Saturday, July 18, 2020

The Long View

    

John Lewis, congressman and civil-rights legend, never lost hope.


      “Be Brave, Bold & Courageous”



       My friend Stephanie Jones knew him and eulogized him in this way:

      "John Lewis was one of our rare angels flying low. He showed us how to move gently and fiercely through this world and how to bend the arc of the moral universe toward justice.

     Now he's flown away to that land where joy shall never end. Rest in peace, dear sweet good brave man."


      John Lewis who began building his legacy as a young when he was knocked unconscious while peacefully protesting. He continued adding to this legacy by serving as a Congressman and Civil Rights leader. The entire time he never lost hope or would allow those around him to do so.

     He is gone now and we all must gather our wits about us. Remember the words of Kipling:

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 wornout 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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