Chivalry
	In discussing chivalry, we always come up with the same problem -- what exactly is it? People familiar with King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table know that a chivalrous act usually involved someone (usually a damsel) in distress and a brave knight who comes to the rescue. A battle almost always erupts and sometimes the good guy wins. Many times it seemed that the bravery itself was more important than the outcome. And maybe it was. Could it be that chivalry is in knowing what to do in a given situation and then having the courage to act without regard to the outcome? Could it be that chivalry has more to do with what we are on the inside than what we appear to be on the outside? Could it be that our motives are the truly important things after all? I say that the answers to these questions are all "YES!" Chivalry is the courage to act based on an ideal code of ethics regardless of the outcome or the opinions of others. But I don't believe that chivalry can be limited to the major battles of life. In society today, we don't see many physical battles in defence of a lady. Not many knights charge at each other in tournements anymore. What I am talking about are the little decisions we have to make every day that involve choosing between doing the proper thing or doing what the world expects. For example: We all know that a gentleman opens the door for a lady (all women are assumed to be ladies). Yet we know that some women resent such courtesies because they relate it to "male domination" of the female. This means that the gentleman runs the risk of being insulted or perhaps even slapped for doing the proper thing. Does that mean that the next time a lady approaches a door that the gentleman stands back and lets her open it herself. (A true lady would allow the gentleman to do the proper thing, but not require it.) No true gentleman would let one defeat prevent him from doing the right thing the next time. The code of chivalry should be inflexible. The basic principles are unchangeable. We are the ones who have to bend and change to attempt to meet the demands of chivalry. Chivalry is an ideal and, as such, is unfortunately unreachable. The ideal is as unattainable as the Ten Commandments. The question you are probably asking yourself now is, "Well, if the ideals of chivalry are impossible to reach, why do we try?" But that is just the point! The ideals of chivalry are unattainable and they should be. It is the striving toward the ideal that makes us better people. Just as the struggle that an oak tree has to go through as it pushes itself out of the ground makes the tree stronger and taller, struggling to be chivalrous in thought and deed is going to make us stronger and better. The more we push toward being more honourable or being more courteous or being more brave or being more loyal, the more these things become the natural thing to do. As we practice these virtues, we are more likely to BE virtuous. Will we ever be perfect? No -- but we can always be better today than we were yesterday. One thing you may notice about the ideals of chivalry is that they concern our treatment of other people. To be honourable means to treat other people fairly and to keep our word when we promise something. It also means that we are willing to admit our mistakes and ask forgiveness. We don't attempt to cover up mistakes and hope no one notices. First, we tell the other person without mincing words that we have screwed up and that we will do what we can to correct the matter. Then we ask for forgiveness without expecting it. Finally, we take whatever comes. To be courageous is easy when no one else is involved. It is when we have to deal with other people that we sometimes get terrified and run. But to have courage (to be brave) does not mean that we don't have fear. Fear is a good thing. A person who plunges into an unknown situation without fear is a fool. It is when we plunge in in spite of the fear that we are brave. It is that pushing beyond fear that is considered courage. To be generous has little to do with giving other people money, though there may be times when that would be the best thing to do. It is the things we do for others without regard to what we get in return that has any real value in the world. A chivalrous person should have giving so firmly planted in their very being that it is natural for them to help other people. It should be considered our duty as human beings to help other human beings. The idea is to make them better or happier or more comfortable just because we can, not because we must. To be forgiving is probably one of the most important things we can do as human beings. We hear it all the time, "Everybody makes mistakes." A gentleman should be ready to forgive any offence against him without hesitation in the same way that God forgives us. But, you will notice, God can't forgive us until we ask for it. We can't forgive others if they don't believe they have committed an offence against us. We should have forgiveness ready and waiting for them anyway. Along with forgiveness for offences should come forgiveness of debts. In other words, we should never hold anyone indebted to us for anything (money, favours, our favourite garden tool, etc). If we loan something out and they give it back, that's fine; if we don't get it back, that's fine too. A gentleman never asks for the return of something loaned. At least we know where we can find it if we need to borrow it ourselves. To be loyal can cover most areas of our lives. It will involve loyalty to our spouse, to our children, to our boss, to our president (we don't have to agree to be loyal), to our king or queen, to our friends, and to God. It means that when someone else's back is against the wall, our back goes against the wall with them. Chivalry is like food. We can't eat all the food in the world, but the part that we do get does us a lot of good. We will never be 100 percent chivalrous; we will never do the right thing every single time. But what we will be is much better today than we were yesterday. Today we will be more likely to do the right thing than we were yesterday. We can make the rest of the world better by making ourselves better. As a teenager in the 60s, I believed that I could change the whole world by convincing the world to think like me. As an adult, I found that the rest of the world was trying to convince me to think like it. (Bummer!) Then I discovered that the world seemed to change when I changed. I suppose that this is one of the mysteries of the universe. Nevertheless, it was true. I can change me and that seems to be the whole point of chivalry. In the end, it all boils down to how you have treated the rest of the world -- not how the rest of the world has treated you. So, what is chivalry? Here is my definition. It is the ideal code of ethical behaviour, ultimately based on scripture, that defines the limits of proper action toward other people. The Biblical definition is "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." Let's make the world a nicer place by doing the proper thing for the simple reason that it is the proper thing. http://www.alltel.net/~rpage/define.htm