Being Brave

Courage

“I'm helping my little girl slide down the pole next to the slide-and-bridge construction

when a little boy walks up and says, Why are you helping that young person

do something that's too dangerous for her?

Why do you say it's too dangerous? I say

and he says, She's too young.

And I say, How old are you? And he says, four and a half.

And I say, Well, she's three and a half.

When he comes back a little later he says, I'll show you how it's done, and climbs up the ladder and slides down the pole.

Then he says, She's too young. What happens is that when you get older you get braver.

Then he pauses and looks at me, Are you brave?...”

       From “Courage” by Marie Howe (The Kingdom of Ordinary Time)

A friend of mine is trying to teach her four year old grandson to try new things, even if he's afraid. She has dealt with a lot of anxiety in her own life and doesn't want him to limit his options because of fear. This summer, she took him to swimming lessons to help him overcome his fear of water. And to parks and playgrounds to play on 'dangerous' equipment to help prepare him for the schoolyard where children who show apprehension are often bullied. She told me of going down a curly slide, hurting her sixty-year-old arm in the process, but doing it twice more just to demonstrate that even when something's scary, it might be worth a try. He mastered the slide and loved it. Let's hear it for Grannies! And for the little kids who help us to overcome our own fears.

In my world view, courage is demonstrated, not by taking advantage of size and training to overcome an opponent, but by doing what needs to be done even when you're scared out of you mind. Courage allows us to get up every day and go out into the world with our game-face on. You don't have to be a fireman running into a burning building to show courage. You might be that novice attorney who goes to the county jail to represent a pro-bono client. Or the shop owner in a poor neighborhood who opens up every day knowing the money won't be grand.

When I think of courage, I remember the two African American teenagers who were the first to integrate the high school I attended. I think of my aunt, who went to the textile mill everyday and worked hard to support her children in spite of the odds against her. I think of my friend's mother, in a wheelchair from polio, who raised three children and became famous for her cooking and entertaining. 

Courage is demonstrated all around us by ordinary people doing what is necessary in spite of their fear. 'Are you brave?'

                                                In the spirit,

                                                Jane