

If A (we have the faith as tiny as a mustard seed), then B (you will say to the mountain "move"), then C (it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you.)

Faith is a loaded word, with so many mixed connotations. Modern Evangelical Christians have distorted the word to mean "orthodox beliefs, i.e. - the faith of our fathers. But Jesus did not use the word this way, and neither would have Kipling.

No, faith is "the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen" according the the King James Version of Hebrews.

Faith is how Dr. King so confidently walked through death's door, confident that his dream - in spite of his current experience - would become reality.

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight; "and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together."
This is our hope, and this is the faith that I go back to the South with.
With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood.
With this faith, we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

From "I Have A Drean"

With this faith… With this faith…

How can we stand firm in times of fear? How can we keep our heads when all around us are losing theirs? How can we live with calm courage instead of constant anxiety?

Let us look to the words of Jesus and Dr. King for that answer.

dg

1/25/17

75° Mostly Sunny
Lower Bight Road, Providenciales, Turks and Caicos Islands

Sent from my iPad

Sent from my iPad