Courage
"That was really brave of you, Shy", said my big brother Lukie,"to run out there and grab the animals near the end." Doing so scored me some bruises. It didn't feel brave, I was just doing what I had to do to win the game.
Crouching behind the inflatable barriers and hearing the paintballs rattle above us, just two choices occurred to me. I could 1) be a coward and huddle in safety firing a few shots and hoping others would run out and complete the mission and win the game for me. This feels like the most natural choice OR 2) shift my paradigm, change my mental state and do what seems completely unnatural and run out in the line of fire and onto enemy lines, because if I don't I can't expect anyone else to do so.
Then I realised that's all bravery is. No one is born brave. Bravery is just a choice you make. It's almost clinical, and devoid of emotion. "Just do it." Courage is not an emotion, it is found in action.
Not that I often do brave things. I hate the cowardice in me. That I'm always self-censoring. That I seek comfort like a cat.
Mikey did a kick-ace sermon last night. He talked us through the parable of the Good Samaratin. If we are followers of Christ we will choose to acts of mercy and give of ourselves. To see someone in need on a dangerous stretch of the road and go and help them, to take them to safety - that's brave.
Of course just to honour the value of bravery isn't the reason we should help someone in need. But if your excuse for not biting the bullet and showing mercy is that it feels unnatural or uncomfortable or out of your sphere of desire or whatever, then you don't have a very good reason for not showing compassion.
Crouching behind the inflatable barriers and hearing the paintballs rattle above us, just two choices occurred to me. I could 1) be a coward and huddle in safety firing a few shots and hoping others would run out and complete the mission and win the game for me. This feels like the most natural choice OR 2) shift my paradigm, change my mental state and do what seems completely unnatural and run out in the line of fire and onto enemy lines, because if I don't I can't expect anyone else to do so.
Then I realised that's all bravery is. No one is born brave. Bravery is just a choice you make. It's almost clinical, and devoid of emotion. "Just do it." Courage is not an emotion, it is found in action.
Not that I often do brave things. I hate the cowardice in me. That I'm always self-censoring. That I seek comfort like a cat.
Mikey did a kick-ace sermon last night. He talked us through the parable of the Good Samaratin. If we are followers of Christ we will choose to acts of mercy and give of ourselves. To see someone in need on a dangerous stretch of the road and go and help them, to take them to safety - that's brave.
Of course just to honour the value of bravery isn't the reason we should help someone in need. But if your excuse for not biting the bullet and showing mercy is that it feels unnatural or uncomfortable or out of your sphere of desire or whatever, then you don't have a very good reason for not showing compassion.
posted by The Borg at
2:13 PM
1 Comments:
Good post.
I think courage, by definition, requires action that makes one feel unpleasant or frightened. I often think of brave people as having no emotional response to situations that require bravery. But if that's the case, they're not really being brave are they?
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Unknown, At
7:13 PM
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