Courage Found

Since I sprained my ankle, I've been devouring a magazine loaned to me by a friend. It is called "Yes!, A Journal of Positive Futures" and is published by the Positive Futures Network, a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting people's active engagement in creating a more just, sustainable, and compassionate world. This edition--Summer 2003--has a picture of Rachel Corrie on the cover and is dedicated to the theme, "Finding Courage."

If ever there were a individual who had found courage, it was Rachel Corrie. She was the young American member of the International Solidarity Movement who stood in front of a bulldozer on March 16 and attempted to block it from demolishing the home of a Palestinian doctor and his family. After hours of dialogue with the Israeli soldier who was operating the bulldozer, Rachel was crushed to death when he ran over her.

For most of us, courage is not so radical an act. But if it is true courage, it means stepping out of our comfort zone and doing something for a cause greater than ourself. Courage is an attitude, yes, but it is an attitude that leads to action.

As I reflect on the word "courage", I realize that for me it means heart. Although spelled differently, the French word for heart--le coeur--sounds like the root of the word courage. To find courage requires breaking open your heart. Isn't that what Rachel Corrie did? It was her love of justice, her love of the humanity of oppressed and oppressor--Palestinian and Israeli--that led her to stand in front of that bulldozer and attempt to meet that soldier heart-to-heart. If her heart had been closed or numbed to the horror of what was happening around her, she could never have done what she did.

Finding or having courage does not mean you are without fear. I'm sure that, even as she stood firmly planted on that threatened patch of earth, Rachel felt fear. I'm sure during those hours prior to her death, thoughts of "What if he doesn't stop and runs over me?" must have passed through her mind. The difference between a courageous and a non-courageous person is that the one who has found courage will continue to act out of that core place of strength even when fearful, even when everything in them wants to flee. Courage is stronger than fear.

So what is the difference between foolhardiness and courage? There are those who look at what Rachel Corrie did as a foolhardy act, a wasted death. To my mind, an action that is foolhardy means 1) the person did not take into account ahead of time what the consequences of their action might be, and 2) the action did not benefit the greater community. Exceptionally dangerous sports come to mind, like skydiving or cliff-jumping. If someone dies or is seriously injured while engaging in such activities, I would not use the word courageous to describe their actions. Others might disagree. They might say that any time we overcome our fears and do something risky, we are displaying courage. To me, the risk must have meaning beyond the personal before it deserves the word courage. Benefit to the community must be at the heart of it. One can be brave without being courageous.

But even if you don't die, as Rachel did, courage is always painful. It hurts to care so deeply about a principle or a community that you are willing to put your life on the line for it. Daw Aung San Suu Kyi of Myanmar comes to mind. In her decades-long struggle for the freedom of her people, she has spent more time in prison and/or under house arrest than she has spent as a free woman. She epitomizes courage to me. Especially her willingness to persevere in the face of seemingly impossible obstacles. The American Dominican nuns, Carol Gilbert, Ardeth Platte and Jackie Hudson, also come to mind. And it isn't just their most recent Sacred Earth & Space Plowshares II action and the 33, 41 and 30 months respectively that they will be spending in federal prison; it is their long-term commitment to the cause of nuclear disarmament. These women have spent countless months in jails and prisons over the past three decades. They are truly in it for the long haul.

These are examples of courage that made the news. There are untold numbers of courageous actions that are hidden from public view, but nonetheless significant and beneficial to the world community. I expect you, dear reader, have firsthand knowledge of such actions; I know I do. To be courageous, one does not need to be famous. In fact, it could be that no one but you even knows of this act of courage. No matter. It has still transformed our world.

Why are some individuals capable of courage and others not?

Actually, we all have the potential to become courageous, even late in life. Look at Granny D who at age 89 put her life and health on the line by walking 3600 miles across the United States for campaign finance reform. She did not do this to make a name for herself or to prove that age was no obstacle to feats of physical endurance. No, Granny D had a cause that drove her through sandstorms in the desert, rain and hail in the mountains, and snowstorms as she neared her final destination of Washington, DC. She was walking--and finally cross country skiing--to try to open people's eyes to the shambles our so-called representative government has become because of huge campaign donations that make candidates beholden to their donors instead of to their people. It was heart that gave her the determination to walk ten miles a day for a year and a half. And it is heart that keeps 93 year-old Granny D traveling--now by plane--all over the country to encourage voters to support The Swing State Project as a way of defeating George W. Bush in 2004.

And then there are the opportunities to display courage that come unbidden, and often unwelcome. Rabih Haddad comes to mind. One minute he is giving his young sons horsie rides on the living room floor of their Ann Arbor, Michigan apartment, and the next he is being handcuffed and led off to jail by agents from the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS). Nineteen months later he is secretly deported from his jail cell to Lebanon, the country of his birth but a place he has not lived in for years. You would not wish on your worst enemy the things that happened to him and his family during those nineteen months . In solitary confinement for all but two for those months. No contact visits with his family in over a year, not to mention visits and phone calls arbitrarily denied. No charges ever having been made against him, so no chance to prove his innocence. Slurs, unfounded allegations and out-and-out lies reported about him as if they were proven facts in international, national and local news media . And the day-to-day degradations of being treated like a convicted criminal in a county jail, the lowest level of correctional facility in the United States.

So how did this Muslim cleric, teacher, poet and global humanitarian respond? In a letter to me he wrote:

 All this has driven me to a state of transcendence (I'm not sure the word exists). I feel like I'm looking at all that is happening to me from a distance. That's when I begin to feel sorry for my jailers because in actuality they are the prisoners and I am free. I am free because my spirit is free and that allows me to look at matters from afar. But they are imprisoned by their fears and apprehensions, by their rules and regulations, by their never-ending striving after worldly wreckage that someday they will have to leave behind. I am free by my faith and refuge in Almighty God. Their increased cruelty only increases my hope in my imminent deliverance.

I learned today (August 4, 2003) that Rabih, Sulaima and their four children are finally together again, safe in the mountain home of his mother in Lebanon. But through the entire ordeal, I never heard a word of resentment or bitterness from this man. Anger, yes. Anger at the waste of a year and a half away from his wife and young children. Anger at the loss of a year and a half of doing the work he feels called to do. But courage and anger often go hand-in-hand. Anger can be the tool that breaks open a heart so rivers of courage pour forth. It was courage that kept Rabih free during nineteen months of unjust imprisonment, and courage that makes him free of bitterness today.

What I realize as I reflect on the lives of these persons of courage--Rachel Corrie, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, Sr. Carol Gilbert, OP, Sr. Ardeth Platte, OP, Sr. Jackie Hudson OP, Granny D (Doris Haddock), and Rabih Haddad--is that courage comes at a high price. But even higher than the cost is the grace. For grace is the only word that comes to mind when I contemplate these lives. Not only have they made choices consistent with who they are and what they say, but their choices have benefited us all. The benefits may be hard to discern in the short run, but eventually all will know that these persons of courage moved forward the evolution of humanity in ways that are essential to the sustainability of our species and our planet. May they know our gratitude.

Patricia Lay-Dorsey
Detroit, Michigan
August 4, 2003