Courage
Before this “day after” the Boston Marathon bombing had a chance to see morning light, my eight year old daughter called out for me. It was a nightmare that woke her from her sleep. 
I always ask, in my bleary state, for my children to tell me about the dreams that startle them awake and scare them enough to call me in. Hopefully telling them out loud can help us let them go or find a new way to finish them. Sometimes we look for reassurances in our waking world for what we would do if ever in the situation our dream presented.
Earlier yesterday on our way to Tae Kwon Do (for my daughter) and wrestling practice (for my son), I told them that two bombs exploded at the finish line of the Boston Marathon. I knew they would hear things at school. I think it is better if they hear it from me so they have a space where it is ok to feel whatever it is they feel.
My daughter is eight. And I decided not to tell her last night before she went to bed that one of the dead was a little boy named Martin who was also eight. I wanted her to rest, to feel at least a little safer than she would if she took in that added layer of vulnerability.
The nightmare that woke her was about “that Boston thing” she told me when I got to her room after she called out in the night.
“We were at that Boston thing. And you were hurt. And I didn’t know how to help you and all the hospitals were full.”
Her eight -ear old nightmare told the story of a different kind of vulnerability than I had tried to protect her from at the beginning of that night. Her worry was not “will I be safe” but “will I know how to help? Will I know what to do and where to go? And what if the things I have learned to do don’t work? And what if the person who is usually the one who helps me is the one who needs help?”
Isn’t her question really one of the hardest for us to ask ourselves? Her’s was not “why” but “how”? How do I go on living in this world such as it is? And this question is one that reverberates and circulates for so many who live with grief, with pain, with anguish, with danger, with illness, with an awareness of how brutal life can be. The hardest questions are: How do I keep on living in this world? As lonely as I am? As much as I hurt? As hard as it is to feel good? As difficult as it is to just do simple things because of chronic pain?
The more the gunshots ring through schools and the bombs penetrate places of celebration, worship, and everydayness, the more people collectively lift our eyes and take in the truth that violence is ALWAYS a violation of someone’s place/space/life/sacredness. Violence is most often perpetrated by intimates. The more we take in how many people are not safe in their own homes, in their most primary relationships, in their neighborhoods, in their schools, the more the question of “how do I live in this world” becomes the most pressing. Because when we are most present to the pain of the world, the question that bubbles up is not “why me” but, “why not me.”
To have felt somehow isolated from violence, to have felt removed or out of harm’s way is an illusion that only privilege can cultivate. The vulnerability that Americans felt after 9-11 is the same vulnerability that tragedies like Newtown and now Boston rekindle. The harder reality is that this kind of vulnerability is the normal mode of operation of many scores of people all around the world. From countries become battle fields to the constant stress of racial profiling for racialized groups, from domestic violence, rape, and incest to unsafe work places and cancer causing toxins in the world around us, human frailty is something you may try to run from, but no one can hide.
How? How do we live in such a broken and brutal world?
When I was holding my daughter in the dark, listening to her tell her dream, the thing that came to me was courage–that word that cultivates strength, resolve, perseverance, belief, even hope. Courage is a word born from the heart, literally drawing its meaning from the French word for heart, coeur. Courage is a way of existing in the world that takes fear into account and decides to not let it win. And courage comes from a place of deep affection, caring, even passion for something better, something more beautiful, something more loving. This brutal world can harden hearts just as sure as we still have a pulse, but courage says I will not harden, I will care, I will find a way to love and to live.
The conditions are more and more ripe for fear to achieve a choke hold among those who thought they were safe, but now realize they are not. All the worst tendencies that make some groups try to sequester themselves away from the world’s pain and peril get fed in the aftermath of something like the bombings yesterday. Already there are reports of some of the initial rumors feeding some of America’s most distorted stereotypes–a black man with a foreign accent and a black back pack, a Saudi man who was running from the scene. So often these symbols of the fear of a privileged nation rear their heads as we try to make sense of what happened and we try to distance ourselves from the problems that gave rise to what happened. We have no idea yet who did this and there are several possibilities that could play out, including that the perpetrator could be a white American, like Timothy McVeigh or Eric Rudolph. Violence is not simply the habit of “the other” but a very American one, too. How we choose to heal our own violent habits is a much harder task than trying to lock ourselves away from the ones many find it so easy to blame.
I whispered to my daughter about courage in the night. I told her that if she’s ever in that situation she will find help around her in ways that may be new or even unexpected. I told her about all the people who found ways to help in Boston, even people who didn’t plan on having to help that way. I told her she would have the courage to be one of those people.
My daughter’s nightmare invites us all into the shadows of our own worst fears—whatever they may be. How do we live in this kind of world where the worst things can happen and sometimes do? May we let courage be what defines us in these times. Courage from the heart, the space within us still supple enough to be moved to tears and to stumble toward the one who needs us there with whatever we have to give.
Thank you Marcia for these helpful and healing words. I had the same conversation with my seven year old, and for the same reasons.
Thank you, Jeffrey, for your comment. So much for children to hold. Prayers for their generation to find their way toward more gentle ways of being together on this planet.
Peace,
Marcia
Marcia, this is really good. I’ve been thinking about exactly the same questions and really appreciate that you have the courage to even talk about it. It isn’t only 8-year-olds who worry about these things. I don’t expect “answers”, but I’m grateful for anyone who can even offer clues about coping with this scary world. Thank you for writing about the hard subjects.
Thank you, Patty, for your comments and your questions. They are questions that inhabit all of our minds–if we’re paying attention!! For me the question of how to live in this world that is dangerous, that includes plenty of things to fear involves finding a deep place to peace within myself that is not really mine–by that I mean it is entangled with something bigger, broader, deeper, more ancient, more transcendent than me. Practicing things like deep breathing, breath prayer help me to relax into and trust the deep aquifers of how life’s rhythms ebb and flow.
That is where I go when fear starts to get a foot hold.
While there is plenty to fear and fear can give us important information (when to get away from someone or something, a signal that something needs to change, a signal that we need help, etc), it is not a life-giving place to stay for long. It needs to serve its purpose and then be released from duty– that’s the way I try to regard it.
The practices that have helped me the most to tap into this peace and to recognize fears and release them are yoga, breath prayer, Rosen massage, Reiki, singing/chanting, walking in the woods, being around animals (they are so very intuitive!), writing, and conversation with spiritual companions. It think it is different for everyone and I would welcome any conversation that people want to have around all of this.
There is so much that we can’t control and so much we can’t protect ourselves and others from–finding vitality in the midst of that truth takes intentional practice and finding sources of support and love (that aren’t always necessarily human! or static).
I realize how hard this is to talk about in one reply!! I hope it doesn’t sound formulaic because I think the answer to your question is very unique and particular to each of us and very idiosyncratic, too. Maybe a new blog series….
Thank you again, Patty.
Peace to you,
Marcia
I used to run regularly; a distant cousin who has completed the Boston Marathon was volunteering this year. I am also a graduate of Virginia Tech which marked the sixth anniversary of the massacre April 16.
We all all vulnerable to attack. It is important to know how to help as your daughter wished to do.
Thank you, John, for reading and for commenting. You are right that we all are vulnerable. And may we all allow the fact of our shared vulnerability to cultivate in us deeper and deeper instincts of compassion and care.
Peace,
Marcia
Thank you for sharing these honest and inspiring reflections, and for kindling our courage!
Thank you, Susan. I appreciate you sharing this post and I am thankful for all the ways you minister to families and children. May we all find ways to cultivate a collective courage that can lead us into the transformation our violent world needs.
Peace,
Marcia
Thank for your words, Marcia.
Thank you for reading and for commenting, Rosy. Blessings to you and your ministry.
Peace,
Marcia
Thank you so much Marcia for this reminder to use the tool, courage!
Thank you, Martia, for your comment. I like how you call courage a “tool.” I think that way of classifying it really highlights the fact that we need to find ways to practice using it. It helps to empower us to see ourselves as growing our courage, cultivating it, getting better and better at allowing it to be what comes up first in us. And this way of looking at it prevents us from believing that it is something we either have innately or not. Thank you for raising up both our capacity for courage and the promise of being able to get better at it!
Peace,
Marcia
Your comments are very helpful and ENCOURAGING. It is always best to talk openly and honestly with our children (and anyone else) about these matters, and even to share our concerns (fears), as well. If they see us dealing with these matters, they are apt to be more open about their feelings. Thank you.
Grace and Peace,
Lee
Thank you, Lee. I agree with you that modeling transparency and the facing of our fears with our children is one of the best things we can do for them. And, I think sometimes one of the greatest gifts we can give our kids is to really listen to theirs and give them space to tell us more about them. Letting them explore what really scares them without judgment and in a supportive space is something we don’t often give ourselves. Extending that generosity to them can be transformative for us as adults, too. Thanks again for your comments and for reading.
Peace,
Marcia
Such thoughtful reflection! Paul Tillich’s The Courage to Be reverberates through your words….I guess what I mean is the theology he expresses there is what I hear practically applied in this experience with your daughter. I find both Tillich and Niebuhr’s work so encouraging and foundational for how I understand faith and trust in the world we live in.
Thanks!
Dear Donna,
Thanks so much for reading and for commenting. I, too, have always appreciated and found much resonance with Tillich’s theology of being. Another theological resource for me in times like these is Schleiermacher, someone who often gets caricatured in some negative ways. I find his understanding of feeling and formation to be very helpful as we face the brutality of life. I love the way he builds his theology from a place of deep interdependence. It opens us much space for life- giving and liberating transformation that can ripple through communities and systems. Thanks again for sharing your thoughts here.
Peace,
Marcia