What Does It Mean to Be Courageous?

In today's social media, there is a trend to attribute heroism to certain classes of people.  While it may be true that the occupational heroes (firefighters, soldiers, and police) are courageous, it still got me to thinking about who truly is a hero and what makes them one?

In addition to the occupational hero, the media provides us with human interest stories that extol the virtues of ordinary people doing courageous acts.  In response, we sing their praises and hold them up for public adoration.  Both groups (the occupational hero and the occasional hero) display a willingness to face a situation head on instead of running away from it.  (For example, the firefighters who ran into the World Trade Center towers on 9/11 or the Brooklyn bus driver that ran to catch a 7-year old that was falling three stories from a building).  They acted with courage.

The above two groups are our popular heroes because they have the courage to act.  There is a third category of courageous people.  These unsung heroes act courageously in the silent moments.  They have no fanfare to announce their deeds.  They, too, have the qualities of courage.

What does it mean to be courageous?  There are traces of these attributes in any act of courage.

1. Action in the face of fear.  Mark Twain said, "Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear - not absence of fear."  Recently, a friend related an experience he had in his mid-30s.  At this point in his life, he had turned his life over to God and, as a result, started to examine previous behavior.  He knew that he had committed crimes and came to the conclusion that he needed to turn himself in to the police.  This idea terrified him because he would be prosecuted.  Still, he faced his fear and went to the police.  The result, he spent two years in jail.  It was a horrible experience, but he learned valuable lessons and now has compassion for those who are trying to rebuild their lives after being released from jail.


2.  Love when it hurts.

I know someone whose dad was one of those angry, verbally abusive, intolerant parents.  No matter what my friend did his entire life, he could not please his father.  Until the day his dad died, he never received one positive, loving comment.  In spite of his father's behavior, my friend expressed love to his dad.  At the same time, he established healthy boundaries of behavior and would often leave his father's house because his dad would not behave.  It was a strange relationship with the child acting in the parental role and the parent acting in a childish role.  My friend showed courage every time that he made the decision to continue to reach out in love knowing that the pattern of behavior did not hold any promise of a reciprocal, healthy emotion.

3.  Choose the morally right behavior.

Right now, it is common to read tirades against Muslims, police, politically active groups, and every other thing.  It is unsettling to consider that there are so many unreasonable reactions to social challenges.  There is a group who call themselves, "Humans Refusing to be Enemies," that have decided to disseminate stories that counterbalance the hateful rhetoric.  While they are now garnering support, their message is still being rejected by too many people.  I wonder if our current social situation of hateful rhetoric is akin to what happened in Germany with Hitler?  Are we blaming a class of individuals for all our woes?   Do we have the courage to say to our friends, "Your behavior is unacceptable; hate is not an appropriate response."?

4.  Moving forward when it would be easier to stop.

It is not easy to lose a child.  Everything in our being rebels against the pain and loss.  Yet, this horror is experienced by too many parents.  Without deep consideration, I can name at least five or six families that have lost a child.  One woman, in particular, comes to mind.  She lost two daughters:  One as the result of an accident and one as the result of an illness.  Losing just one child is a difficult burden to bear, but having to face it again twenty years later seems unfair.  It was not easy for her to regain her balance after the first child's death and the second one took even a bigger toll on her well-being.  As I watched her struggle, the slow transformation from living with unbearable pain to living with tolerable pain took her years.  Without a doubt, her struggle to live with joy and pain took the courage of unknown depths.  Many people who have experienced such pain would have chosen the easier path of self-medication, but she did not.  She made the decision to move forward.

5.  Facing suffering with faith.

How does this fit in, you might wonder?  It takes courage to have hope in the future when you are suffering.  Where is God in all of this?  There is an assumption that God is a fixer.  When troubles come into our life, we want a magical solution to the problem.  Suffering is undesirable - without a doubt.  Yet, life is a series of good times and bad times.  When facing hardship, many people become angry.  They are jealous of what others have, and they have not.  Rather than focusing on how to expand their lives, they turn inward.  A young lady I knew was diagnosed with a brain tumor when she was a toddler.  After many years of treatment, she was left with some paralysis on her left side and a shriveled tumor in her brain.  Suddenly, in her early 20s, the tumor started to grow again.  Her response?  She faced her challenge with a calm, gentle, and happy attitude.  Every person she met (doctors, nurses, technicians, other patients) became her friend.  Her focus was on sharing her love of people and God.  Her faith gave her hope and peace. She had learned how to resist fear and to live her life as fully as possible.  Death was not an enemy.  Even though cancer eventually claimed her life, it never claimed her.

All the above stories are stories of ordinary people who chose to live a full, courageous life.  Underlying all their stories is love.  This is the proven character trait hidden in their very beings:  love for people; love for life; and, most importantly, love for God.  They are unknown to the media and will never be publically adored.  However, they are my heroes.  I hope that they will be your heroes, as well.