Canoe Trip: which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!

 

Last week I had a special privilege to canoe with Garry, his boys and my son Dave. 

The trip down was an adventure as we listened to a Rudyard Kipling poem (IF).  We talked with the boys about being able to risk everything, and loose, and still gain Jesus.  The bridge was down so we had to take a long detour to the canoe place, challenges along the way in the river with new canoe'rs and old men. 

Once we got past the throngs of people we enjoyed standing in the river and feeling the rush of the current of warm water around our legs.  We saw tadpoles becoming frogs and boys becoming young men, growing past the challenges and even car sickness.    We finished the trip with a stopped at Mayberry Cafe (a la Andy Griffth and Barney Fife) in downtown Danville.  I had fried catfish and stewed apples. 

This is how every day should be, fathers and sons. 

IF
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!