Don't Quit!

Some of you may know that April is National Poetry Month.  At Thunderbird, that usually means a month of celebrating poetry and our Annual Poetry Writing Competition.  Each week the English department teachers (Ms. Turk and myself) challenge our students to submit poems and then we choose winners, one from each class, who get beautiful journals for their future creative writing endeavors.  Then, at the end of the month, we choose a grand prize winner along with 1^st and 2^nd place writers who receive gift cards to Barnes & Noble.  Not a bad way to celebrate one of the loveliest but often most challenging of writing forms!

In keeping with our Thunderbird focus on poetry, I thought I’d share an encouraging poem with you along with a few verses from the notable Biblical poet, the psalmist David.  The poem comes to us from a 19^th century national favorite who was so famous and beloved during his lifetime that his picture hung in every schoolroom and families read his poems around the fireside.  A Quaker and an abolitionist, John Greenleaf Whittier grew up on a humble farm north of Boston and learned to love poetry in a small schoolroom where, years, later, his portrait would hang.  Today, we might say his poetry is a little simple, a little uncomplicated, but it is exactly because of his simplicity and straightforwardness that this poem works for us in a time that is anything but simple and straightforward.  It brings with it encouragement that is exactly what we need right now:

Don’t Quit

When things go wrong as they sometimes will,
When the road you're trudging seems all up hill,
When the funds are low and the debts are high
And you want to smile, but you have to sigh,
When care is pressing you down a bit,
Rest if you must, but don't you quit.
Life is strange with its twists and turns
As every one of us sometimes learns
And many a failure comes about
When he might have won had he stuck it out;
Don't give up though the pace seems slow—
You may succeed with another blow.
Success is failure turned inside out—
The silver tint of the clouds of doubt,
And you never can tell just how close you are,
It may be near when it seems so far;
So stick to the fight when you're hardest hit—
It's when things seem worst that you must not quit.

Hundreds of years earlier, the Biblical poet David put his hopes and fears, his joys and tears into a verse form we now call the Psalms.  During his life, his emotions ran the gamut of all that and more.  A common shepherd-turned-king, he knew just about every situation and challenge that life could throw at you but always—sometimes later than sooner—found his solace and his energy in the Lord.  Just when he was about to quit, he would turn his thoughts towards God and find the comfort and strength he needed to get through whatever challenge he was facing.  The result would unfailingly be success and he would find himself needing to praise God with a song.  He describes it this way in Psalm 28:7 (The Message):

Blessed be God—
    he heard me praying.
He proved he’s on my side;
    I’ve thrown my lot in with him.

Now I’m jumping for joy,
    and shouting and singing my thanks to him.

The psalmist David and the poet Whittier, through their lyrical words, have important advice for us today as we face situations that are frightening and discouraging:  pray to God and don’t quit.  Those, in fact, are words to live by.