The Return of the Gentleman

I was reading about the efforts of a growing group of women on college campuses called the Network of Enlightened Women.  enlightenedwomen.org This group has raised the troubling prospect that gentlemen may be an endangered species on college campuses.  To encourage men to be gentlemen they have started the Gentlemen's Showcase on campuses around the country.  The group takes nominations of students who have shown gentlemanly qualities and honor them with a competition and recognition for their efforts of etiquette, politeness, respectfulness and chivalry.  So hats off to the ladies of the Network of Enlightened Women.

I found the below video on You Tube. While it is not associated with the enlightened ladies in anyway, I thought that it captured gentlemanly virtues in a motivational way.  Enjoy!

LABOR DAY

It behooves every man to remember that the work of the critic is of altogether secondary importance, and that in the end, progress is accomplished by the man who does things.   -- Theodore Roosevelt

To work is to do. Theodore Roosevelt referred to the group of people who got up daily and worked as the "Fellowship of the Doers." As he stated he had a "great admiration for men who were fearless and could hold their own in the world." He had a great desire to be like them. Dietrich Bonhoeffer likewise saw Christianity as a the call to to be in action, to be a "doer," and not just a person who embraced the notion of Christ as the Son of God as a mere idea which had no effect on our lives. As Bonhoeffer saw it we were to be transformed into action by our faith. 

But what is it that stops us from going out and doing the work. Too often it is the fear of doing, the fear of the critics who will judge our work, and may ultimately judge us as a failure. We must be aware though that it is not the critics who create the world, it is those who see the work and get it done. So on this Labor day weekend 2011, look around in your world, see the work to be done, pick up your jack hammer, and join the "fellowship of the doers." Best to you in all of your endeavors.

Sometimes Let Instinct Lead

When I go out of the house for a walk, uncertain as yet whither I will bend my steps, and submit myself to my instinct to decide for me, I find, strange and whimsical as it may seem, that I finally and inevitably settle south-west, toward some particular wood or meadow or deserted pasture or hill in that direction. -- Henry David Thoreau -- Walking

Cy Twombly an accomplished and somewhat controversial artist passed away at age 83 recently.  A contemporary of Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns, Twombly's works were known for their abstract expression often times on canvases painted to look like chalk scribbling on a black board or graffiti on a wall.   Yet to me the experience of his art went beyond simply seeing doodle, scribbles or graffiti, but instead evoked a base feeling -- something akin to child's view of the world combined with contours, both good and bad, that come from the experience of life's joys and disappointments. Check out his work and several excellent articles at:http://www.cytwombly.info/

 

LIVE, LIVE, LIVE -- LIFE IS A BANQUET AND MOST POOR SUCKERS ARE STARVING TO DEATH -- AUNTIE MAME



Auntie Mame is a great movie from the 1950's about a woman who goes through many stages in life -- all of them lived to the fullest.  Her motto was to Live, Live, Live.  It is a great motto, but its nice to keep it in perspective with Hemmingway's comments on living life to the fullest.

In the novel "The Sun Also Rises" Earnest Hemmingway has the following exchange which does a good job of depicting how difficult it is to live life to the fullest:

[Cohn:]“I can’t stand it to think my life is going so fast and I’m not really living it.”
[Jake:] “Nobody ever lives their life all the way up except bull-fighters.”

Indeed living life all the way up can be a dangerous prospect. For an excellent article from Sports Illustrated dated 1955 concerning the life of a Matador click on the below link.
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1130077/index.htm

Dare Mighty Deeds and Avoid the Gray Twilight

“Far better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checked by failure...than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in a gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.”  Theodore Roosevelt

Good Friday: Sacrifice and Remembrence

Since the first century Christianity has set aside the Friday before Easter as being a holy day of remembering the sacrifice that Jesus made through his death on the cross.  Beginning in the fourth century it was referred to as Holy or Great Friday.  In the sixth century the church at Rome officially dubbed the day Good Friday. 

It is a day of grieving the death of Jesus and the evil that besets the world even still today. It is a good day to stop think, meditate and pray.  Consider what you can do to carry on his mission and through  personal sacrifice bring love to others.