Prayer and the Scoutmaster: The Spiritual Role of the Scout Leader / Mentor with Selected Prayers

By Phillip Eldridge Williams

The glaring question here is what does Prayer have to do with whatever Scoutmaster is. This book is the effort to show that they, indeed, are one and the same. From the Oath, On my honor I will do my best to do my duty to God and my country to the last point of the Scout Law being Reverent, Williams examines the ins and outs of the intricacies of prayer: How to listen, how to help others listen and the temptations that have plagued mankind from the beginning to look elsewhere for his answers when, indeed, they are as close as breathing and nearer than hands or feet.
One may have little knowledge of the Boy Scouts of America, but what you see in this definition of prayer will either confirm your faith or challenge you to grow in the exercise of the same.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Mar 19, 2012
• ISBN: 9781469170299

Phillip Eldridge Williams

The author holds the Master of Divinity degree from Duke Divinity School and the Silver Beaver Award in the Boy Scouts of America. After serving thirty-four years in the ministry of the United Methodist Church, the author and his wife Beverly have retired to live in a small modest home in Greensboro, North Carolina, where they deeply enjoy their little hideaway. He is an avid sailor, and on Monday’s, he can be found on the nearby lake hoisting the sail and manning the jib with his wife. The author’s goals are to continue to hike the Appalachian Trail, finish several writing projects, and shoot his age in a round of golf.

Book preview

A SCOUT IS REVERENT

Introduction

W HILE THE TWELFTH point of the law of Scouting was added last, it is synonymous with the first part of our oath: duty to God. It has been said that if we could get that part clear in our commitment that the rest, including the points of the law, would naturally follow. I believe this is inevitable. Just on the other hand, if one tries to fulfill the law without one’s doing their best to do their duty to God, they will only be playing games and creating barriers that only divide and cause antagonism. To be reverent is to be respectful of that which deserves respect. To revere that object is to consider it holy. To be holy is to value something beyond one’s ability to make it so. Like diamonds, they are valuable because they are so scarce and hard to replace if at all. To do one’s duty to God is to listen to one’s heart and soul, for it is created in the image of God and that is to be created in the image of love. But not just any fly-by-night love, a love that one needs in order to be trustworthy, loyal, helpful, etc. This love is best described as a covenant love as opposed to a contractual love. That would mean that this god loves us whether we love it or not. The Native American calls this god the Great Spirit. In the Judeo-Christian tradition, this god is referred to as Ayin , which in Hebrew means nothing but spirit. The spirit referred to here is how respectful are you to this kind of love.

The Great Spirit loves us in a way that we cannot, but precisely in the way we long to be loved and what is necessary to be trustworthy, loyal, helpful, courteous, etc. In our oath, this would be referred to in the words: On my honor, I will do my best to do my duty to God. The objective of character in Scouting is reflected and measured by what doing your best is. You don’t have to read far or much in E. T. Seton’s writing to find it over and over his primary motive in all that he taught was to build character. Baden-Powell also mentions the importance of character.

It must be noted and clear in our practice of this program we call Scouting that Seton took his cue as to how to go to the woods from the Native American. I put go to the woods in quotations because this would mean anywhere a Scout practices his oath. In the hallway, classroom, on the corner, in the family, and all the ways one interacts with society, i.e., relationships. Seton developed his Woodcraft Indian program with the philosophy of the Native American in mind. Peace and happiness to the Native American comes from being at one with the Great Spirit and cooperating with him. A spirit that is great refers to how one feels about themselves. What kind of spirit do you have: how do you feel about you? Remember that Scouting is listening to one’s soul and taking that listening I-will-do-my-best seriously. If one were to look to the Jesus of the Protestant faith, one would recognize that Jesus referred more than once to the greatest commandment, which was to love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, soul, mind, and strength and your neighbor as yourself. Then on another occasion, he speaks of prayer by saying that he and the Father were one and that he prayed that we would be one with the Father as he was. This is Great Spirit. God is also referred to as the great I Am. This Hebrew reference could also be translated: I will be who I will be. This would imply that God is who he is and wants us to be one with his ways for we are created in his image. St. Augustine wrote that we were created in his image, and we would not rest until we rested in him. The Native American brave was watched and valued by his Spirit and vision, not by how many successful hunts he went on or how well he rode his horse. A scoutmaster is a master at listening to his soul and that is prayer. He will resist the temptation to tell a Scout what his best effort is, but he will watch and provide all the program helps and merit badge opportunities for each boy and girl to wrestle with their honor. The successful Scouting program can be measured by how well that Eagle candidate answers that most important question at his Eagle board of review: In your own words, tell us what Scouting spirit is. Has he had an experience that focused on the building of character of helping that boy see the importance of listening to his soul and also helping his patrol members and den mates to also see how important it is to do our best. This would be prayer. Any activity must be overshadowed with the clear understanding of the need of prayer, for this is Scouting. That’s what an opening and closing at any Scouting function has in mind. When the Native American held council, they would always open with a dance, which is a prayer. In order to go into the day or work or war, our enemy would be how we see ourselves. Our concern is that we be trustworthy, loyal, and helpful, etc., in all our relationships that day. But the key understanding that Scouts have to offer each other and the neighborhood is that while they may fail, the Great Spirit continues to be who he is, a nonstop merciful, loving heavenly Father, the great I Am. This is why Seton did not like competition or winners or chiefs; everyone was a chief and a winner if they did their best.

There was much contention at that first Scout camp regarding incentive as well as now. Coup feathers were to represent how a Scout resisted the temptation to tell another Scout when he had done his best or allowed anyone else to tell him when he had done his best; this was holy ground.

Rank and merit badges should always be seen not as a winner or loser idea, but a recognition of the Great Spirit, which is the objective of the merit badge program in the first place, even though there was much disagreement then and since then associated with this very personal matter.

Seton had the vision that if he could get young impressionable minds of young boys and girls while in the camping environment with all the mystery of creation that he would teach, and the many merit badges would point out that a Scout could grow in believing what they saw, felt, heard. The troop, patrol, pack, and den crew were all to work toward that end: to help, council each other to listen to their soul, and to know that nothing was more important than that.

We have had the unfortunate practice of throwing the baby away with the bath water as regarding the role of the scoutmaster, and I mean the master at listening to one’s soul. Because many Scout leaders have felt inadequate to deal with faith matters, they just didn’t try. They were/are afraid to offend someone of a different religious persuasion. Religion is the act of trying to understand and act out what it means to relate to what one feels is worship worthy. No one is immune to this need. Seton knew this, and one of the great aspects of the Scouting vision was that they saw this program as a universal one and the proper word is catholic one, and of course, I’m not referring to the Roman Catholic Church. To be a Scout is to primarily be a praying person, and the Master Scout should be an example of this understanding. We have placed so much emphasis on incentive and growth that we have not developed the primary activity of Scouting, which is prayer, and developing a program with clear objectives to this end.

If God’s Word is the Holy Bible or the Torah or Koran, there are in each case prayer helps that one could use in their wrestling with their salvation. St. Paul writes, To work out one’s salvation with fear and trembling seriousness. Did you ever wonder why the book of Psalms is so long? There are 150 of them. These are prayers written for most every need. They are to be prayed as helps in the council of one’s desire to do their best to do their duty to God. One of the great Psalms that makes the point is Psalm 4 and verse 4. Stand in awe, and sin not. If one looks around and listens, sees, feels, smells, there must be a response to this question of being that will not go away: what can I make of this amazing phenomena? What do I make of it? One must come to some conclusion. This Creator God is merciful and steadfast in love, and in this light, we are humbled and made to answer to the truth of the matter. A troop, a pack, a church, a synagogue, a mosque is all to this end: to help one understand and live with being created in the image of God. To not do this is to agitate an already anxious condition. To take the youth to the woods and repeat the oath over and over as well as the points of the Scout law and not place a clear priority upon praying or listening to one’s soul is to play Scout by calling it Scouting, when in reality, we are using the oath for selfish ends. I might add as a pastor for thirty-four years that these same indictments apply to the church. I have said in other places that if those who call themselves Scouts and Master Scouts really knew what Scouting was, they might just want to get out of the program, and if those who were out of the program really knew what Scouting was, they just might want to get into the program.

Invocation is the recognition that because God is already here we must not take that for granted. We must be here also. By recognizing this blessing, we legitimize our meeting in his name. To desire a divine encounter, and that’s what it must be, we are reminded of the picture of the man Jesus praying in the Garden of Gethsemane to his Father, all on behalf of mankind and the immediate temptation that lay before him: the confused disciples and his people Israel and the agony of indeed going it alone. Character has been pointed out as E. T. Seton’s number 1 objective in all he taught and did, but before character, there was awareness. Even the Native American games were called games with a purpose and that purpose was always to teach awareness, focus, and yet, listening to one’s soul. He that hath eyes to see and ears to hear, let him hear. Jesus always separated by those who hear and those who do not. He even asked Peter that watershed question: Who do you say that I am? and that it was on this answer awareness that he would build his church and that church, the gates of hell would not prevail against it. We are told in other places to pray without ceasing, and to move and have our being in him. Again, let us note how the Native American prayed: he danced his prayer. This acting out their contrition, confession of need, and acting out their joy and hope gave affirmation to what they believed in their heart. When the Catholic missionaries tried to get the Indian to come to church on Sunday, they were met with much indifference and obstinance because the Indian had always worshiped at least every day and sometimes three times a day. Jesus said that even a cup of water in his name would gain entrance into the kingdom. This was acting out of one’s love as doing one’s best. In other words, when one takes a step, even a cup of water on behalf of a neighbor, he is given the power of release from his own strength to be trustworthy, loyal, helpful, etc., but it must be your duty to know what that would mean. Duty is the filling the place you were/are created to fill. Jesus responded to the wealthy man by saying that this day, your soul will be required of thee. Another good way to see this place, your place, is to look at it as your light. Let your light so shine before man that they might see your good works and glorify the Father who is in heaven. To be one with the Father is to know that happiness the Native American hoped for and the abundant joy Jesus spoke of that was what he came for.

The hope that Seton had was that each camper would grow in awareness and then in character to let their light shine in good citizenship represented in the twelve points of the Scout law. One of the great oversights in the Protestant Church, and religion in general, is to worship a dead Jesus or a historical Jesus only. This is why would-be believers get so upset when someone mentions inconsistencies in the Bible. The printed historical Jesus will stay in the grave if that is the only way one knows him. The only way to know abundant life and the glory of the Father is to lay one’s life down for his name’s sake that he might find life. Yes, Jesus ascended to the Father and sits on the his right hand, but he sent his Paraclete, his Holy Spirit to teach each of us what being in the world but not of it means. A Scout who listens to his soul as duty to God, and that’s the only way one is a Scout or does his/her best to do their duty to God follows him, hears his voice, and leans not unto their own understanding but acknowledges him in all that they do that he might direct their paths.

One of the greatest clear pieces of information given us in the written Word is the story of Peter’s vision and the revelation to him that the nature of God is to be one of no respecter of persons. Only God has this ability. To be a Scout is to do one’s duty to God, and that relationship, Great Spirit relationship, is reflected in the precise definition of a Cub master, scoutmaster, and the honorable Eagle Scout. Let us be reminded that a scoutmaster is one who has mastered the temptation of telling a Scout what their duty to God is. God works in all things for those who have eyes to see and ears to hear and who love him and are called according to his purpose. The need, therefore, is to see our need to pray and to do our best to do our duty to God. This day, your soul will be required of thee. Soul is your dust, and the breath of God is your relationship to trustworthiness, loyalty, and helpfulness and the spirit of Jesus beckons to all mankind, even if they don’t know him as Jesus. Paul tells us in Romans 1 that we are without excuse.

The Indian when they danced/prayed would do so with a foxtail and an eagle feather or buffalo horns, rattlers, which reminded them of the presence of the Great Spirit, the Creator God. We do the same thing in the Judeo-Christian tradition with the wine and bread at Holy Communion, thus Holy Communion. Just as the Indian was desiring to be one with the Great Spirit and confessing that he had maybe not done his/her best, we take the wine and bread into our body individually to cleanse and rejuvenate and inspire us anew.