Word of Wisdom: Courage
“Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength; loving someone deeply gives you courage.” Lao Tzu
When I was seven years old, I began my football card collection in earnest. I bought a new pack of cards on every trip to the store, saved up to buy a whole box whenever I could, and traded with my friends at school. I would continually organize and re-organize them, in the process memorizing players’ numbers, positions, stats, colleges, and hometowns.
One day, while sitting at the kitchen table reviewing a stack of cards, my father informed me that the player whose card I held in my hand had recently died. I recall being saddened, and amazed: I had never before heard of an athlete dying. That one of the heroes I saw on television every week could perish in their prime was both surprising and sorrowful, and immediately Joe Delaney’s Topps football card became a sort of sacred artifact to me.
The circumstances of his death only deepened the impact on my young mind. My father explained that he ran to the rescue of several boys who were drowning in a large pond, and despite not knowing how to swim, plunged into the water to save them. Tragically, he died in the attempt.
As I reflect on that incident almost forty years later, its impact has only increased. Not only was Delaney a surprise All-Pro running back from a small town and small college with a brilliant career ahead of him, but at only 24 years old was married to his college sweetheart and had three young daughters. Yet eyewitnesses testify he didn’t hesitate for a second, rushing into a dangerous swimming area as a non-swimmer. It was true heroism, as this classic NFL Films tribute makes poignantly clear.
How does one move with such speed and selflessness when there is so much to lose? How does one rush into the dread and danger of the water without knowing how to swim?
Most of us would answer with the precise thing Joe Delaney demonstrated: courage. But as easy as it is to label something ‘courage’, it’s just as difficult to understand it, let alone model it.
We commonly think of courage as either the antonym of—or antidote to—fear. But what if it’s not the opposite of being afraid? As many thinkers, writers, and leaders have articulated throughout history, courage is action in the midst—not absence—of fear.
To paraphrase General Omar Bradley, the courageous are the ones who are afraid, but go anyway.
Still, though, there remains the issue of ‘how’. How does courage dash into, leap over, push through that which is frightening? How does courage animate action in the presence of paralyzing panic?
The answer may lie in the word itself.
Our English word courage comes to us from the Old French corage, meaning ‘innermost feelings’. It is derived from the Latin cor, which has the same meaning as the modern French cœur and Spanish corazón. It means ‘heart’.
To be courageous, we find, is to have heart. It is to have deep feelings, to experience a heart that is not only alive, but overflowing. Not bruised and divided, but full and whole.
And like physical courage can be cultivated through training in the company of others—whether for combat, emergency rescue, or a perilous summit bid—so too can emotional courage. The psychological fears that buffet us—failure, rejection, accusation, abandonment—are overcome through training.
Every act of kindness, every encouraging word is training. Every secret broken, every relationship rekindled, every instance of engaging that person in the conversation we’ve avoided—that’s training. Every act of confession, every admission of need and request for help…that is the training that slowly, but surely, heals and fills our heart.
Every choice to return to the table of sonship, no matter how far we’ve run and how long we’ve waited, leads to a heart that can overflow, because it has first been flowed into.
It is how throughout history, in the face of fearful consequences, captives have confronted emperors, shepherds have slain giants, seers have summoned fire, and prisoners have reproved potentates. Because even in the fiery trial, their hearts burned within them.
It’s how, today, we can write that text, make that call, schedule that meeting, carve out that time to share, listen, engage, give to that one person who needs us. Who is waiting for us.
Because it’s what sons of a good Father do; it is how we love deeply in the frequent small things so we can respond courageously in the rare moments of dramatic sacrifice. It is why we do it together, neither going it alone nor leaving any brother behind—loving one another as we were first loved.
Courage, after all, is not for the faint of heart.
“Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord!” Psalm 27:14