IF, by Rudyard Kipling

I was named after the book Kim, by author Rudyard Kipling. Early in my childhood, my mother introduced me to one of his poems. It has always challenged and inspired me in life.

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 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!

-Rudyard Kipling

Simply Move

Hanging on the wall in my office, there is a picture of a tree that changes color and definition to reflect the four seasons. As you walk by the angle of the print causes the tree to shift from a winter scene of bare branches and snow, through sprouting spring foliage, the full greening of summer and then the autumn leaves of fall. From my desk seat, it always looks like autumn.

I like seeing the different images of the picture. The variety, changing colors and images offers a nice change from what is often the static unchanging art of an office space. There are times when I will just move to a different place in my office to see and enjoy the picture differently. It isn't that I don’t like seeing the fall tree, I do. I like seeing the other images, too.

Here’s my thought: My living is often the same way. It is easy to settle into the same routine, the same patterns of moving through life and soon – everything seems to look stagnant. In the same way I have to get up and move to a different place in my office to see the variety of the tree picture, I can move to a different place in my living to see life with new colors.

From a simple move, like visiting a different coffee shop, to a more dramatic change, like ending or starting a new relationship, we can experience the very different seasons of our living. I’m not advocating change for change sake, but I am encouraging myself to remember that sometimes I need t move a little and change my perspective in order to appreciate the rich variety of life.

I sat in a meeting yesterday with a successful local entrepreneur – a very rich man. He was clearly tired, almost exhausted throughout the meeting. After we had finished our business discussions, the conversation shifted as he explained his fatigue. He had spent the previous evening volunteering at a local homeless shelter. As he begin to tell the tale of his time helping others that night his energy lifted, his spirit soared and the conversation moved me to a different place. The business of life glowed more brightly than the drab hues of the previous conversation about his business.

Get up. Move. See. Enjoy.

12 Words Stolen by The Internet

This week another innocent word was commandeered and made to serve a new master and a new meaning. The vocabulary of our world is being stolen and redefined. Words are re-purposed right before our eyes!

Google announced the launch of a new Social Tool and it is named “Buzz,” Google Buzz to be more precise. The Internet is now buzzing (the way the word use to be used) about Buzz. This re-purposing of innocent words isn't new. Here are some others…

Tweet – use to be a sound a bird made.

CD – once referred to a bank note, Certificate of Deposit

Web – was once something a spider wove

Net – was a web of rope used to catch fish

Wave – use to refer to something you rode with a surf board, then a thing the spectators did at games, and now is something that belongs to Google – in beta.

Flicker – was the way a flame moved

Picasso – was a painter you studied in art class

Mouse – was a small rodent

Windows – were part of a house

Friend – was someone you liked and spent actual time with from school, work, the house next door

Caffeine - formally linked to beverages is now another - you guessed it - Google Product

What is a writer to do? What’s next - Microsoft ‘Prose’ or Google ‘Poetry?’

Red House Talking - A Poem

During a visit to Levering Orchard, I spoke with one of the owners about his childhood memories of home, a house that now stands empty and in disrepair, yet a dominate fixture overlooking the orchard. It seemed to speak to me.

Red House Talking

heat scared twisted tin

metal remains of the shelter of generations

once marking the boundary between security

sky and seasons' harsh torments of ice and wind

once shielding mother and child and keeping

home hearth's warmth within

sentinel timbers stand charred

remnants of hard taught lessons

essential knowings of words and deed

those shadows of learning that walk with us

stand undaunted, proclaiming our way

through life's course

holding us to right of way

pane-less windows black and lost

tell of eyes peering outward

watching for familiar faces

tracing memories in winter's vapor

smudged glass and

of curtains drawn tightly muffling

the magic giggles of life long love and randy youth

now the boundaries of roof and wall

yield openly, freeing lives long bound here

as prolific gaps

grasp not even nature's breeze

releasing it to dance delightfully

resting on my mind and dream

before wafting on

leaving a whisper of

a voice talking with

a red accent

Another Stranger I'll Never Know

Her head turned and she gazed over her shoulder, across the red silk of her blouse, rippled by the tilt of her head, the pivot of her neck. Her jade eyes, clear and moist, seemed to find mine and I felt a stirring of hope, a long absent curiosity. I wondered about speaking to her, just a word to break the translucent expectations that divided us, that had always divided us and made us strangers. My mind raced to summon the right words. My legs flexed to stand, to walk.

She turned, her hair sliding back into place along her back, bouncing, as if swaying to the final measure of some distant rhythm, and she was gone – again.

3 Wise Public Speaking Tips

After one of my earliest public presentations had ended many people filed by and spoke words of appreciation and encouragement to me. After almost everyone else had left an elderly lady walked over to me and gave me some words of advice I have never forgotten.

“Young man,” she said, “You need a good job for a beginner. I have some advice for you, if you want it.”

I felt a little slighted, but told her I would welcome her feedback.

“Well,” she continued,” Remember three these three things: 1. Stand up so they can see you. 2. Speak up so they can hear you, and 3. Once you have said what you came to say, Shut Up. You did ok on the first two, but you kept talking too long tonight. Leave us a little room for thinking.”

Then she hugged me and shuffled off.

I eventually got over the injury she inflicted on my pride, but I have never gotten over her words. Time and again I have returned to those words.

1. Stand Up – there are numerous skills that the public speaker needs to master in order for our appearance to assist in our communication. We need to be seen as a part of the message we are communicating.

2. Speak Up – clearly spoken, well chosen words projected to the back of the room will always command attention.

3. Shut Up – Every day presentation should have a beginning, a middle and an end. The end should be as precise as the beginning and must always leave room for people to draw their own conclusions and do their own thinking.

Good advice for all of us who speak in public.

How We Do Winter In North Carolina

Since this area is due for some more winter weather, I thought I would share some of an email I received last week…

In case you're new to our area, let me tell you how we do winter here.

• Someone somewhere says snow is coming to North Carolina.
• We start paying attention.
• Someone says it's coming to the Triad.
• Now we really start paying attention.
• Someone brandishes the word "accumulation." Done. Finished. Over. We who call North Carolina home all-out lose our minds.

In the case of this snow, it happens like this:

Tuesday morning: The word "accumulation" is used.
Tuesday afternoon: Accumulation confirmed. All weekend plans put on stand-by or out-right canceled.
Tuesday evening: First trip to supermarket for bread, milk, wine, beer and cookie dough.
Wednesday morning / afternoon: Calls around town for sleds begin. No one has them.
Wednesday evening: Local news does a story about the run on supermarkets for bread and milk. Second trip to supermarket for extra bread and milk, plus frozen pizzas and non-perishables, because you never know.
Thursday morning / afternoon: Spend workday obsessively checking the forecast. More calls for sleds. Search online for sleds, but decide against them because you can't believe how much sleds actually cost.
Thursday evening: Meet friends out for drinks or dinner because you never know when you'll get out again. Realize you forgot to buy bagels. How could you forget bagels? Third trip to supermarket.
Friday morning: Alternate staring out window for snow and consulting forecast for exact snow start time. Cancel the rest of weekend plans.
Friday afternoon: Weather.com reports that it is snowing in your area. Run to window. Spend at least one hour yelling at weather.com because it is clearly not snowing. Ask boss about company inclement weather policy. Complain about said policy. Wait an hour; ask boss if company is closing early.
Friday evening: Fourth trip to supermarket on the way home for last-minute necessities, like chocolate and fancy hot cocoa. Alternate staring out window and watching local news for exact snow start time. Watch the Closings scroll to see if your work is closed on Monday, because you never know.
Friday night: Snow finally begins. Call/text all of your friends and family to see if it's snowing in their area and to make sure they're OK in the storm. Update Facebook status to reflect snowfall in case you missed anyone. Order pizza so you don't have to break into rations too soon.
Saturday morning: Marvel at snowfall. Fling pets / children into the snow so they can marvel and so you have pictures for your Facebook page.
Saturday afternoon: Drive or trudge to nearest hill and attempt to sled on a cookie sheet/shower curtain/trashcan lid/pool float.
Saturday evening: Meet friends out for drinks or dinner to celebrate snow.
Sunday: Eat leftover pizza and stare out window, watching snow melt. Obsessively watch Closings list. Feel happy when the county you once lived in announces closing and then sad because you never became a teacher and now you have to go out, clean off the car and then go to work tomorrow. Plus you've got all that bread and milk to eat.

Writing the Right Word

Do you ever find yourself stuck, fingers poised upon the keys and yet – nothing. There is a thought, the beginning of a phrase hanging on the very edge of your mind and then – nothing. You know there is a genesis word needed, or at least some word that will begin the avalanche of prose that is pressing so dutifully upon your mind, straining to flow through you and onto the page and into the world, a message of fine worth and clear depth – waiting for that beginning, that right word to give the process the smallest nudge into existence.

Well, that is where I am tonight and that word eludes me…

Listening for the Voice of God

After attending a faculty concert at the University Of North Carolina School Of The Arts in honor of Mozart’s birthday (great music), my wife and I decided to rent and re-watch “Amadeus.”

The movie is a master piece and tells the story of Mozart’s musical genius through the eyes of the aged, embittered Salieri, a court composer and contemporary of Mozart. What struck me profoundly was Sallieri’s struggle – he speaks of holding within himself the appreciation of and desire to create, divine music and yet, he must live with the reality of his inability to do so.

I believe many of us struggle with similar tensions, unrealized passions. I believe we often find ourselves frustrated by the limitations of our craft to contain something larger than us. Yet, I also believe that it is this desire to manifest something greater than ourselves that can make us truly a vessel of Divine love and empowerment. It is a reoccurring theme and one perhaps worth acknowledging…

Cup of Coffee and Quality Conversation

Yesterday I had a visit with a good friend of 5 years now. We met innocently enough at a local coffee house (Café Roche) and talked over hot coffee and warm pastries.

We spent about 2 hours together and I left with a bitter –sweet awareness.

The Sweet – We listened and talked to each other. We asked questions to better understand perspectives. We recalled life experiences and things we had read or seen to add depth and breadth to the conversation. We wondered together. We laughed, debated and shared silence together. I left feeling grateful for the time and stimulated in my thinking and creative passion.

The Bitter - I don’t have good, quality conversations of substance nearly often enough. I know I am busy at work and at home. I know the trend is for 140 character interactions, online chatting, blogging/commenting and trite verbal exchanges (and I’m very good at those – I’m just saying), but I wonder if there isn’t more to it.

Have we somehow developed into a culture where conversation has been replaced with brief proclamations and affirmations? Has the art of informed group inquiry (was there ever such an art) become too complicated, too time consuming? I think one of the reasons that I love sharing coffee with others – just about anyone – is that it slows things down and creates a moment for conversation. It is hard to be in a hurry when you are holding and trying to drink very HOT liquids!

My life needs more time for coffee and conversation, more space for debating, wondering with others. What about you? Care to join me for a cup of Joe?