Tonight I am writing to those in pain.
I am thinking particularly of my daughter-in-law, Laura, who is ill, and her husband Jake, and all those who love and treasure them. My note this evening is addressed with them in mind. But I am also thinking of so many others I know who are suffering spiritual, mental, and physical agonies.
I am thinking particularly of my daughter-in-law, Laura, who is ill, and her husband Jake, and all those who love and treasure them. My note this evening is addressed with them in mind. But I am also thinking of so many others I know who are suffering spiritual, mental, and physical agonies.
A priest once told me that courage was the most important of the virtues because without it the other virtues are worth nothing. Later I read that Winston Churchill said the same thing: “Without courage all other virtues lose their meaning.”
Tonight, Laura and all you others, I wish you courage.
When we think of courage, we usually imagine a soldier on some battlefield or a leader standing alone for truth and justice. We dreamily read of figures from novels and movies who exhibit courage, from Achilles to Batman, from Alessandro in Mark Helprin’s A Soldier of the Great War to Frodo in Lord of the Rings. That kind of heroic courage certainly exists and is rightly applauded.
But the virtue I have in mind, and wish to extoll, is that courage which often goes unremarked in our busy lives. In the film Rocky Balboa, Rocky lectures his son on courage, at one point saying: “You, me, or nobody is going to hit as hard as life. But it ain’t about how hard you hit. It’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward, how much you can take and keep moving forward.”
Sooner or later, everybody who lives long enough takes the hits. And every person takes these hits differently. I have heard grown men who should know better complain “life isn’t fair,” a statement real adults abandon by the time they are eighteen. I have seen men and women pointing a finger at others, blaming the catastrophe that has enveloped them on everyone but themselves. I have listened to people blame everything from the economy to God for the mess they have made of their lives.
On the other hand, I have also seen people who “owned” what they have done. They took the hits and “kept moving forward.” Usually they are the quiet ones, the sort who follow Kipling’s lines from “IF”:
“If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools.”
In many cases, we are visited by disasters for which we are not responsible. A madman murders our teenage daughter. Our son perishes in a car accident caused a drunk driver. Our wife falls dead of a brain aneurysm. A loved one—like you, Laura—suddenly faces gestational trophoblastic disease and chemotherapy. It seems so unfair, and yet we have to kick fairness out of the game of life. There are rules for living, and most of the time they work, but when those rules fail us, we have to take the hits and move forward.
This persistence in the face of unforeseen disaster takes courage. We have to accept an awful burden we never asked for, a suffering we never saw coming down the pike. That acceptance alone requires courage, and then the real struggle begins, a battle that once again requires fortitude and strength and the heart of a lion.
So this part is for you, dear Laura, and for all the others suffering tonight as well: Take heart. Don’t give way to despair. Take the hits and keep moving forward. Move forward not just with courage, but with love. Behind you in particular, Laura, stands an army of doctors and nurses, family and friends, and prayer warriors.
I’ll end with a quote I shared with my daughter Kaylie and her family yesterday. It’s taken from Mark Helprin’s novel A Soldier of the Great War:
“As long as you have life and breath, believe. Believe for those who cannot. Believe even if you have stopped believing. Believe for the sake of the dead, for love, to keep your heart beating, believe. Never give up, never despair, let no mystery confound you into the conclusion that mystery cannot be yours.”
Believe, dear Laura. Believe, all of you. Then put on your armor, take up your sword, and be strong in your fight.
Tonight, Laura and all you others, I wish you courage.
When we think of courage, we usually imagine a soldier on some battlefield or a leader standing alone for truth and justice. We dreamily read of figures from novels and movies who exhibit courage, from Achilles to Batman, from Alessandro in Mark Helprin’s A Soldier of the Great War to Frodo in Lord of the Rings. That kind of heroic courage certainly exists and is rightly applauded.
But the virtue I have in mind, and wish to extoll, is that courage which often goes unremarked in our busy lives. In the film Rocky Balboa, Rocky lectures his son on courage, at one point saying: “You, me, or nobody is going to hit as hard as life. But it ain’t about how hard you hit. It’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward, how much you can take and keep moving forward.”
Sooner or later, everybody who lives long enough takes the hits. And every person takes these hits differently. I have heard grown men who should know better complain “life isn’t fair,” a statement real adults abandon by the time they are eighteen. I have seen men and women pointing a finger at others, blaming the catastrophe that has enveloped them on everyone but themselves. I have listened to people blame everything from the economy to God for the mess they have made of their lives.
On the other hand, I have also seen people who “owned” what they have done. They took the hits and “kept moving forward.” Usually they are the quiet ones, the sort who follow Kipling’s lines from “IF”:
“If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools.”
In many cases, we are visited by disasters for which we are not responsible. A madman murders our teenage daughter. Our son perishes in a car accident caused a drunk driver. Our wife falls dead of a brain aneurysm. A loved one—like you, Laura—suddenly faces gestational trophoblastic disease and chemotherapy. It seems so unfair, and yet we have to kick fairness out of the game of life. There are rules for living, and most of the time they work, but when those rules fail us, we have to take the hits and move forward.
This persistence in the face of unforeseen disaster takes courage. We have to accept an awful burden we never asked for, a suffering we never saw coming down the pike. That acceptance alone requires courage, and then the real struggle begins, a battle that once again requires fortitude and strength and the heart of a lion.
So this part is for you, dear Laura, and for all the others suffering tonight as well: Take heart. Don’t give way to despair. Take the hits and keep moving forward. Move forward not just with courage, but with love. Behind you in particular, Laura, stands an army of doctors and nurses, family and friends, and prayer warriors.
I’ll end with a quote I shared with my daughter Kaylie and her family yesterday. It’s taken from Mark Helprin’s novel A Soldier of the Great War:
“As long as you have life and breath, believe. Believe for those who cannot. Believe even if you have stopped believing. Believe for the sake of the dead, for love, to keep your heart beating, believe. Never give up, never despair, let no mystery confound you into the conclusion that mystery cannot be yours.”
Believe, dear Laura. Believe, all of you. Then put on your armor, take up your sword, and be strong in your fight.
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