A Boy Scouts Out… A Man Soaks In!

Tom Lehrer recognized why so many folks find purpose in Scouting. “Be prepared! That’s the Boy Scout’s marching song. Be prepared! As through life you march along.”

Be prepared to march along through life, we tell our boys. Do your best daily to follow the Twelve Points of the Scout Law. A Scout is: Trustworthy, Loyal, Helpful, Friendly, Courteous, Kind, Obedient, Cheerful, Thrifty, Brave, Clean and Reverent.

Quite a lot to take on, really. Yet the eyes of boys shine and smile, up, up, up and out. Most boys, with eyes not wise, don’t realize the depth and breadth of this promise, to do your best. Most boys don’t know that these promises flutter, out of hand, and wiggle along, out of breath, soaked in our draining, changing perspectives and purposes.

And a disclaimer: I’ll bet this is true for Girl Scouts and women, too. It’s just that I was a boy and now I’m a man. That’s the tub I’m soaking in.

First, the problem of “A Scout is”. There’s a difference between “is” and “trying to be”. Boys scout out life, an ideal, while men soak in it, flowing in a puddle-river-ocean. A boy makes simple choices, scouting out the “right thing to do”, based on his present moment. He is taught quite simply what he ought to be. He believes he already knows, and thus he is sure what it means to do his best daily.

But a man will realize these are best guesses. Lots to soak and stew in. To do his best daily requires trying and trials. And who gets to decide what’s best today anyway? …and is that what’s best for tomorrow? A man must choose again and again and again, based on changing thoughts and feelings, negotiating often conflicting perspectives along ever-changing winding ways.

A Scout is “Trustworthy”. A man has the opportunity, on his honor, to keep deciding what it means to be worthy. How to be here now. Trusted by whom? On my honor I get to choose, in fact I must choose, every day, how to be trusted and by whom. When and what comes first? Soaking in it, how can I do my best, daily, to be trusted and worthy, for myself…? for my family…? for my work…? for the Earth?

A Scout is “Loyal”. Same thing. A boy has a smaller set of loyalties and these seem static. A man gets to choose exactly to whom, when and how to be loyal — a serious balancing act. I heard a joke this morning: “Every morning I wake up pledging to save the world and have a good time, which makes planning the day very difficult!” But that’s no joke. Loyalty to all concerned is simply impossible.

I used to think I knew what it was to be “Helpful”. Sometimes it’s obvious, but sometimes I have been blindly hopeful, not actually helpful. For example, it seems pretty clear that the iconic image of a Scout helping a little old lady to cross the street safely is helpful, right? But a man extending “help” may be blindly condescending, even when intending to be befriending. What if the “lady” is a self-sufficient, perfectly-capable woman, thank you, who would prefer you simply back off buddy!

And what about intending to be befriending? “Friendly and Courteous” seem pretty straightforward, yet these can also shift swiftly. Adults learn that it’s sometimes tricky to be friendly and courteous, especially over time as relationships develop and deepen. Listening carefully and letting go is required, in order to balance our childish self-indulgent interests of what it means to be friendly and courteous with what is actually best for our friends and loved ones. How can I best offer, in a truly generous manner, the courtesies a friend wants and needs at a particular moment? When to let them alone, and when to intervene, in order that they may do their best daily.

“Kind” seems pretty easy to define, but, like friendly and courteous, it’s a moving target. You may know that loving kindness is a traditional Buddhist concept (metta), that implies acting with compassion toward all sentient beings, with an awareness and appreciation of the natural world. This is a beautiful balancing of self, other, and surroundings, with the generous goal of letting go of attachments to particular things and particular outcomes.

Loving kindness requires compassion for the attachments of others, while maintaining awareness and appreciation of the bigger picture, doing our best daily, whatever that means to us here and now. Riding a wavy gravy of furry fury, fiery wiry down and dirty, sandy candy paths, windy ways, windy sunsets blowing the soiled hot wet breath of now.

Obedient to what? “Obedience” is a flip of “Loyalty” and, like all of the 12 Points of the Scout Law, it requires choices. Ultimately it’s impossible to be obedient to all that we love, to follow and satisfy all of our concerns and all concerned.

“Cheerful” fits with loving kindness pretty well. To keep it short, the rest of the 12 Points, “Thrifty”, “Brave”, “Clean” and “Reverent”, overlap as much as the others, shifting and conflicting over time and context. The multiplicity of our various perspectives and those of others, when considered, are mirrored in many possibilities, many choices of how to do your best daily.

So, for a boy, the 12 Points of the Scout Law are important concrete truths, to be considered carefully and to be strived for in earnest. For a boy these concepts are pure love, static, a goal scouted in the fixed distance.

A man soaks in all of these, sometimes dissolving and not solving. Sometimes boiling, trying to learn, to stay cool. Sometimes frozen, needing warmth to melt, to cry. Sometimes drowning and struggling to breathe. Sometimes lolling, rolling in hot wet joy, in comfort, wearing love, preparing love, sharing love. Caring.

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