THOUGHTFUL ITEMS FOR SCOUTERS

Thanks to Scouter Jim from Bountiful, Utah, who prepares this section of Baloo for us each month.  You can reach him at bobwhitejonz@juno.com or through the link to write Baloo on www.usscouts.org.   CD

Roundtable Prayer

CS Roundtable Planning Guide

For the rich soil in which grows food,

For the harvest large and good,

For animals and plants alike,

We thank Thee, Lord, Amen.

“Wheat, Wheat”

Scouter Jim, Bountiful UT

In the Christian Bible in the Gospel of Matthew, 13^th Chapter, Jesus Christ gives the parable of the “Wheat and the Tares.”  A evil man had planted weeds among the Master’s wheat.  When his servants came to him and asked what they should do, he said,  “Leave the weeds until harvest time and then gather them up and burn them and put the wheat in my barn.”

One hundred and fifty years ago there was a western lawman, named Orrin Porter Rockwell.  He was a Deputy United States Marshal in the Utah Territory.  He had long flowing hair and a long beard.  He had been promised by his religious leader friend; “Cut not thy hair, and no bullet or blade can harm thee!"   He was as famous for his long hair and beard, as he was for his War cry, “Wheat, wheat!”  His cry went on, “The wheat shall live and the tares shall die!”  This cry was based on the parable told by Jesus as recorded in St. Matthew.  Ole Port was feared by outlaws, because they knew if they crossed him, he would always catch up with them.  A outlaw would not escape with Ole Port on his tale.

When the wind would blow at night through the trees of the west, it would make a sound like Ole Port’s war cry,  “Wheat.”  Little ones would imagine Ole Port making his way through the night in his buckboard, chasing some scoundrels or outlaws.   The story is told of a young boy asking his mother, “Mom, boys who don’t mind their ma’s, are they wheat or tares.”

As Scouting leaders we are growing a crop of boys.  This month’s theme, “Down on the Farm,” is a reminder of that.  There are those wicked ones around us that would be try to make tares out of our wheat.  They peddle the evil influences of gangs and drugs.  Even at the tender age of our boys it is important to protect our Wheat.

There are others who would come as wolves among our lambs and destroy them emotionally, physically, and morally.  It is important that every Scout Leader understands and practices “Youth Protection” and is vigilant in watching over their charges.  Remember the cry of “Wheat, Wheat,” and what it means to us, as Scouting Leaders, today.

Quotations

Quotations contain the wisdom of the ages, and are a great source of inspiration for Cubmaster’s minutes, material for an advancement ceremony or an insightful addition to a Pack Meeting program cover.

Only he can understand what a farm is, what a country is, who shall have sacrificed part of himself to his farm or country, fought to save it, struggled to make it beautiful. Only then will the love of farm or country fill his heart  Antoine de Saint-Exupery

A wealthy landowner cannot cultivate and improve his farm without spreading comfort and well-being around him. Rich and abundant crops, a numerous population and a prosperous countryside are the rewards for his efforts.” 
Antoine Lavoisier

We all have hometown appetites. Every other person is a bundle of longing for the simplicities of good taste once enjoyed on the farm or in the hometown [he or she] left behind.  Clementine Paddleford

Physically there is nothing to distinguish human society from the farm-yard except that children are more troublesome and costly than chickens and calves and that men and women are not so completely enslaved as farm stock.  George Bernard Shaw

Beside all the moral benefit which we may expect from the farmer’s profession, when a man enters it considerately, this promised the conquering of the soil, plenty, and beyond this, the adorning of the country with every advantage and ornament which labor, ingenuity, and affection for a man’s home, could suggest.   Ralph Waldo Emerson

But the doctrine of the Farm is merely this, that every man ought to stand in primary relations to the work of the world, ought to do it himself, and not to suffer the accident of his having a purse in his pocket, or his having been bred to some dishonorable and injurious craft, to sever him from those duties.  Ralph Waldo Emerson

The farmer stands well on the world. Plain in manners as in dress, he would not shine in palaces; he is absolutely unknown and inadmissible therein; living or dying, he never shall be heard of in them; yet the drawing-room heroes put down beside him would shrivel in his presence; he solid and unexpressive, they expressed to gold-leaf. 
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Farmers are philosophical. They have learned that it is less wearing to shrug than to beat their breasts.   Ruth Stout

Farming looks mighty easy when your plow is a pencil, and you're a thousand miles from the corn field.  
Dwight D. Eisenhower.

There are only three things that can kill a farmer: lightning, rolling over in a tractor, and old age.  Bill Bryson

The first farmer was the first man. All historic nobility rests on the possession and use of land.  Ralph Waldo Emerson

Life on a farm is a school of patience; you can't hurry the crops or make an ox in two days.   Henri Alain

Agriculture is the earliest and most honorable of arts. Rousseau

The glory of the farmer is that, in the division of labors, it is his part to create. All trade rests at last on his primitive activity. He stands close to Nature; he obtains from the earth the bread and the meat. The food which was not, he causes to be.   Ralph Waldo Emerson

I am not bound for any public place, but for ground of my own where I have planted vines and orchard trees, and in the heat of the day climbed up into the healing shadow of the woods.   Wendell Berry

Man - despite his artistic pretensions, his sophistication, and his many accomplishments - owes his existence to a six inch layer of topsoil and the fact that it rains. Unknown

To own a bit of ground, to scratch it with a hoe, to plant seeds, and watch the renewal of life - this is the commonest delight of the race, the most satisfactory thing a man can do.  Charles Dudley Warner

A Leader's Resolution

National Capital Area Council

I shall study my boys so that I may understand them.

I shall like my boys so that I can help them.

I shall learn - for they have much to teach me.

I shall laugh - for youth grow comfortable with laughter

I shall give myself freely, yet I shall take,
so that they may acquire the habit of giving.

I shall be a friend - for a friend is needed.

I shall lead - yet I shall be aware of pushing.

I shall listen- for a listener prevents combustion.

I shall warm them when my experience warrants it.

I shall command when actions merit it.

I shall overlook mistakes- yet I will not blame them.

Lastly, I shall try to be that which I hope they think I am.

A Heap Of Care And Patience

Heart of America Council

It takes a heap of working with a boy to make a man.

A heap of care and patience, and you’ve got to understand

That he won’t be any better than you were as a lad,

Unless a spark is kindled to show him what is bad.

He looks to you for guidance, and he looks to you with pride.

It’s up to you to demonstrate, you can’t just let it slide.

For with that eager mind of his, he watches you each day

Judges you by what you do, not just by what you say.