Thank you choir. To my knowledge that is the first time that Taiko drums have been here in this sanctuary.
The poor and dispossessed take up the drums
For civil rights–freedoms to think and speak
Petition, pray and vote. When thunder comes,
The civil righteous are finished being meek.[1]
Our spiritual theme this month has been courage. And I’ve heard a good amount of resonance with that theme from many of you. And as happens with our themes, perhaps the way each of us looks at that theme will change, or shift a bit. Perhaps our sense of it is reaffirmed.
I came into the month thinking of courage, too, as being something big. You know, the image of a hero running into a burning building. Something on the scale of those Taiko drums. And I think it can be like that, the kind of courage that makes the news.
But I have also been reminded that courage can happen in many different ways, in all kinds of settings. Sometimes it can be anything but big and bold. Sometimes quite the opposite. Hearing a number of you reflect on the theme this month, I wonder if more often than not it is something much more personal, something much more inward.
Mustering courage may mean getting out of bed in the morning for some of us. But it may also be a kind of barometer that lets us know how we are doing in life, how we are—or how we aren’t—keeping in touch with where we want to be, with what is most important.
And that sense of courage seems to come with that sense of alignment, that it is a kind of knowing that we are in the right place, that we have made the right decision. That there is a congruence that lines everything up.
That may not be as easy as it might first sound. The messages may not always be so clear. Sometimes the messages we get are about what we should be doing, what we should have done, the stuff we should have or what we should be thinking… all of that can be at odds with that sense of integrity. It may be the voice of courage that calls us to pay attention to that sense of congruence with where we are and where we are going—or to notice that in fact we are not on the right track.
The word courage actually comes from the Latin word “cor,” which means heart. Inner courageousness allows us to follow our hearts, listen to our intuition, and hopefully to find that sense of congruence in our lives.
The writer David Whyte calls courage the heartfelt participation with life, with another, with a community, a work; a future. To be courageous is not necessarily to go anywhere or do anything except to make conscious those things we already feel deeply and then to live through those vulnerabilities and those consequences. To be courageous is to seat our feeling deeply in the body and in the world: to live up to and into the necessities of relationships that often already exist, with things we find we already care deeply about… to be courageous is to stay close to the way we are made and to stay in touch with that in our living.
Whyte quotes the French philosopher Camus who used to tell himself quietly to live to the point of tears. Not in a sentimental way but as an invitation to the deep privilege of belonging and the way belonging affects us, shapes us and breaks our heart at a fundamental level. Whyte says courage is what love looks like when tested by the simple everyday necessities of being alive.
He gives the example of new parents. He says being in the role can bring us into an overwhelming sense of both power and helplessness. We can be shaken and overwhelmed by the experience and in the process can come a kind of realignment, a kind of clarity about what is most important, a kind of focusing on where we are and where we want and need to be. And the beginning of that may come from that place of life being totally shaken up, throwing us into a state of not knowing.
His words: “the interior template of courage shows itself slowly, imperceptibly, the interior psyche settling and seating itself into a relationship with a future that chooses as its foundation a new and unknown child.”[2]
Where ever we are in life, whether it is parenthood or something else, our call is to pay attention to that place where we are close to tears—where we are aware of being close to what is most important, to where our heart is pointing us. It’s in listening from that place, of paying attention to that place, that courage comes.
Well that doesn’t sound so hard… or does it? Actually I think that it can.
All too often we get messages about who we should be, about what we should have, about what is most important in life. But those things may not be what calls us into that place of heart, that place of being called into deeper relationship with life, with spirit.
Sometimes the signals might be anything but clear. Sometimes the signals can be calling us in the opposite direction of where we might want to be. Courage is about listening to the heart and all too often takes us out of our comfort zone. It can challenge the status quo. It is important for us to make space to hear that “still small voice” that most often calls us to move out of that sense of integrity. That place where too often we know what is right even when there might be all kinds of voices saying “don’t go there…”
Part of our job is to notice and to pay attention when that sense of fear might be coming up, that sense that keeps us in that place of comfort. That sense of fear that can say don’t rock the boat.
We might ask ourselves what is that fear saying to us? What is it telling us? What is real and what is not? And might that fear be pointing us in some direction that we should be paying attention to? Might it be an invitation?
That invitation may be dramatic but perhaps more often it is something much more subtle. It may be something bubbling up in our unconscious; it may be our reaction to a person we are with or our reaction to any given event. If we are resisting something, there’s probably a reason why we are resisting something.
When we set out on any journey in life, be it a relationship, parenthood, a job, a loss of job, some new challenge, retirement, we are going into the unknown. We can’t know exactly what is going to happen. One writer has described the spiritual journey as setting out on a small boat and sailing into the ocean. We may be inspired for the journey, but at some point we are going to experience fear. At some point we are going to be pulled in some other direction.
We are asked to open ourselves to our potential to grow, to create, to love and be loved. Learning to trust and to be receptive calls us to move to the edge of where we are comfortable. It calls us to go to the place where we don’t know what it will be like. But trusting, too, that it will be all right.
If we are able to be present with our fear, it may be that we are able to see life with a new richness. Instead of running from it, we find ourselves face to face with life. We don’t need to pursue the fear, but just pay attention to it.
Buddhist writer Pema Chodron says that fear is the natural reaction to moving closer to the truth. That as we strip away our denial and constructions of reality, we come to a place of understanding. The fear helps us to open ourselves to the truth we know and have been afraid to acknowledge.
We are asked to put any given fear into context, to see it against the backdrop of our lives and the creation of which we are a part. The Talmud calls fear the necessary gate through which one must enter in order to have a relationship with God. We face our fears and we are able to come to a deeper understanding of who we are—even when that place is very frightening. That’s the courage part.
This week we saw the death of Elijah Cummings, a longtime congressman from Maryland. He was one of those people who seemed to live out of that deep sense of congruence. He seemed to live out of that place of deep integrity.
In the cacophony that has been our civic life of late he has sometimes felt like one of the few voices of sanity, willing to name evil and injustice where he saw it. Willing to call all of us to our better selves. Whether it was for voting rights or for just treatment to children of refugees in detention centers he spoke clearly from that place of integrity. With Cummings there was a sense that behind his courage was a lifetime of experience, a life full of struggle and grace, all brought into the present moment of living.
Several months ago Cummings was chairing a committee where Michael Cohen, President Trump’s personal lawyer, was testifying. As he closed the hearing Cummings spoke with great passion, calling us all to strive for the good of the whole, not for our individual gain. He called Cohen to account for his wrongs but also recognized the humanity of the man before him. Cummings wished the best for Cohen and expressed the wish that something good, some learning, would come out of all this for him, that all of this would put him on the right path. He named the wrongs, yes, but called Cohen to growth, to a place where he could know his own fullness, his own wholeness.
Our call, too, is to live out of that place of wholeness, that place of courage.
In my role here as a minister I have the opportunity to see a great deal of fear and also a great deal of courage present in peoples’ lives.
I see people who have experienced great loss. People who are going on with
life. People who move past their fears and even reach out to lend a hand to
others.
I see people living well with illnesses and staying present with what it will mean for them.
I see people who have lost jobs and are looking at what the road ahead will
mean for them. They don’t know, but they go on.
In the Gospel of John we are told that there is no fear in love and that perfect love casts out fear. Perfect love casts out fear.
What does that mean?
Fear can be something that cuts us off from others, that cuts us off even from what that inner sense of knowing, that inner sense of congruence. That fear can hold us back, can isolate us, can cause us to see those around us not as ourselves but as the other—someone to fear, someone to keep away from. Fear can keep us from coming to know our more courageous selves.
But we come to know that in the long term that really can’t work. That in the long term when one child is harmed, or missing or goes without food we all suffer as a humanity. When one person is on the margin we are all on the margin.
We are called to look past the fear in ourselves and to the courage that connects us with all of life.
The love in the scripture calls us to the awareness that a much larger love is present with us, that holds us, that holds all of life and won’t let us go. It is that love that calls us into that place of courage, that place of congruence. That in the very times when fear may take us away from others we are called once again towards relationship, towards reconciliation, towards a shared understanding of our relationship with all of life. That in the very times when we want to isolate, those are the very times that we need to move toward relationship.
It is a love that calls us out of our isolation and asks us to take risks, that asks us to reach out even when we may not be with our present comfort zone. It is a love that asks us to face our fears. The call to courage is really a call to be in the world—a call to move more fully into the world—that we might be more fully connected with all of life.
“Real love is always difficult,” said the poet Rilke, “because it is a high
inducement for the individual to ripen, to become something in themselves, to
become a world, to become a world in herself for the sake of another; it is a
great, demanding claim on us, something that chooses us and calls us to vast
distances.”
Each of us is on a journey, and the particulars of that journey will be as unique as the individuals we are. And each of us has those things that can hold us back, those things that keep us from being in right relationship with ourselves, with our neighbors, with the ground of our being. And we each have that place of knowing, that place of courage somewhere within.
Where ever we are on life’s journey, may this present moment we are in be enough for each of us. May it hold us in our fears, whatever they may be, and propel us towards our more courageous selves. Most of all, may it hold us, too, in an awareness that we are loved and that that love will never let us go.
So be it. Amen.
Prayer
Spirit of life, we give thanks this day for all that is our life. We give thanks for all of life’s experiences that have brought us to this place. Help us to not be afraid. Help us to find that place of courage, of heart, and live out of that place. And remind us, spirit, always, that we are not alone but part of some larger mystery. Help us, spirit, as we nurture love in a world so much in need of love and compassion. Amen.
Benediction
Words of Wayne Arneson:
Take courage friends.
The way is often hard, the path is never clear,
and the stakes are very high.
Take courage.
For deep down, there is another truth:
you are not alone.
[1] From “When Thunder Comes” by Mari Esabel Valverde
[2] David Whyte, “Consolations: The Solace, Nourishment and Underlying Meaning” Many Rivers Press, Langley, WA, 2014.
Topics: Courage