The Courage of Your Convictions
Palm Sunday, 2010
By Charles Rush
March 28, 2010
Mt. 21
[ Audio
(mp3, 6.6Mb) ]
the past few years, I've been reading these stories about our children,
collectively speaking, that engage in remarkable service. It is like a prayer,
of sorts, pretty similar to reading the obits that were published in the New
York Times in 2001 and 2002 that documented the wonderful, interesting people
that we knew in this way that kept you in touch with your humanity and what
keeps our lives worth living.
Like
Lieutenant Michael P. Murphy who was recognized by the Navy for “conspicuous
gallantry” in risking his live above and beyond the call of duty.
During a
reconnaissance mission in June of 2005, Lieutenant Murphy's four member team
was “operating in an extremely rugged enemy-controlled area” in the vicinity of
Asadabad, Afghanistan where they were trying to locate one of the top Al Qaeda
leader, when they were spotted. In short order, 30 to 40 Taliban fighters
besieged the four member team. Here I simply read, “Demonstrating exceptional resolve,
Lieutenant Murphy valiantly led his men in engaging the large enemy force. The
ensuing fierce firefight resulted in numerous enemy casualties, as well as the
wounding of all four members of the team. Ignoring his own wounds and
demonstrating exceptional composure, Lieutenant Murphy continued to lead and
encourage his men. When the primary communicator fell mortally wounded,
Lieutenant Murphy repeatedly attempted to call for assistance for his
beleaguered teammates. Realizing the impossibility of communicating in the
extreme terrain, and in the face of almost certain death, he fought his way
into open terrain to gain a better position to transmit a call. This
deliberate, heroic act deprived him of cover, exposing him to direct enemy
fire. Finally achieving contact with his Headquarters, Lieutenant Murphy
maintained his exposed position while he provided his location and requested
immediate support for his team. In his final act of bravery, he continued to
engage the enemy until he was mortally wounded, gallantly giving his life for
his country and for the cause of freedom. By his selfless leadership,
courageous actions, and extraordinary devotion to duty, Lieutenant Murphy
reflected great credit upon himself and upheld the highest traditions of the United
States Naval Service.
Where do
these boys come from? I know that some of us here have lived through these
times but you can't help but think to yourself, “No really, how do people do
this?” It is from somewhere in the profound part of the Noble chamber of our
soul. How do you keep your resolve in the midst of fear and terror, with deadly
consequences all around?
The
Gospel of Matthew, has this rather ominous turn, at the beginning of Holy Week.
It says of Jesus that he ‘set his face towards Jerusalem'. Looking back on his
life after it was over, it looked like it was his destiny to ultimately die
there.
The era
in which Jesus lived had a great deal of social unrest. The Romans were having
an increasingly difficult time controlling the local population. Jesus was a
spiritual leader but there were plenty of would-be revolutionary leaders that
were all around the same people and Jesus had an amazing following. Throngs of
people just came out. Everyone took note, especially the Roman governor.
When he came
to Jerusalem for the first time as an adult to attend the Passover, the
Passover in Jerusalem became an event. You didn't need divine insight to
understand what was at stake. Like so many leaders in that situation, he was
also surrounded by people telling him that he was likely to die. People told
Dr. King that every week and the staff got some weird hate mail every few days.
Security is reminding you of it. Your loved ones give you that look from time
to time. It is just in the air.
You
couldn't enter the gates of Jerusalem without passing runaway slaves on
crosses. These crosses were Roman inventions designed to maximize suffering and
pain and we don't need the Mel Gibson version of the events to understand that
normal people would do anything, anything to avoid this fate. How do you stay
on point when you are surrounded by fear and terror? His followers would later
say of Jesus that his will and God's were one. How do you get that conviction
that opens the portals to supernatural courage?
Part of
this phenomenon we haven't actually described in psychology until fairly
recently, so we are inventing language as we go but they refer to it as ‘flow',
when you are, so to speak, in your groove, actualizing your character strengths
and it has many different forms of expression.[i]
‘Flow'
is what certain basketball players experience when all five of them are so in
sync that they anticipate, pass, move and the whole dynamic gels. It is what a
String Quartet feels when all four members seem to lose themselves in a
movement together and a deeper resonance of sound emerges that is a marvel to
everyone involved.
These
are social examples and it can also be personal- as in sculpting, painting,
making something beautiful. It is characterized by:
o The
task is challenging and requires skill
o We
concentrate
o There
are clear goals
o We
get immediate feedback
o We
have deep, seemingly effortless involvement
o We
have a sense of control
o Our
sense of self vanishes
o Time
stops
You are
simply in the moment. So people say that it was like ‘time stood still'. We are
absorbed, so these experiences themselves are actually somewhat devoid of
overwhelming emotion precisely because you are so in the moment, so enveloped
that you are not conscious like you are in regular life.
But these
are some of our most fulfilling experiences in life, so when you reflect back
on those moments, you might be deeply emotional about them in retrospect. This
is the place that you keep wanting to get back to.
This
sense can happen to us on a number of quite diverse levels: sport, art, love,
warfare. In one sense, it is as diverse as we are because we experience it when
we do what we do as well as we can do it and everything just comes together.
And when
you experience that sense of flow in the profounder moral and spiritual
dimension, you unlock a powerful sense of purpose in your life which has this
transcendent dimension to it. You find something not only worth living for, you
find something worth dying for too. In an odd way, it is a freedom in the midst
of fear and anxiety that you are actually grateful for. It can become a
haunting, honest, humane courage that is a divine gift.
That is
what you hear in the voice of Dr. King the night before he died when he said,
“I may not get there with you but I want you to know that we as a people will
get to the promised land. So I'm not worried about death. I'm not fearing any
man… Mine eyes have seen the glory…” You are just privileged to be part of it.
You've never been so alive. There are threats all around but you are living out
of that moral purpose and it is just so in sync that you are grateful
nevertheless.
It sure
looks like you can grow in moral purpose and courage, as so many lives attest.
Either that or these people just didn't get the Memo telling them that it was
not possible.
I'm
thinking of Shukria Asil, one of only four women to serve on the Baghlan
Provincial Council in Afghanistan. She is a one woman movement, speaking up on
behalf of women not only on her Provincial Council but also getting the ear of
Kabul.
She
started networking professional women, is leading a march to start a driving
school for women. She has worked on a number of fronts to open schools for
girls in her country, and has started an networking group for professional
women in Afghanistan. She has promoted women in the media and made sure that
links have been provided so that girls in remote village have links to the
outside world. The more she fixes, the more she sees that needs to be fixed.
A couple
of years ago, the Ministry of Education published some negative stories in the
media about three female teachers in Baghlan, so they could fire them because
they were women. Ms. Asil was a loud, lone, persistent voice that made sure the
truth came out, eventually forcing the Ministry of Education to reverse their
decision and re-instate the teachers.
She
spoke up on behalf of a young girl that was gang-raped and rejected by her
family, calling into question time honored traditions that oppress women in her
society. She worked with the family and got them reconciled, despite being
directly discouraged by the provincial governor. “Ms. Asil has forged ahead with her
exceptional work despite threats of kidnapping and death. Even in the face of
urging from the police and security forces to cease her work for her own
safety, she continues to risk her life to work for what she believes in.”[ii]
She is
either getting stronger in the work or just more stubborn, it is hard to know.
She didn't have to go out looking for a cause. She is just awake to the causes
that are immediately all around her. That is all that God wants from us, but it
is what God wants from all of us.
And I
suspect that moral courage will be more and more relevant in our social life in
the near future. I was reading an article in the Economist a few months ago
that projected population growth over the remainder of my life time and they
had a date projected for when the world's population will double. They were
speculating on a variety of market trends and the implications they hold for
different nations.
I started
reflecting on that as a thought experiment. I been trying to imagine the world
with twice our population and think about what that will mean for our great
grand children. It actually pushes my imagination beyond its ability to
conjure.
But,
knowing what we know now about the dramatic improvement in social well being
that happens when women are treated equally, surely we will witness something
of a world-wide movement to empower women in every society. What Mohandas Yunus
at the Grameen bank discovered in the work that earned him the Nobel Prize, is
what missionaries and social workers have observed the world over. Lend women
small amounts of money and they pay it back. They earn their own money and also
a new found respect and power in their relationship with their husbands. They
take their money and invest it first in the health and education of their
children and are far less prone to blowing it on parties with the boys. The
result is a stable family structure which turns out to be one of the
cornerstone values that support democracy and small business entrepreneurship.
The result of democratic, self-developed businesses is societies that are
functional and discourage anarchy and/or nihilistic terrorism.
We've seen
this over and over, enough that I have a hard time believing that someone of
the stature of Melinda Gates hasn't already said this should actually be
priority #1 with serious philanthropy money right now. Certainly it will be and
we will need the Shukria Asil's in every nation to organize and lead.
We don't
have to look for causes. They will find us soon enough. Amen.
[i]
The expert in the field is Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and he coined the term. I
haven't read his work yet. I got this from Martin Seligman's book “Authentic
Happiness” (New York: Free Press, 2002), pp. 114 and following. Seligman
teaches at the University of Pennsylvania and is a past president of the APA. I
recommend the book. It unpacks the insights of the newer research in psychology
without the boring statistical review that plagues the academic literature of
the discipline.
[ii]
This is all from the description of her work given on the occasion of her
recognition as one of the 2010 International Women of Courage. I believe it took
place at the White House.
© 2010
Charles Rush.
All rights reserved.
