Man, what a morning here under the River Tree. The birds are chirpin’. The breeze wafts through the greening branches, and the old codger can’t help but reminisce. Hey, that’s just what old folks do!
Thinking on the past and what we call courage, bravery, maybe heroism. The “old one” has had some occasion to “serve” over the years — in Vietnam, as an educator, as head of a military history institution, hey, even a county coroner for a while there.
It occurs to me that the terms courage, bravery and heroism are thrown around a bunch these days, maybe just a skosh too much.
Never had to serve on the front lines, though I might have. Ask me about it. It’s a fair story. Sorta the definition of “SNAFU.” Long story short, it wasn’t a safe place, and a whole bunch of folks sure jumped through hoops to avoid it. One’s a big shot struttin’ around in front of us right now like the second coming of Patton or maybe Genghis Khan.
News flash. None of us there were looking for glory or medals, even if they came back with a chest full of decorations and a Purple Heart or in a flag-draped coffin. We were there because fate had laid a job on us. Whatever our ambition or vision, or lack of it, whether a Lincoln, FDR, Churchill, Kennedy, Gandhi, King or Mandela, or just a “common” miner, doctor, teacher, laborer, truck driver, EMT, clerk or factory worker putting in our days for our families as citizens of this 250-yearold republic — we’re all human beings doing our jobs and, when push comes to shove, hopefully standing up … or not … to anger, hate, lies, greed, temptation or fear.
That’s my definition of courage, bravery and, maybe even heroism, though there are no medals for it. With some of us, it may be just a few times in a lifetime, but some of us may even get into the habit of standing up most every day. Nevertheless, we stand up. But just to be honest, there are likely too many folks these days applauded with huge huzzahs who aren’t really standing up, but just goin’ along to get along.
I think I may have mentioned before the very evident human frailties and fallibilities we all share. So, standing up to authority, to power, to threats, to apparent community will, apathy or inertia, to potential loss of face, reputation, income or power, to impose meaningful consequences with our children, to set aside pride and anger to really open our hearts and listen to and compromise with a spouse, a co-worker, or someone who has a seemingly differing political or religious viewpoint, to speak truth to power to a boss, friends, family — all those things require real courage, even more so because there ain’t nobody likely to pin a medal on us for doing it.
It may sometimes feel like it’s pretty much just us and God. But that’s not a bad pairing, is it?
So, are we standing up to hate, fear, anger, lies and rampant greed when we need to — and that would sometimes be pretty much every day these days — or are we just goin’ with the flow, floatin’ along with the current, always checking to the right and left to make sure we’re carefully flowing right along with all those other folks, whatever the expression on their faces?
Here’s a thought, though, maybe worth chewing on. Where’s that seemingly ever-faster current taking us? Are we getting anywhere useful, or just going around in circles, apparently ever faster? And, hey, what the heck was that sound a while back and that funky odor? Whooee!
Hey, the old codger wouldn’t want to rush to some kind of rash assumption here, but it just might be the sound of a big honkin’ toilet flushing.
