In Pursuit of Courage

In Pursuit of Courage


Courage is an extraordinary word that carries a lot of clout.
Courage is a character trait that I am not sure I possess. How would I know unless faced with a situation requiring courage.
How would I react if I happened upon a flaming car with someone trapped inside or a person calling for help from an icy river? Would I, with a sudden rush of adrenaline, rise to the occasion? In the flash of an instant would courage over come fear filling me with the strength to render aide to those in distress?
The kind of courage I've just described is what makes newspaper headlines. That kind of courage separates the men from the boys. It makes instant heroes of ordinary people, but not everyone has the chance to prove himself courageous by pulling an injured person from a flaming car or jumping from a bridge into icy waters to save survivors of a plane crash. I can only hope that I have what it takes, but I really have no way of knowing for certain unless such an incident were to present itself.
Surely, if I am in pursuit of courage, I can be courageous on an everyday basis. Surely there is an everyday, garden-variety brand of courage available to people like me who may never have an opportunity to achieve a hero-type courage.
I live an everyday, ordinary life in my ordinary house, surrounded by my everyday friends, doing my everyday, ordinary stuff. As I live the life just described I know for a fact that there are times I need courage or maybe it's encouragement to count my blessings. Let me be perfectly clear. I love my life! I can think of no other life I had rather live, and I am most certainly thankful for my many blessings! What I am saying is that sometimes it takes courage to keep on keeping on in a small town with limited conveniences and limited opportunities. Sometimes an ordinary, garden-variety life-style can become just that -- ordinary requiring encouragement rather than courage to go on.
Recently I've found myself making comparisons to the life I live today in this dying little town to the Garrison I remember more than one-half century ago. My home town from the turn-of-the-century to the mid fifties was booming with activity and was truly an exciting and robust place. Garrison was located adjacent to the Southern Pacific Railroad Depot with trains making daily stops to deposit and take on passengers and all sorts of freight. The town was complete with its own working hotel, several churches, a school, several grocery stores, two black smith shops, two large sawmills, several dry good stores, a dry cleaners, hardware stores, two or three cotton gins, a tomato packing plant, a brick plant, several restaurants, several service (gas) stations, a pharmacy, a variety store, a full time doctor, and a movie theater that featured three (3) different movies each week.
On Saturdays the town was filled with families shopping for the upcoming week and visiting with each other just like downtown Garrison, Texas was the social center of the state. By no stretch of the imagination could my home town or its people be described ordinary.
Of course, that town is now only a memory that I have idealized over the years and elevated to the status of extraordinary. I know those people living during the wonder years of the 50's were no more or less courageous than I am living my ordinary life in the same little town today. If I could compare my description of Garrison today to that of my mother's description approximately one-half century ago, she would probably describe her life from the same perspective that I described mine -- ordinary. Surely, from time to time, we all live ordinary lives, but we must never forget that we are living in God's extraordinary world. The choice to live richly and courageously is ours.
One vivid memory that I have of my mother is of her telling me that life gets sweeter and sweeter as one grows older. Time passes faster and faster and the old song that every day is sweeter than the day before is true. Now that I have the knowledge that everyday is sweeter than the day before I am encouraged to plan to live the rest of my ordinary life always in pursuit of courage and beauty and truth and faith and love and hope and friendship.
When my family, my friends or my church calls, I plan to rise with a sudden rush of adrenaline with my heart filled with courage to whatever the opportunity presents.