Duty is the principle thing

When I was young, I didn’t really understand or appreciate my elders commenting on the fact that there were more of their friends and family members in eternity than here on earth. Now, as I’m well past middle age, I can appreciate that statement.

(On middle age, how many 114-year-old people do you know? I remember hearing Elisabeth Elliot comment on that nearly 25 years ago and understand it more now.)

Elisabeth Elliot, a writer, speaker and widow of a martyred missionary, was a powerful influence on me. My friends and I traveled to hear her speak whenever she was anywhere close to Northwest Arkansas. I’ve read all of her books. Her death this past week was like losing a cherished elder relative.

She commended discipline, duty and disdained frivolity and self-pity.

“Who in here is from a dysfunctional family?” she asked at one speaking engagement. Some of the hundreds of women there raised their hands. Others did not. She then said: “Those of you who didn’t are in denial.”

She then went on to point out that we humans are fallible creatures, each with flaws, weaknesses, strengths. Families are comprised of people. Some families function better than others. Those who function best are made up of adults who recognize their own fallibility and weakness, are prepared to discipline themselves, sacrifice for the greater good and deny themselves immediate gratification for eternal good.

Adults must discipline themselves in order for their discipline of their children to be effective. Discipline is not necessarily punishment! Discipline involves both training and teaching — training in good habits and behavior and teaching the mind and will.

Again and again today, I see adults who act like juveniles — like 2-year-olds with no restraint. They seem to live their lives based on the old statement: “If it feels good, do it.” That is foolish advice. Better advice is what Lord Horatio Nelson (1758-1805) said: “England expects that every man will do his duty.”

And, the admiral also said: “Duty is the great business of a sea officer; all private considerations must give way to it, however painful it may be.”

If a sea officer, a citizen of a country should do his duty, how much more imperative for a father, a mother who rules a home and tomorrow’s citizens and leaders to rule themselves and their home teaching their children responsibility, honor and duty?

Editor’s note: Annette Beard is the managing editor of The Times of Northeast Benton County, chosen the best small weekly newspaper in Arkansas for five of the past six years. A native of Louisiana, she moved to northwest Arkansas in 1980 to work for the Benton County Daily Record. She has nine children, four sonsin-law, six grandsons, two granddaughters and another grandson due in August. She can be reached at abeard@ nwaonline.com.