World Poetry Day

The following e-mail was originally posted on March 21, 2018

Today, March 21, is World Poetry Day.  There are a great many poets but the poet that has had the most impact on my life may not have been a poet at all.  There is a famous quote attributed to the Unitarian minister Edward Everett Hale.  It reads:

“I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something; and because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do something that I can do.”

Somewhere in my teenage years, I came across this quote or something like it.  At the time, I did not know who said it, but in my idealistic youth it resonated with me so much that I created my own poem around it.  My poem reads:

I am only one
but I am one
I cannot do everything
but I can do something
What I can do 
I ought to do
and by the Grace of God
I will do

This poem has stayed with me all of my life and still resonates within me.  I wonder what poems resonate within you.   

Peace,

Everett "Skip" Jenkins

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Thought Manifests As The Word

The following e-mail was originally posted on February 26, 2018 Harold, Thank you for these posts.  They appear to me to be getting at the "heart" of the matter.  I seem to recall that we must love our enemies as much as we love ourselves.  Sometimes, it seems to me that we forget to do that.  I suppose that is why I wanted to develop a calendar of Holidays and Holy Days that incorporates the holidays and holy days of those we tend to despise and who we tend not to even know.  By making it a daily habit of considering the beliefs of others, perhaps, we can begin to more fully understand the foundation of our own beliefs. A few years ago, Meryl Streep starred in a movie entitled "The Iron Lady", a biopic about the British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.  In that movie Streep quotes Thatcher as saying: Watch your thoughts, for they become words. Watch your words, for they become actions. Watch your actions, for they become habits. Watch your h...
Read more

Reflections on Harold Haizlip, The Sweeter the Juice, and the Need for Reconciliation

The following email thread was originally posted on July 17, 2018 As indicated below, I recently read about the passing of Harold Haizlip, Class of 1957.  Receiving the news about the passing of Harold Haizlip, caused me to go back into my email archive to review some of the emails I wrote during my discussion about his wife's book,  The Sweeter the Juice , the story of how a number of her relatives passed for white and abandoned their black relatives for many years.  For those who may be interested in the story and its message, I commend to you Shirlee Haizlip's  The Sweeter the Juice ,  For those who wonder what impact the book had on me, I commend to you the following and pray that some solace and hope is derived. Peace, Everett "Skip" Jenkins ********************************************************************************************************************************* From: skipjen2865 < skipjen2865@aol.com > Date: July 17, 2...
Read more

Valhalla Responses: Part One

Image
The following email was originally posted on July 27, 2018 I happened to have gone to college with a group of extraordinary guys.  The email thread on my "Valhalla" post shows some of what always amazed me about them. Peace, Everett "Skip" Jenkins -----Original Message----- From: skipjen2865 < skipjen2865@aol.com > Sent: Fri, Jul 27, 2018 11:48 am Subject: Re: [AMHERST-1975] Valhalla Wonders never cease.  It is a small world after all ... and, it seems, that we are all connected in one way or another. Skip -----Original Message----- From: Andy Sent: Fri, Jul 27, 2018 10:55 am Subject: Re: [AMHERST-1975] Valhalla I thought every Amherst alum, especially those from the mid-70s, knew that Cullen Murphy '74 wrote the Prince Valiant comic strip for decades, first with his late father and then continuing it himself.  And Cullen recently served years as president of Amherst's Trustees, so alums of all generations wou...
Read more