Friday, June 3, 2011

The True Gentleman way...



One of my favorite surprises about marrying Katie was when I discovered that her dad, uncles and cousins all were alumni of the same social fraternity that I was in during College, Sigma Alpha Epsilon. The first time I met Bruce, I greeted him with the SAE handshake. We had a good laugh.

Although most people are surprised to hear that I was a "frat-boy", I have nothing but fond experiences in the fraternity. Although I was only active for 2 years before my outside curricular activities brought me in other directions, it was during this time that I met some incredible men of faith as well as men of folly. Yet, of all the shenanigans that take place within fraternal life, there are some great nuggets of gold that still remain from the high intentions of the founders. The founding fathers of most social fraternities were men of faith and strong character. Their greatest pursuits were ones of academic achievement, philanthropy, athletics, chivalry and character.

My pledge class was an incredibly diverse class of 13 random students ranging from ranchers, Marines, preps, jocks and me, the hippie-musician.One part of our pledge process was memorizing The True Gentleman Creed. It was these words that we were encouraged to live by.

To this day, these words still stick with me. I found myself reflecting on them recently and wanted to share them with you.

"The True Gentleman is the man whose conduct proceeds from good will and an acute sense of propriety, and whose self-control is equal to all emergencies; who does not make the poor man conscious of his poverty, the obscure man of his obscurity, or any man of his inferiority or deformity; who is himself humbled if necessity compels him to humble another; who does not flatter wealth, cringe before power, or boast of his own possessions or achievements; who speaks with frankness but always with sincerity and sympathy; whose deed follows his word; who thinks of the rights and feelings of others, rather than his own; and who appears well in any company, a man with whom honor is sacred and virtue safe."

John Walter Wayland
Virginia, 1899


The greatest challenge I have found in this charge is the tension of "speaking with frankness" while also being someone who "thinks of the rights and feelings of others, rather than his own." I am finding that typically when I speak frankly, I hurt other people's feelings. Yet, I do not believe that saying nothing in the hopes of saving face and being polite is the best alternative.

Anyone master this one yet?

1 comment:

  1. Wisdom often comes with age. You are very young. Sometimes saying nothing is the most kind and polite way to be. We don't always have to say whatever is on our minds for the sake of being honest. Sometimes speaking our minds is just a way to boast, and I've never believed in the "just being honest, here" as I think it is a way to hurt and hide our true desire to trumpet our own ideas and thoughts. If you are typically hurting feelings maybe you should rethink what your are saying "frankly" and reword your thoughts or stay silent. The creed puts others before your own desire to speak frankly.

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