For my son...on his 18th birthday

Today my son, Erik, is 18. Today our culture pronounces him "adult" and "mature." He is able to vote, join the army, buy a gun and purchase any drink his wallet will allow. :)

But legal maturity is only one aspect of maturation. There is also physical, practical, and moral maturity. These seem to come at different ages. I have seen kids who physically matured at 13 and some 40 year olds that still haven't come to practical maturity. Chronology has very little to do with moral maturity, as well. Oftentimes, 7 year olds understand morality and ethics better than adults.

I was listening to a lecture recently on "virtus" and the importance it played in the development of the Roman Republic. "Virtus," translated to the English "virtue" has as its root the word "vir," meaning "man." The picture it protrays is that to be virtuous is to be a "man of honor." As I think about this process of a boy becoming a man I want my son to realize that chronology doesn't make a man. "Virtus" does. Honor. Integrity. Nobility. Wisdom. These are the things that seperate the men from the boys.

Many times I have pointed my son to the following poem, written by Rudyard Kipling. Kipling wrote this tender poem for his own son and I don't think I can improve on it.

Happy Birthday, Erik...Ad virtutem per sapientiam

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 imposters 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 wornout 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 breath 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!