Seeking Understanding

My son Drew shared some neat scriptures with me this morning that I want to pass along.  I am giving a talk on Sunday in church about the first and second great commandments and the impression I have is to speak simply, directly.  

To make sure I am not "going off" on one of my philosophical tangents.  

These words he felt prompted to share from the scriptures reiterated the importance of speaking to be understood and not just to be heard:

1 Corinthians 14:8 For if the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to the battle?

 9 So likewise ye, except ye utter by the tongue words easy to be understood, how shall it be known what is spoken? for ye shall speak into the air.

 10 There are, it may be, so many kinds of voices in the world, and none of them is without signification.

 11 Therefore if I know not the meaning of the voice, I shall be unto him that speaketh a barbarian, and he that speaketh shall be a barbarian unto me...

 19 Yet in the church I had rather speak five words with my understanding, that by my voice I might teach others also, than ten thousand words in an unknown tongue. (Ironic message to me for a Sunday talk, eh :D?)

These scriptures, combined with my recent musings (and post) about temperance made me think about the poem I have hanging next to my kitchen sink.  I love it.  I try to remind myself of the virtue that is possible by becoming more the person described in the poem, as Rudyard writes in such profound wisdom to his son.

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

I thought I would share them just in case someone else needed these reminders today as I did.  Maybe through speaking and listening with the intent to be understanding and understood, I can develop that elusive temperance :D.