Recently, I read a great quotation from French-Cuban essayist, Anais Nin, who died in 1977. I know a little about her, but not enough to sound at all like I know what I am talking about. The quotation is simple. She said, “Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.” No doubt, I will use this in many contexts. It certainly will be shared with students and encourage them to get on with their lives and be willing to take some risks. I am confident the student-athletes will get it, but whether they can implement it is another matter.
Rather than chasing those contexts, I want to apply it to the spiritual life. By doing that, I also hope to implicate what organizations, like churches and some non-profits, might consider. As I experience my own spiritual life, I do think lack of courage has been an issue. Furthermore, in my life in many different faith communities, I believe the same problem affects them. And yet, when we read and learn about the saints of the churches and the powerful people in our own lives, no doubt they were much further out there on the courage scale.
First, we can look at the word, courage, itself. Our English word is rooted in the French word, coeur, which means “heart.” Behind that is the Latin word, cor, also meaning heart. We see that in our English word, cardiology, a doctor who will fix our hearts. Perhaps I can be flip and suggest what I am doing is spiritual cardiology! Courage has to do with heart. In sports we get a sense for it when we can observe a sporting event and say, “she played her heart out.” She gave it her all. She was all in. We can add to the familiar phrases.
Those descriptions fit the spiritual saint and the quiet ones in our communities. They have jumped in, when so many of us are dabbling. What makes them different? I am sure a number of things, but one thing for sure is they typically are people of more courage. Courage is first a willingness. Folks are courageous out of their freedom. We cannot force someone to be courageous. I am not even sure God can force us. But if you prove that God “could” force us, I would bet God wouldn’t do it anyway!
The second thing about courage is to recognize, classically speaking, it is a virtue. This makes it different than some gutsy move. Guts is doing something daring or astonishing, but it is not moral or ethical. Courage always is. Aristotle says that virtue “aims at the good.” Certainly, courage is our willingness to do or be something daring, but it is toward a moral end. This leads us to another factor of courage as a virtue. Aristotle says that a virtue is not a virtue until we actually do it. So, courage is action.
I can read John Kennedy’s classic, Profiles in Courage, or I want to watch you be courageous, but until I do it, I am not courageous. What does this mean for my life? At one point, it meant being willing to identify myself as spiritual. All of us are aware that popularity contests in high school were usually not won by the religious or spiritual person. Stereotypically, they were not as much fun as the other kids. Traditionally, they were not “with it” like the cool kids. So, if you were a cool kid or even aspired to be, then becoming spiritual was not a smart thing to do.
As I moved beyond high school, the issue of spiritual living became more significant. It wound up being an option for my career---my life, if you will. To go to seminary instead of business school or law school meant I was “settling” for a profession and a salary that would often be seen as “second-best.” Sometimes graduate schools in religion joke that people who can’t make it any other way in life go into religion! As with most jokes, there is just enough truth there to wince. Could I not “do better” would be a nagging question.
But I felt like I was discovering a deep truth for myself. With a sense of the Holy One in my life and a call to serve in some special way was clear, the real question was whether I had the courage to step into this way of life? Fortunately, I had just enough. Enough is less than what could be. My ongoing question is do I have the courage to be vulnerable to the deeper service God calls for me to engage? Can I muster the courage to risk what I know is beyond my comfort zone and become a difference-maker for something spiritual?
Courage always implicates vulnerability and risk. Those go along with being willing and freely choosing to walk into the vulnerability and take the risk. Of course, we all know the role fear and doubt play. They are courage stoppers. Fear makes me weak. Doubt makes me reticent. When we become tentative, we usually miss the real action.
I know I have not provided keys and tips to becoming courageous. But in many cases, it is simply a matter of doing it. It is the action piece. It becomes an either-or. Either we act or we don’t. I think of Jesus calling the disciples: “follow me.” He did not say if you want to or if you feel like it! I wonder how many were called who continued to fish? We’ll never know. They did not make it in the gospels. Their lives did not expand.
Those of us who have read theology or, perhaps, those who are people of faith and are old enough might well recognize this title as a reminder of the late Jewish philosopher and theologian, Martin Buber. I remember reading Buber’s book, I and Thou , when I was in college in the 1960s. It was already a famous book by then. I am not sure I fully understood it, but that would not be the last time I read it. It has been a while since I looked at the book. Buber came up in a conversation with a friend who asked if I had seen the recent article by David Brooks? I had not seen it, but when I was told about it, I knew I would quickly locate and read that piece. I very much like what Brooks decides to write about and what he contributes to societal conversation. I wish more people read him and took him seriously. Brooks’ article focused on the 2016 contentious election. He provocatively suggests, “Read Buber, Not the Polls!” I think Brooks puts
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