Finding Courage



Courage is grace under fire. --Hemingway

Life itself, the very act of living, takes courage. When love is the rarest quantity on earth and every action involving other people seems like war, you must dig deep to find the strength and the boldness to go on.

During WWII, the British were under air attack by German forces. The year was 1939, and these attacks were brutal and relentless. Many lives were lost. Thanks be to God that some of the brave men who fought during that war lived to tell of how they found the courage to move forward when it seemed that their entire world was literally crumbling around them.

On the Military Channel yesterday in a documentary series entitled The World at War, I listened as one brave British soldier described how it felt to routinely hear each morning of many, many friends and comrades being killed while flying above Britain and fighting to stay alive and save their people and country. He said that it became so routine and so astonishingly predictable that they simply had to deal with it as "business as usual." He said that they would say to one another upon hearing the grave news, "Ah well, old so-and-so has had it. That's that, I suppose." While this may sound crushingly indifferent, you have to understand that to survive, these men had to accept their losses courageously. And sometimes courage means hardening oneself to circumstances.

Anytime we face adversity, we are tested for courage. My greatest moments of adversity occured inside a prison cell. And having courage at that point was the difference between life and death for me. To survive imprisonment, one must take a hard, cold look at the circumstances and adapt to them rather quickly, or else, one will crack up. That's that. 

Living inside a cage will test everything you are, and nothing in life can compare to it. But if you do survive it, you have got some courage in you. That is for sure. So, for me personally, no matter what I face--brutes who try to steal from me, bosses who turn out to be lying criminals, lovers who stab me in the back, sickness that is killing in its power--no matter any of these, I have courage to face them. And the fact that I am still standing is a miracle of courage.

The only things I write about are the things I know, and I know this: Never assume you have courage until you've run the gauntlet. Never back away from the gauntlet once you have it before you. And never act like you have it all under control if you don't. Fear is a useful gift. If you are afraid, you may survive your Waterloo. If you are foolish enough to think you are fearless, you are dead in the water.

Practice inner calm and absolute mental control, call upon the name of the Lord, and then fight. Fight for all you're worth. Fight to the death if need be.

Namaste.