Leadership. And poetry.
“Because poetry tends to address the whole person—the mind, the imagination, and the emotions—there may be no better way to cultivate a Christian sensibility and worldview (apart from reading Scripture itself) than to saturate oneself in Christian poetry.”
~ Gene Veith
I love poetry. Perhaps there is a kind of truth which cannot be adequately articulated in an academic essay but instead demands to be expressed only as art. Poetry—along with other artistic endeavors—allows us to make ultimate claims about what is good, what is beautiful, and what is true. I find poetry challenging to read (I am bad at it), and that is part of why I enjoy it. At the recommendation of Mrs. Stidom, I read How to Read Poetry like a Professor by Thomas Foster some years ago, and that has certainly given me tools which I previously lacked. At the recommendation of Mr. Stadick, I have continued to attempt to read and make meaning of poems from W. H. Auden, W. S. Merwin, T. S. Elliot and others. I find that I can return to the same poem at a new stage of life and recognize in it a truth which I had previously not noticed, and there are some poems which I keep in my office and return to regularly. I keep these poems around me as reminders because they speak to some truth which I find too easy to forget.
I would like to share such a poem with you this week. I keep this poem on my desk, and I go back to it often. The poem was written by Rudyard Kipling, and I think it is both beautiful but perhaps also dangerous. I do not believe that Rudyard Kipling was a Christian (I think that his short story “Lispeth” makes this evident). Nevertheless, I believe that this poem reflects, at least in part, truths about leadership and life.
I invite you to read it with me this week and consider your own spheres of influence or your own work as a leader.
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!
Is there a truth that stands out most to you? Do you spot any dangerous thinking?
May you not grow weary in doing Good (Gal. 6).
