Awakening to the Courage at the Heart of Being

Last Monday I took a day off, it was much needed after the last few weeks, particularly last week. I went home to visit family in Yorkshire. My brother was up for a few days with his eldest child. They are going through a difficult time, a real challenge. He is facing it with commitment and courage, living with true love and dedication. I admire my older brother greatly. He has always been a man of commitment, of love and courage and he is showing it at this difficult time. He describes it has his “cross to bare” and he is certainly prepared to go to any lengths to come through it. It is curious that my brother would use such a praise. Has he says he is an atheist, although one who sees so much power in these religious tales and phrases, he gets the mythos, he understands the deeper meaning beneath it all.

A few weeks ago Rob, a new attender at Altrincham and myself went to see our musical heroes New Model Army, it was a great night and so needed at the time. During the gig they played a really old song, which they dedicated to the people of Ukraine. The song was “Courage” the chorus goes like this 

“And I salute your courage and I toast to your health
And I wish you all the luck in the whole wide world
May you never be broken like they say you will be”

Despite the hell that they are living through, they certainly do not look broken. They are showing consistent courage, inspired by deep love against a much more powerful force, certainly in numbers and might. We have seen similar examples of this throughout human history. A classic example being that of the people of London during the Second World War, what was called “The Spirit of the Blitz”. It was thought that people would crumble under the constant bombardment and descend into terror, the leaders at the time were convinced by a theory of Gustav Le Bon, this was not the case. In fact the opposite happened, people came together in love. This same spirit arose in Germany just four years later under similar bombardment, which meant that the German people hung on even longer, rather than surrender. Just twenty five years later they same ferocity of bombing occurred in Vietnam, in fact 3 times the amount of firepower was dropped on the Vietnamese than was dropped in the entirety of the Second World War and in the end the Americans could not break the spirit of the people, in the end they gave up, they lost. This has been repeated many times over, again we see it in the Ukraine. The spirit is harder to break than we think, we underestimate the power of courage, the power of love; the power of love that enables we humans to rise above what we think we are capable of. Courage is about heart, it is about love. For the Ukrainians it is love for their home, their country. For my brother it is love for his child. For others it is love for many things. Courage is all about love. From the Latin “cor” from which the Frech “Coeur” or Italian “cuore”, both meaning “heart” are derived. Courage is an act of the heart. When a person acts courageously, they are living from that deepest core of their being, a place seemingly unknown until it is called upon. In such times it seems the most natural thing we can do, it is not forced, it just comes from that place deep within us, at the core of everything.

Courage should never be confused with fearlessness. Those who have true courage are intimate with fear, they are just not ruled or fetted by it. To quote Nelson Mandela 'I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.' Courage is about faith, even if you are not sure what you have faith and it is about love. Without love there can be no courage. Ok folk can put on an act for a while, but it cannot be maintained. True courage grows from a place deep within each of us, I would say all life. It grows from whatever we hold most dear in our lives. It comes from recognising how sacred, how precious, life truly is; it comes in seeing that love is the true cor, the courage of life. For without love we find we have nothing really to live for.

Now fear is common to most folk in one form or another and we respond to it in a variety of ways, the two most common being fight or flight. To turn away in fear is no less damaging than to turn towards it in anger and hate. How we respond to one another and to life really matters, as I so often say everything matters, every thought, every feeling every word and every deed. How we are with each other matters a lot. No, we can’t change the whole world, but we can affect one another and inspire one another in ways of loving courage. Spending time with my brother on Monday I saw a man living with courage, living from deep love, committed to whatever challenge he has to face.

We are living in fearful and distrustful times. It matters how we respond to this fear and distrust. Do we turn away, do we respond in anger and make things worse. Or we do live faithfully and lovingly and thus overcome the fear with courage, an act born of love.

Fear is an ever growing presence in our times. It troubles me greatly and we all respond to it in different ways. Fight and flight operate in a variety of ways. I suspect that fear will always be a part of our human make up. We are meant to experience certain forms of it for it points out danger. The solution to fear is not to get rid of it, the key is to find the courage to over come it. This requires just a little faith and a little love to find the courage to just be, to live the life that is in front of us. Sounds simple doesn’t it? Which of course it is, but it is far from easy. If we believe in love and believe in life and if we live through love and remain open to life, despite its difficulties and fear present we find the courage to truly be, to overcome the power of unnatural fear. Love will always overcome fear; love will always enable us to find the courage to truly be all that we can be.

We see a powerful example of this in the life of Jesus, of finding the courage to face what is in front of you, particularly the Holy week narrative whose beginning is marked today on Palm Sunday. A week that ends with Easter Sunday a day of re-birth, resurrection and new beginnings. But before this we see love, betrayal, pain, humiliation, fear, courage and faith. I remember trying to imagine this experience as I walked around the narrow streets of the old city of Jerusalem and as I entered myself through several of the city gates; as I watched the pilgrims visiting the holy sites as the local people just got on with their ordinary lives a few years ago.

The Gospel accounts say that as he entered Jerusalem Jesus did so with the knowledge of what he was going to have to endure. He knew and accepted that his journey was going to be hard in which he would endure a great deal of suffering, but he accepted what was ahead of him; he accepted the reality of the situation. He did so but not without fear and doubt, both were present during this final week of Jesus’ life. In Gethsemane, just before he was betrayed he went off to pray alone, as he often did to commune with God (Mark 14.36). He threw himself to the ground, wept bitterly and prayed a simple prayer “Abba, Father, for you all things are possible; remove this cup from me; yet not what I want, but what you want.” He was in turmoil and genuine fear, for he knew he must face what was ahead of him alone, but eventually he surrendered to what he must do. He found the courage in silence, in prayer.

Five days after the triumphant entry of Palm Sunday Jesus was crucified. He accepted that this was part of his journey, but not without fear and doubt. How could there not be fear and doubt? He had to face this agonising death alone, he had been rejected by everyone, even his closet companions. Moments before the end he did not cry out the comforting words of the 23rd Psalm “I shall walk through the valley of the shadow of death and fear no evil for thou are with me.” No, instead he quoted the much starker 22nd Psalm “My God, my God, why has thou forsaken me? Why art thou so far from helping me? He did not quote the comforting words “My cup runneth over”, instead he cried out “I thirst”.

This though was not the end the real power flew from those final words, born of love, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” In those words lay the courage to be who he truly was; in those words he expressed his faith; in those words he expressed the power of love; the love of God and the love of neighbour as for self. In this moment he surrendered himself to his purpose and to his God as he uttered those immortal words “Father, I commend my life unto thy spirit.”

Here we see faith and love and Hope, here is real courage.

How can we who live today possibly relate to this story from 2,000 years ago, well it seems my brother does. My brother the convinced atheist gets real power from this. He sees the love the courage, to carry his own cross, to face what is his to face. Haven’t we all experienced paralysing fear from time to time and haven’t we all experienced that sense of utter abandonment as we have had to face our struggles alone, which in the end we all have to do from time to time. Yes of course we all have love and we have support, but sometimes we have to face the pain and struggle alone. No one else can give us the courage to be who we truly are, this only comes in facing up to life’s vicissitudes. If we seek the courage, it will always come, if we do so sincerely.

We will always know the emotion of fear, we will always feel it. We need it, it is a natural instinct. That said we need not be enslaved by it. We need not live in fear. To be free all we need do is live with integrity, live in love and the courage to be will begin to be given birth once again within us and it will shine out of us. In doing so not only do we liberate ourselves, but we also become a light to others who in turn may be inspired to liberate themselves and others too.

My brother was that light to me this week, cheers our kid.

 “And I salute your courage and I toast to your health
And I wish you all the luck in the whole wide world
May you never be broken like they say you will be”

Easter is nearly here. Easter a day of re-birth, resurrection and new beginnings. So, let’s give birth to the love that is within us and bring a little light to the dark places of our world. It sure needs it. Our world needs us to live by faith and hope and love. It needs us to find the courage to become all that we were born to be. By so doing we automatically encourages others to do the same. Remember you are the light of the world and this world needs you to let your little light shine.

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