"If" Words to live by

This last week I was reminded of the first line from Rudyard Kipling's famous poem "If". "If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs, and blaming it on you,"...

So maybe not all about me were losing theirs, just one. Words are powerful things, whether spoken or written. I needed to choose mine carefully, and it made all the difference. I love words. I wish I had more time to write. or maybe energy? Don't know.
I helped put up the Memorial Day flags this morning at 6:30am in a pouring rain. It'a beautiful patriotic sight.

This is just out the front door.

We've asked our sons to memorize the poem "If". The two missionaries have taken it with them, because we have said to them, "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!"