The Eagle Oath

Recently I was privileged to be in attendance at the Eagle Court of Honor for Ed Parker [name has been changed], a young man in one of the wards that I am currently serving. I went only to support him and expected to have no noteworthy experiences- I must admit that, as I was once a Less-Active member of the LDS Church, to some extent I might be considered a Less-Active Boy Scout. Instead, however, I was pleasantly shocked to be touched by many comments and stories made, and learn from the whole experience.

I received some interesting thoughts, some of which I will weave into my posts in days to come, but the real turning point was when the time came for all of the other Eagles to arise and sit in the Eagle's Nest. Despite my complete departure from Scouting soon after I received my own Eagle I was nevertheless an Eagle, as always I will be, and I went up with my companion to sit there beside two other men in our corner of the room, and about eight others total. We sat there to show Ed Parker, the other boy receiving his Eagle, and every younger boy there who was or might one day be on the path to Eagle, that they were not alone and that we had gone before him. Just as others had gone before us and paved a path of example for us to follow, so too did we pick up a few stray rocks that had come onto the path to make the way clear for them. Just as they will do themselves, when as men they sit in the Eagle's Nest for a boy who may not even yet be alive. 

At that time I had the opportunity to recite the Eagle Oath with my fellow Eagles and those two boys that would momentarily join our ranks. The time that I first said it, very soon before my eighteenth birthday, I was exhausted. It had been an ordeal after moving to get all of the necessary paperwork from disorganized people back where I had moved from to less-than-motivated people where I was now living, and if it weren't for a single very helpful Scout Leader I doubt that I would have kept pushing it forward. While in both places that I had lived Scouting was not dead, neither could it be said to be thriving and jumping about. So after many years of working after one badge and then another without much enthusiasm, and coming to meeting after meeting to see that not even the leadership was present, I had decided that I had earned my rest, upon getting my Eagle, and resigned from an experience that felt less an adventure than a Great War of paperwork. 

I must be clear that half of it was my fault, as it was when I was Less-Active in the Church in my later years. It was not my choice how others acted, but it was my own responsibility to decide how I would feel about it and what I would do after. Reciting the Eagle Oath made me realize this, and I want to again affirm it, this time not with my voice but with words that will stay for as long as this blog does. 

I reaffirm my allegiance to the three promises of the Scout Oath.

I thoughtfully recognize and take upon myself the obligations and responsibilities of an Eagle Scout. On my honor, I will do my best to make my training an example and my status and my influence count strongly for better Scouting and for better citizenship in my troop, in my community, and in my contacts with other people.

To this I pledge my sacred honor.

This I state not to any authority in the BSA, or to anyone that reads this blog, but to God, and the standard by which I measure my example, and how I influence the world as an Eagle Scout, will be determined not by what others expect of the Eagle Scout that I am but what God expects.