THE COURAGE TO BE HUMAN

January 9, 2022

Rev. Kit Ketcham

In 1944, American soldier Master Sgt. Roddie Edmonds found himself the senior officer at a Nazi prisoner of war camp.  He was ordered by the Nazi camp commander to identify all the Jewish soldiers in the camp.  

Edmonds told his men “We’re not going to do that”. And 1275 American soldiers stood with him, refusing to identify the Jews among them.  

The Nazi commander was furious.  “All of you can’t be Jewish!”  he screamed.  

“We are all Jews here” Edmonds responded.

“I’m commanding you to have your Jewish men step forward.  You will have your Jewish men step forward or I will shoot you on the spot.”

Edmonds replied, “If you shoot, you’ll have to kill all of us”.

The Nazi holstered his gun and stormed away.

As many as 200 Jewish American soldiers were saved by their fellow captives that day.

Our topic today is “The Courage to be Human”.  The short vignette I’ve just read you is one kind of courage, but there are several others.  Master Sgt. Edmonds, the officer faced with this dilemma must have been terrified that his ploy would not work and that he and possibly his cadre of prisoners would be shot dead, massacred without recourse.  

And yet he took that chance.  We would all agree, probably, that he exhibited great courage, as did his men.

Humans are unusual animals by any stretch of the imagination.  We have some special abilities, from big brains to opposable thumbs.  We have changed the world dramatically since our time on earth and we have even left the planet.  There are also some weird things about humans, or at least “special” in relationship to the rest of the animal kingdom. 

Speech, for example.  Though a parrot or macaw might copy human voices and make sounds like words, we are the only ones who have the capacity to create actual speech.

We walk fully upright, rather than bowed over like many other humanoid primates.

We are naked, compared to our hairier ape cousins.  And we wear clothing.

We have extraordinary brains relative to our body size and can reason and have provided the works of geniuses like Mozart, Einstein, and others.

We have highly flexible opposable thumbs and can flex our other fingers into a powerful grip with dexterity for holding and using tools, more so than other primates.

We can control fire, which has given us the ability to cook our food, to warm our dwellings, to keep predators at bay, and to light our way in the dark.

We blush, but we’re not sure why this feature of humanness occurs in us, just that we are the only species known to do so.  Or, as someone has jibed, needs to do so.

We have long childhoods and are in the care of our parents much longer than other living primates, possibly so that our large brains have time to grow and to learn what we need for survival.

We have a life after we have produced and raised children.  Females can survive long after ceasing to be capable of reproduction.  Grandparents, therefore, can help ensure the success of their families long after their own reproductive years are behind them.

Courage is something that everybody wants, says Dr. Dragana Djukic, a British psychotherapist, but she explains that courage is not just physical bravery.  Generally speaking, there are several types of courage that we need, to face life’s challenges.

Physical courage, when we feel fear but choose to act, even in the face of bodily harm even death.

Emotional courage, when we follow our heart, allowing ourselves to feel the full spectrum of emotions, both pleasant and unpleasant.

Intellectual courage, when we let go of the familiar and allow our horizons to expand, being willing to learn, unlearn, and relearn with an open and flexible mind.

Social courage, when we are ourselves in the face of adversity, involving the risk of social embarrassment or exclusion, unpopularity or rejection.  It also includes leadership.

Moral courage,  standing up for what is right, doing the right thing even when it is uncomfortable or unpopular.

Spiritual courage,  facing pain and loss with dignity, living with purpose and meaning through a heart-centered approach to life and to oneself.

How old were you when you first got the message “just be yourself, honey, and you’ll be fine”?  It might have been on the first day of 7th grade or before a job interview or a date but it was a scary prescription, offered at a time of our lives when we weren’t too sure who our real selves were and whether we had much to offer.

“Just be yourself, honey" was my Dad's advice. He also added those sage words from Shakespeare, "this above all, to thine own self be true, and it will follow as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man." So I thought about it---a lot.

Some things about myself I knew without question: my Scandinavian heritage, for example. I was a girl, whatever that meant. I was smart. I was a preacher's kid. I was big, not particularly athletic, and an oldest child.

Then there were things others told me about myself: my parents were proud of my wanting to be baptized at age 6, so I must be religious. People laughed at my cute remarks, so I must be funny. People sneered at my not-so-cute remarks, so I must be weird. I was bigger than most of my friends, so I must be fat. I didn't have a boyfriend in high school, so I must be ugly.

I didn't trust some of what others told me; their beliefs didn't always tally with my experience. Sometimes I was so confused that I gave up and gave in. Okay, they think I'm clumsy, I'll quit trying to do cartwheels.

Of course, everyone is confused about their identity as an adolescent, and I was no exception. In despair, one day in college, I resorted to a technique that has served me well ever since. I made a list!

I listed the things I knew for sure about myself. I listed the things I loved to do and the things I hated to do. I listed the things people seemed to assume about me. I listed the things that I thought nobody knew about me. I looked at this list for a long time. And then I crossed out the things that people assumed which were erroneous. I put question marks by those I thought might be the result of others' thinking, not my own. When I was done, I thought I had a pretty good picture of who I was, at least as a college freshman.

Little did I know it was only the beginning of a lifetime of asking and answering this question! My understandings of myself continue to evolve. I'll bet yours do too. 

So what does it mean to have the courage to be human?  We are born into this body, we carry a number of unique abilities that no other animal has, we have brains so well developed that they can get us to the moon and beyond, but each of these attributes carries danger, carries responsibility, carries questions of ethics and morality, leads us into situations where prior knowledge is useless or even untrue.

We are called upon to protect and defend or to wreak violence upon those other humans who threaten our family, our friends, ourselves.

We are called upon to decide whether or not we can show our full range of emotion and purpose.  Is it safe?  What if others are repelled or laugh at us?

We are called upon to invent and to carry out new technologies, to lead others into new and untried areas of knowledge.  And we have to consider the possible outcomes of these new ways.  Will they hurt or help other humans?

Our intellectual abilities may lead us into nontraditional ways of thinking, of morality, of ethical principles we had never thought to challenge.  Those of us who have left conservative and fundamentalist Christianity behind may know too well the consequences that faced us.

How shall we reconcile our new understandings with the old interpretations of sacred texts?  And how will we maintain our family ties if we can’t?

When we use our powers of speech, what will we say?  Will we speak wisdom or nonsense? Will we harm or help those we speak to, those we speak for?

When we use our flexible hands and our opposable thumbs, will we build beauty and usefulness or will we use them to oppress other humans?

When we create children and teach them what we know, will we lead them into acts of mercy or acts of violence?

And when we come to die, we are faced with the greatest conundrum of humanity---have we been fully human? Have we made decisions that exhibited our courage and not our cowardice?  Have we been honest---with ourselves and with our communities?

Life as a human is joyful---and scary.  We have huge choices to make and, if we are committed to being fully human, we must be mindful of the needs of other humans and nonhuman living things.

Let me repeat the six types of courage that I mentioned earlier and think about your own life so far.  What have been your experiences as you have made your way through the past years and look ahead to the future?  

Physical courage, when you felt fear but chose to act, even in the face of bodily harm and even death.

Emotional courage, when you followed your heart, allowing yourself to feel the full spectrum of emotions, both pleasant and unpleasant.

Intellectual courage, when you let go of the familiar and allowed your horizons to expand, being willing to learn, unlearn, and relearn with an open and flexible mind.

Social courage, when you were yourself in the face of adversity, involving the risk of social embarrassment or exclusion, unpopularity or rejection.  Social courage also includes leadership, which takes a great deal of courage.

Moral courage,  standing up for what is right, doing the right thing even when it is uncomfortable or unpopular.

Spiritual courage,  facing pain and loss with dignity, living with purpose and meaning through a heart-centered approach to life and to yourself.

What do you think?

Have you been fearful, scared to death---and moved forward anyhow?

Have you made decisions with your heart, not just your brain, and felt all the range of emotion as you proceeded down those paths?

Have you opened your mind to new ideas, new learnings, new attachments, even knowing the dangers they may present, and let your horizons expand?

Have you risked embarrassment or exclusion, unpopularity or rejection as you took a stand in a time of adversity or in a leadership role?

Have you been challenged to stand up for what is right, to do what is ethical and moral even when it is uncomfortable or unpopular?

And have you faced pain and loss with dignity, grieving those losses while continuing to live with purpose and integrity?

It takes a good deal of courage to be fully human.  We see fellow humans take a more cowardly path, dishonest and unethical, stuck in the mire of greed and selfishness.  At the end of their lives, what do they have to show for their cowardice and lack of integrity?  

At the end of our lives, what will we have to show for our courage?  We are human and will not live perfect lives of perfect courage, but if our goal is to live with intent and to uphold the deep values we have come to love, we will be able to say to ourselves, this has been a good way to live.

The poet Dawna Markova wrote these lines, with which I will close:

I will not die an unlived life

I will not live in fear

of falling or catching fire.

I choose to inhabit my days,

to allow my living to open me,

to make me less afraid,

more accessible,

to loosen my heart

until it becomes a wing,

a torch, a promise.

I choose to risk my significance;

to live so that which came to me as seed

goes to the next as blossom

and that which came to me as blossom,

goes on as fruit.

Poet: Dawna Markova

Let’s pause for a time of silent reflection and prayer.