An Uncourageous Life

If I'm honest, mine has been mostly that.

I can't tell you how many times I was in a group of kids growing up and witnessed something that I knew in my little kid's heart was truly wrong, wrong, wrong and stood by and just watched it happen, frozen to the spot. Why? Because some cool kids were picking on some not-quite so cool kids? Cool kids who were never going to "see" me anyway. Cool kids who weren't ever, no, never, going to include me in their little gang, no matter what I did, or what I said, or how I combed my hair, or what clothes I wore. But I didn't know that then.

I look back and realize that to have been courageous might have cost me nothing I was ever likely to to have, really. And, further, that it would have cost me nothing of any real value. And it might have bought me some real self respect in the end. But at the time, fear of what others thought (or what they might think) ruled me.

I'm not writing this in a depressive dive. Just stating a fact.

In my childhood world — the mostly white, mostly middle class, mostly church-going, mostly public-school educated late 20th century America — real courage, in fact, was frowned upon. What was important was fitting in.

"Plays well with others" was penultimate handwritten praise on the "Deportment" side of the elementary school report card. One was careful to observe all the written rules to be sure. But the truly important ones, the unwritten rules? Those were absolutely inviolable.

If your neighbor's wife appeared with a black eye, you believed her story about bumping into the door. At least with your words. She needed you to believe it. She couldn't afford to be a beaten wife. And you couldn't afford to know a beaten wife or a wife beater. Such things simply weren't done in your neighborhood. We weren't like that. That only happened on the "other side" of town. Of course, we were like that. We just lied a lot. If I'm honest, that's still my "go to." That's still the first impulse.

Take football, for example. It didn't matter much if you liked it or not. If the guys at work were major fans, you learned to "talk a good game." It's still like that. God help you if you scare up enough courage to simply say, when invited over for the Big Game: "Yeah, well ... you know, I'm not really following the Broncos and football much any more. I'm just too busy having a real life."

And today, there's real, scientific reason why football ought not to be played at all. But try throwing into the conversational mix at your local sports bar, "Oh, and have you read the latest medical studies?  Those pro football linemen? A lot of them aren't living past age 60. Head trauma, you know?" Such things simply aren't done.

Not picking on football or football fans in particular. That just happens to be part of the fabric of my experience. But there are dozens of points in time, in a myriad places along the timeline of my life where the courage of my convictions has been absent or suppressed. I say to myself: What difference will it make if I say anything? What do I know? It's as if I (we?) think, if I don't say anything, maybe it'll just go away.

That might be true. But what if we up the ante a little? And bring it a little closer to home? In the late 1950s, a church pastor known to my family beat his wife. Pretty much everyone knew. (I was 12, and I heard about it. What happened? Not one thing. Nobody spoke up. He retired from that pastorate. I saw the retirement announcement.

That's what the Catholic church thought about it's wayward priests. Let's keep it quiet. No one needs to know. For years they just moved them around, hoping they'd "get better." Kept their secrets. All to protect the "good name" of the church. Of course, that good name has been savagely besmirched by the late revelation of that uncourageous history.

Not picking on pastors or the Catholic church or Catholics in particular. It's just that those revelations happen to be a stunning example of the results of uncourageous lives in action  — or should I say, rather, inaction? Can anyone imagine the consequences of telling the truth about and taking appropriate steps to deal with such dark things when they happened all those many years ago being worse than the consequences that have been suffered by the church, its wayward priests and their victims at this late date? The whole world knows now. And it just keeps going, and going and going ... like the Energizer Bunny.

I'm not making fun. I'm trying to make a point in glaring terms. The truth is this: The uncourageous and the courageous both pay a heavy price. But the uncourageous think too much of what others might think, and so guarantee that when those others finally do find out, their wrath is trained not nearly so much on the deed itself, as on the unwillingness to bring the deed into the light and deal with it. And the punishment is an order of magnitude greater as a result. The courageous do what they do in full view. They speak the truth even — in fact, especially — when it is a confession, not popular, uncomfortable, disadvantageous to themselves or simply not the "done thing." They take what comes, and it isn't always welcome and often not deserved. But they survive with something of great value. Having lived in reality and respected God and others enough to accept what is true and then speak and act on it. This is the one and only path to self-respect. There is no other way.

So I take a step into the light of a potentially courageous life by admitting mine has often been uncourageous.