What Isn’t Said
You know what I find most fascinating about this week’s presidential debate? What they didn’t talk about. There was a lengthy back and forth about energy policy and who would drill where and who would get the most oil out of US public lands, but no mention whatsoever about climate change. There was some discussion of clean energy technologies in terms of jobs and economics, but never in terms of the urgent issue of climate.
How is it that what is perhaps that largest issue of our time and for generations to come, an issue that affects all beings of this planet, an issue that we could actually do something about if we had the collective will, never manages to even make it to the floor? I think the answer is pretty clear. It isn’t a winning topic. People don’t want to know that the earth is changing, and that we will have to change to deal with that rapidly altering world. Either they deny the reality so that they don’t have to deal with it, or they plug their ears and go “La la la la la” so as to avoid the topic.
When in doubt, our natural inclination is to step around the topics that we don’t want to deal with. For a certain period of time we can manage to pretend not to notice Dad’s drinking, the cracks forming in the roof, Aunt Ellen’s diminishing mental capacity. Of course, as with climate change, dealing early and effectively with major problems diminishes the damage. But that requires the courage to step forward and take away the car keys or call the long-term care facility or give up things that we want now in order to pay to fix the roof in the not-so-distant future. And those things are hard.
So we just let it slide for another day. Perhaps it is too much to expect our politicians to exhibit moral courage when they know the voters won’t reward it. Perhaps it is the role of leaders to, you know, lead—to use the bully pulpit to remind people of what needs to be done and to offer a plan on how to do it. I don’t know.
What I do know is this: the best chance that any of us will have rests in a nation of truth-tellers. I don’t have a problem with fantasy. Fantasy is good. Each of us should carry a dream of what exactly we would like our lives and our world to look like. But you can’t just dwell in the fantasy world. Reality will, inevitably bite you in the end. Far better to start with a clear-eyed look at the world as it is, dangers, flaws and all, and figure out what next step might tilt the real world in the direction of the dream.
Maybe one person turning to their neighbor to ask why the emperor isn’t wearing clothes won’t be enough to stop the parade. But if enough of us dare to speak enough of the time, telling the truth of our lives and the truth of our world, then there might just be hope for us after all.
The New Face of Courage
Courage comes in many forms and it wears many faces. We often think of those who put themselves in harms’ way for the sake of others as being courageous. The firefighter who rushes into a burning building. The soldier who risks life and limb to save a buddy who’s been wounded. The mother who shields her baby from imminent danger.
This past week, I saw another face of courage. It was worn by a young woman who lives in Arizona, whose mother brought her across the border when she was an infant. All her life she lived in fear. In fear of the knock on the door in the middle of the night. In fear of the police who patrol her neighborhood. In fear that when she came home from school her mother would be gone, taken to a detention center to be deported.
This young woman, now in her twenties, has declared her freedom from fear and has become an advocate for the rights of undocumented people just like herself. She has attended and spoken out at immigrant rights’ rallies. She has “bucked the system” and achieved both a Bachelor’s and a Master’s degree from Arizona State. She has started a “language exchange” in Phoenix, where undocumented youth from her community can come and teach Spanish, thereby earning a little cash to support themselves while they also learn to speak English from their students. (See the video here: Spanish for Social Justice ) She is, in all aspects of her life, proclaiming her heritage, her identity and her status in the face of frightening, brutal and repressive forces. And she’s doing it with joy and love. The face of courage that I encountered last week wears a big smile, and it is beautiful.
After hearing this woman’s story, I’m called to ask myself where courage comes from. Not the “run into a burning building” courage (which, while certainly admirable, often is more a reaction to circumstance), but the kind that says “I’m in this for the long haul, no matter what.” The kind of courage that enables and empowers us to get out of bed, day after day, to face a world full of risk and danger. I have to believe that this kind of courage is grounded in love. In the love that we receive from others and in the love we have for the world.
We need a community of love around us to provide the foundation for all that we do. Knowing that we are loved, no matter what, by our family and our friends gives us the courage to venture out into a hostile world. It also forms the basis of our self-esteem, the basis of our belief that our lives matter and that we can make a difference. This kind of love empowers us to declare our own worth in the face of those who would deny it.
A love of the world calls us to engage with it, in all its beauty and all its horror. When we love the world, like a parent with a troublesome child, we acknowledge its imperfections, yet we cast our gaze to the horizon of its potential. Love for the world allows us, in the words of Bobby Kennedy, “to dream things that never were, and say, why not?” And it creates in us the commitment to do what we can to make those dreams a reality.
As I move through the days ahead, I will carry the image of this young woman with me. She is, for me, the new face of courage.
Peace,
Peter
Spiritual Courage
Finding the Blessing
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I was standing beside a small mountain waterfall at a Shinto shrine in the mountains outside Nagoya during my first visit to Japan. The Guji, or head priest, of the Tsubaki Grand Shrine had invited me to take part in a Shinto cleansing ritual called misogi. The ritual practice involves stepping into the waterfall and allowing the water to cleanse not only the body but also the spirit.
Never Too Late
From Your Minister
As I have held the idea of courage in my mind, preparing to write this column, I have seen and heard it all around me.REsources For Living
Courage
Courage
March 2011
“What makes the elephant charge his tusk in the misty mist, or the dusky dusk? What makes the muskrat guard his musk? Courage!”—The Cowardly Lion
Articles
Spiritual Courage
Many years ago I learned this poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay: “The courage that my mother had/ Went with her, and is with her still: Rock from New England quarried;/ Now granite in a granite hill… Read more »
Finding the Blessing
I was standing beside a small mountain waterfall at a Shinto shrine in the mountains outside Nagoya during my first visit to Japan. Read more »
Never Too Late
Bravery is a choice. It is a decision to enter into the fray no matter how illogical and crazy things are. Even as our friends, family and common sense recommend that we stay away. Read more »
From Your Minister
As I have held the idea of courage in my mind, preparing to write this column, I have seen and heard it all around me. Read more »
REsources For Living
Isabel, who is ten years old, gave us permission to share this essay that she wrote on courage, the theme of this month’s Quest. Read more »
Courage
We may never know when we will be asked to prove ourselves or if the next plane trip will test our capacity for heroism. Read more »
Courage
“What makes the elephant charge his tusk in the misty mist, or the dusky dusk? What makes the muskrat guard his musk? Courage!”—The Cowardly Lion Read more »
