The Oath of a Knight
LONG YEARS AGO, I TOOK THE OATH OF A KNIGHT (and retake it each new year). This is not a frivolous pledge but an all-consuming way of life, at the heart of which lie some qualities which are not promoted so commonly today, such as honour, duty, diligence, self-scrutiny, charity, grace, empathy, compassion, etc. For my oath, I adapted a 1000 year-old medieval Knight’s Code of Chivalry and have sworn to exercise it with conscientious dedication. Here it is:
“Exercise bravery, courtesy, honour, and gallantry. Respect the honour and sacredness of women. Take no thought for what others think of you (unless they have correctly judged you to have misbehaved). Do not readily cause offence (unless harmful influences need to be overturned). Protect the weak and defenceless. Fight for the good welfare of all. Eschew any kind of unfairness, meanness and deceit. Speak the truth at all times, seasoned with grace. Persevere to the end in any enterprise with all diligence, once begun. Seek no monetary reward but let it come to you according to the grace you are accorded by higher powers. In all things, live by honour and for the greater glory of the good in this world”.
Heaven knows I have made mistakes big and small (and still do, though always learning) and sometimes I’ve forgotten who I am and to what I am sworn — though less as my years have ripened. But we live in strange times in which the diligent soul is bombarded on all sides with distractions from the heart of living and from being truly human. This is also a time of huge transformation, in which we are called to a higher state of being which is the very opposite of much that we have learned and by which we have been culturally-conditioned. This is not so much daunting as exciting and of which it is a privilege to be a part. “Tous pour un et un pour tous”!
The Naked Troubadour 