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Articles tagged with courage

What To Do When There Are No Good Choices

April 28, 2020

“But come! With hope or without hope we will follow the trail of our enemies. And woe to them, if we prove the swifter! We will make such a chase as shall be accounted a marvel among the Three Kindreds: Elves, Dwarves, and Men. Forth the Three Hunters!”

–J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, Chapter I

The speaker in the excerpt is Aragorn, fated to be king, but, at this point in the story, merely the failed leader of the Fellowship of the Ring. Earlier in the chapter, he observes, “All that I have done today has gone amiss. What is to be done now?” The Ring and its Bearer have vanished, the stout Boromir lies slain, and two other hobbits of the Fellowship have been captured. Aragorn has no good choices in front of him: “An evil choice is now before us.” There is good reason to fear the worst, that the evil Sauron will regain the Ring and use it to exercise totalitarian rule over Middle Earth. 

We face a perplexing situation as the pandemic drags on. How shall we proceed? Tolkien, Shakespeare and other great authors offer us lessons in just such choices. Aragorn ultimately decides to proceed on the basis of the virtues, particularly the virtues of honor, courage, and nobility. He and the other two remaining members of the Fellowship first give proper commendation to the fallen Boromir, which is the just and honorable thing to do. Next, they resolve to rescue and avenge their captured friends. Such is the context of the opening quote above. There seems to be little or no hope. Readers of Tolkien’s Silmarillion will be familiar with this type of predicament. Tolkien is borrowing it from a widespread trope in the literature of heroic paganism. Pagan heroes such as Hector, Siegfried, Beowulf, and perhaps even Anakin Skywalker, are faced with lose-lose situations. Heroism is obtained by accepting one’s fate courageously, honorably, and nobly.

“I never took the Kobayashi Maru test until now. What do you think of my solution?”–Mr. Spock acts decisively when there are no apparently good choices.

Is this not how our lives feel right now under the dual threats of a pandemic and economic disaster? There are no good choices. It’s important to admit this because if we imagine that there is a right choice, we may well fall prey to finger-pointing, polarization, and a self-defeating victimization narrative. The great pagan heroes were not victims. Aragorn himself had no time to point fingers. “It is I that have failed.” What is especially important is that Aragorn also does not collapse into paralysis: “We that remain cannot forsake our companions while we have strength left.” He chooses an honorable and courageous course, well aware that it is a long shot. But if he fails, he will at least fail doing something excellent, attempting to honor his friendship with the missing hobbits.  

What is more, the author of this story is not a pagan, but a Catholic. This means that no situation is ever truly hopeless. Christian hope is a theological virtue, a gift from the God Who has proven Himself faithful and more powerful than death and despair. This allows us to go beyond even what is just, courageous or noble. We should still choose this, of course, but we add to this natural virtue the horizon of hope. God can see all kinds of possibilities that we can’t yet. Welcoming the gift of hope is largely a matter of cooperating with the divine.

Hope allows us to remain active participants in the drama that is our lives. A large part of the fear, anxiety, and depression that have been affecting us reflect a sense that nothing we can do will change the situation. It is true that most of us will not make a big difference in, say, public policy at the federal, state, or even city level. But this is true at all times, and not just in times of crisis. We can make a big difference in our outlook and the outlook of our families and friends. And hope, like all virtue, is contagious. If enough of us are re-empowered to take action, who knows what breakthroughs we might discover? When we hope, we open ourselves to God’s perspective, a greater vista than that offered by typical politics or science.

So what can you do today for someone you love? What do you owe your family today? What do we owe ourselves? What ignoble behaviors can we identify in our lives that we can resist? These and other questions like them are always good to ask, but we easily overlook them when a situation feels beyond our control and the future feels suddenly uncertain.

The truth is that our future has always been uncertain. On January 1, 2020, our future was just as uncertain as it is today because it was exactly the same future. We just didn’t know certain things four months ago that we know now. In this life, circumscribed by our births and our ultimate deaths, things are always uncertain. The successes of science and sociology have tended to obscure this fundamental truth. However, being reminded of it is not a bad thing, though we might wish that it had become clearer without the intervention of a potential disaster. 

Our choices are always made in the face of an uncertain future. Often enough, choices that seemed to be correct at one point in our life look terrible in hindsight, and vice versa. What we always need in the face of such choices is hope that no matter how bad things get, God is accompanying us in the persons in our lives, especially those imbued with virtue. When there are no good choices, we are still free. In fact, we are freed precisely from the burden of having to be “right” in a narrow technocratic or utilitarian sense. We are free to ask the more important question, “What kind of person, city, and nation do we want to be in the midst of our suffering?”

Tolkien answers for Aragorn in his actions. “On and on he led them, tireless and swift, now that his mind was at last made up.”

To Those Who Are Scared

March 21, 2020

At a press conference yesterday, the President was asked, “What do you say to Americans who are scared?” He didn’t really answer the question. Perhaps, in fairness, this sort of question is one that we should be asking our religious leaders. So I will take a shot at it and let the President focus on policy.

If you are scared, this means that you are human, and this is good. Possessing fear means valuing life and the good things of life like health, children, grandparents, friends, peace and community.

We sometimes mistakenly think that having courage means being fearless. But in fact, lacking fear makes one rash not courageous. Courage means fearing the right things the right amount. Since human beings lack immunity (at this moment) to the novel coronavirus, it threatens our lives. It really should make us cautious. Perhaps it should even enable us to make difficult decisions, painful in the short term, that will preserve life and the good things of life in the long run.

Of course, having too much fear is also a danger, hindering us from acting or moving us to make selfish decisions that cause more damage overall. Courage means taking the most rational action after judging how dangerous the situation really is.

At this moment, we are still learning what sort of danger COVID-19 poses to the things we love and cherish, and so we are called upon not only to be courageous, but patient. Patience is not something that comes easily to the American temperament, and here’s a chance to add a new virtue to our national character. While we wait, we are blessed to have many intelligent, motivated, energetic people working at understanding the nature of the disease and our best strategies to protect ourselves against it. We will not need to wait forever, just long enough to get clarity.

Making rational decisions and being patient requires that we master the thoughts that generate fear. It’s important to learn how to slow the panic response by sitting still and breathing deeply (this can be done in prayer). The next step is describing the situation and our options accurately and focusing on the overall goal. It is important to remember that COVID-19 is not fatal for most who contract the disease. Then, if our goal is keeping our families and neighbors safe, keeping the death count low and healthcare workers well-supported, and ultimately returning to good order and peace, we can focus on the actions that will get us there. Having the long-term goal in sight helps us to deal with potentially irrational fears that move us to counterproductive actions in the short term. For example, knowing that a vaccine will keep me healthy in the long run helps me to confront the pain of a shot in the short term.

Last of all, fearing rightly is a topic addressed by Jesus. Let me begin this final thought by pointing out that he spends much of his ministry reassuring others:

They were frightened, but he said to them, ‘It is I; do not be afraid.’ Then they were glad to take him into the boat. [John 6: 20-21]

After his resurrection, he continually urged his Apostles not to be afraid because death, that destroyer of all that we love, had been conquered. With that as background, we should note that Jesus also teaches us about fearing the right things in the right way.

Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in Gehenna.

Lest this sound too ominous, we should note that he adds:

Even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows. [Matthew 10: 28; 30-31]

The first part of that quote is a restatement, in perhaps hyperbolic terms, of the well-known proverb, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom [Proverbs 9: 10].” There are many ways to understand fear of the Lord, and in the Jewish and Christian traditions it is usually understand that this fear undergoes a maturation as we grow in faith. It typically begins as an acknowledgement that God is all-powerful and we are not, which should make us reticent about taking anything for granted in life (I plan to say more about this in a future post). Sobriety and humility are the entryway into understanding the world. But as we grow in virtue, this more servile fear grows to be a fear of losing God’s friendship through carelessness and superficiality.

Our present crisis calls upon all of us to act soberly and humbly, but also with profound desire to do what is truly best for our neighbor, what is truly just and upright. A proper fear of failure in these areas is a good motivation to take courage and make our own contribution to the long-term goal of restoring peace.

   
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