Courage: Part One

Our English word courage is derived from the Old French root, "coeur" meaning heart. Courage, then is to act from the heart, for courage involves taking action. It takes courage to act from the heart. Perhaps this explains why we are introduced to the Courage-seeking Lion only after we meet the Tin Woodsman, who was searching for his heart in the Wizard of Oz story. 

Courage always involves taking action. What good is courage left unto itself? Is there courage apart from action? You can harbor facts and information and never have need to act on it, but courage is not passive. It is expressive. It is realized within circumstances. And what sort of circumstances call for courage but those which challenge our strength, our wisdom, our knowledge and abilities. Courage answers uncertainty. It involves risk. It involves the possibility of failure, harm or defeat. Courage is what rises to the occasion to value the possibility of victory over fear or defeat. 

When we are faced with a situation requiring courage, our values are revealed. (Courage reveals our values) Courage displays the controlling forces of our inner lives, of our heart. Courage, is a choice to be made, often not in the absence of fear but often in spite of fear. 

Courage takes trust. And who better to cast our trust upon than the God of the Universe with his relentless and restorative love toward us? Without such trust, or without a confident hope, we have little reason or incentive to take risks. 

We often prefer the safety of inaction above the danger of stepping out. But choosing the safety of inaction forfeits our participation in shaping the future. 

The bible exhorts us over and over to "take" courage, meaning it is something we can lay hold of. It is something available to us, but it is something we must reach out for. We must initiate. We must participate to take courage. Grab it. Take courage. 

In the Oz story, the Cowardly Lion lacks courage or so he thinks. It is actually Dorothy who first calls him a coward. The Lion's solution like all the others, is to see the Wizard and ask him for the courage he lacks. The irony of the Lion's journey is that each of his circumstances he faces in getting to the Wizard, call out of him and reveal the courage already resident within him. By the time he reaches the Wizard, he has already faced numerous circumstances requiring courage. 

The Lion. The King of The Jungle, who believes himself a coward. How revealing is this? "As a man thinks in his heart, so is he." Proverbs 27:3 

Regardless of the courage of his own actions, the Lion journeys onward in search of someone's affirmation. He searches for someone of great power and position to tell him he is courageous. Its almost as if a thing doesn't exist until someone perceives it and calls it out. 

Courage then is about shaping the future instead of allowing life to happen to us. Courage is cultivation. It is a creative act because it involves making an intentional choice toward design.  Courage designs our futures whereas inaction allows life to become overgrown and entangled.