“You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something: your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.” Steve Jobs commencement address at Stanford University in 2005 Parents of my Scouts are on an uncertain journey....
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749 – 1832) is an important writer in the German language and Western culture. His works span the fields of poetry, drama, literature, theology, philosophy, and science and continue to be an inspiration. His wide-ranging thinking lends itself well to defining the twelve points of the Scout Law: Trustworthy Trust yourself, then you will know how to live. Loyal Love can do much, but duty more....
Nine years ago as the full extent of the terrorist attacks began to unfold a group of passengers aboard a hijacked plane made a choice. By chance they were on a very ordinary flight together, by choice they became heroes and arguably averted massive loss of life had their flight gone on to reach our nations capitol. In minutes they chose action over fear in the knowledge they may not come out alive....
From Seth Godin’s blog; A toddler wants what she wants, now. That’s a win. A little later, when we’re more mature, we might define winning as getting what we want at the expense of someone else. I win when you lose. And yes, winning still means now, not later. A demagogue cares so much about winning that he’d rather wreck the system itself than lose… What happens when you define a win as getting closer to someone who wants the same thing?...
The advice of their elders to young men is very apt to be as unreal as a list of the hundred best books. Oliver Wendell Holmes I take Justice Holme’s thought as a simple statement of fact rather than a derisive evaluation of the vicissitudes of youth. Note that he qualifies his statement with ‘apt’ – he is not ruling out that some young men will take advice. When we sew a leader’s patch on to our uniforms we accept a few things about working with young people....
Samuel Langhorne Clemens (Mark Twain) was never a boy scout but no one has ever written more poignantly about boyhood. His contrarian, cross grained and curmudgeonly persona could not completely conceal his humanitarianism. Here are some of his thoughts applied to the scout law: Trustworthy “I am different from [George] Washington; I have a higher, grander standard of principle. Washington could not lie. I can lie, but I won’t.” Loyal...
The Rudyard Kipling poem “if” is a source of inspiration for Scouts. 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,...
February 22nd is Founder’s Day, the birthday of Lord Robert Baden-Powell the founder of the Scout Movement and is the World Organization of the Scout Movement (WOSM). Nearly all National Scout Associations throughout the world celebrate Founder’s Day as an opportunity to learn more about B.P.’s life and his work. In 1922 Baden-Powell spoke to the 3rd International Congress on Moral Education in Geneva, Switzerland. His speech laid out a vision for Scouting as an education in peace and love in the aftermath of the ordeal of the first world war....
Do not depend on the hope of results. When you are doing the sort of work you have taken on, essentially an apostolic work, you may have to face the fact that your work will be apparently worthless and even achieve no result at all, if not perhaps results opposite to what you expect. As you get used to this idea, you start more and more to concentrate not on the results but on the value, the rightness, the truth of the work itself....
Over a century volumes of guidance has been offered to Scoutmasters yet none is so effective as that of the founder of the worldwide Scouting movement Robert Baden-Powell A boy carries out suggestions more wholeheartedly when he understands their aim. A Scout is never taken by surprise; he knows exactly what to do when anything unexpected happens. Be Prepared… the meaning of the motto is that a scout must prepare himself by previous thinking out and practicing how to act on any accident or emergency so that he is never taken by surprise....
Jan Amos Commenius is considered by many to be the father of modern education. Inspired by the concepts of the reformation Commenius asserted that children should be taught to think rather than forced to memorize. Boys ever delight in being occupied in something for the youthful blood does not allow them to be at rest. Now as this is very useful, it ought not to be restrained, but provision made that they may always have something to do....
Dirty Jobs host Mike Rowe is an Eagle Scout. Here is an exchange of letters posted to his blog Mike, I’m not sure where I heard that you are an Eagle Scout, which brings me to my question. Could you PLEASE take a moment & post to my 13 year old son Kelby & encourage him to finish scouting (& anything else that will help with this?) Reason I’m asking is that he only lacks 1 1/2 – 2 years in reaching Eagle, but some of his buddies have got him to thinking scouting isn’t cool at his age....
In 1785, just a year before his death at age 37, Robert Burns enshrined ‘the pith of sense and pride of work’ above wealth or aristocratic birth in his poem A Man’s a Man for all That. Burns knew the privations of poverty from the earliest age yet became a legendary poet and favorite son of Scotland. He deftly strips away the affectations of rank and declares; “The honest man, though ever so poor, Is king of men for all that....
What is the rule of honor to be observed by a power so strongly and so advantageously situated as this Republic is? Of course I do not expect it meekly to pocket real insults if they should be offered to it. But, surely, it should not, as our boyish jingoes wish it to do, swagger about among the nations of the world, with a chip on its shoulder, shaking its fist in everybody’s face....
“The Guy in the Glass” was first published in the American Magazine in 1934 in answer to a readers question to the Editor: “Why he should be honest”. The authors descendants have a website that discusses the origin of the poem and it’s proper original wording. The Guy in the Glass Dale Wimbrow, (c) 1934 When you get what you want in your struggle for pelf*, And the world makes you King for a day,...
The best thing for being sad is to learn something. That is the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honor trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then, to learn....
I’ve used this Scoutmaster minute during our vespers sessions on camping trips. I asked everyone to bring a stick with them before they sat down around our campfire When they were seated I gathered all the sticks into a bundle and held them as I stood before the fire. “You’ll notice that none of the sticks complained as we collected them,” I said , “none of them tried to jump out of the bundle, none of the other sticks tried to shove the others away....
Here are some excellent thoughts from the Scouting in Canada website: Boys leave Scouting because of what they don’t do on Troop night, not because of what they do. A wise Scout leader never raises his voice. He gets someone else to do the shouting, then addresses the troop in civilized, well modulated tones. Good commissioners never put off what they can get someone else to do today. If you believe strongly in yourself and what you are doing, you will find resources you never knew you had....
One of the B.S.A.’s founders, Ernest Thompson-Seton, was visiting a camp he founded near his New Jersey home. Seton had invited several important local businessmen to join him on this particular visit to interest them in supporting the camp. During their stay they watched with great interest as some of the boys tried to light a fire by friction using the ancient bow and drill. Their efforts were great and the resulting fire was a victory won over may attempts....
Axe Handles One afternoon the last week in April Showing Kai how to throw a hatchet One-half turn and it sticks in a stump. He recalls the hatchet-head Without a handle, in the shop And go gets it, and wants it for his own A broken off axe handle behind the door Is long enough for a hatchet, We cut it to length and take it With the hatchet head...