"Courage is found in unlikely places." -Tolkien

Disclaimer:
This post isn't meant to be about a hot-button issue.  It isn't meant to rally you with or against me in my stance on the sanctity of life.  This post is meant to applaud courage. 

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When I first read Tolkien's words, "Courage is found in unlikely places," I didn't really think much of it.  I didn't think much of it because I had never been called to be particularly courageous.  I had known particularly courageous people, relatives, friends and acquaintances that had faced some battle or situation that required extraordinary courage.  For a long time, I just assumed that they were naturally braver than me.

To me, courage seemed to be a distant concept that was naturally built into people and manifested itself in extreme circumstances, like making an incredibly stand against a bully and being someone's hero or waging a treacherous war on a disease or racing into a burning building (or equally dangerous situation) to save lives.  Courage was always a distant concept, probably because the less obvious acts of courage I had witnessed always seemed to come so naturally and easily to those who showed them.  Courageous acts were full of grandeur and valiance.  I often missed small acts of courage in others and myself because they seemed like instinctive reactions.

When my mother was forty years old, she discovered that she was pregnant with my younger brother.  I was a senior in high school, and needless to say, the pregnancy was a surprise to the entire family.  I was less than supportive.  (I was actually kind of a terror about the whole thing.)  And in retrospect, I know my mother had to have been fearful; she was beginning motherhood all over again, eighteen years older than she was the first time around.  A lot of things had changed, and she and my father were jumping back in quiet unexpectedly.  But I never saw that fear in either of them, and it seemed to me that they were just naturally accepting of this new challenge.  The idea that they were forced to be courageous in that situation wasn't one that crossed my mind until many years later.

In our society, my parents had did have a choice in their situation.  They had a choice to be courageous with the new task before them or to terminate the pregnancy and live the life they had planned with their baby bird left the nest (which included purchasing a motorcycle and RV and having a few grand adventures).  But at the time, it did not register with me that they had that choice.  The family and moral situation in which I was raised did not warrant abortion as an option for unplanned pregnancies.  The idea of aborting their unplanned baby probably never crossed my parents' minds, as it certainly never crossed mine (despite how totally not accepting I was of the situation for most of the pregnancy).

In the past seven years since my parents made the choice to be brave and keep their unexpected miracle, I've realized how truly brave my parents are, for various reasons.  My eyes have been opened to bravery all around me.  But a recent experience showed me, perhaps, the biggest act of bravery I have ever witnessed.

My friend, Julie, (along with her husband) and I attended the Texas Alliance for Life's Rally for Life.

It was a bit step in my personal ministry.

Last weekend, I got courageous and stepped out of my own comfort zone.  You see, I’ve been ministering to children and teens for the better part of the past ten years.  I’ve participated in various ministry teams and spoken to hundreds of young people about the Lord and His love for us.  And it was tough at times, because it isn’t that surprising that the last place some teens want to be on a Saturday morning is a church retreat.  But nothing required the courage I managed to find last weekend when I attended the Texas Alliance for Life’s Rally for Life.  I’ve never had to evangelize in such a way.   I’ve never been met with that level of hostility.  I’ve never been cursed at or rushed toward for speaking the Gospel.  But my bravery was simply nothing compared to a quiet act of great courage amongst the crowd.   

A woman walked before me with a sign on her back.  It was a black sign with white writing, and it read, ‘I regret my abortion.’  And I was floored.  It was a quiet act of courage, but it was probably the most courage I had ever seen.  It takes a lot of courage to admit to ourselves that we’re wrong.  It takes even more to admit to others that we’re wrong.  But my, how much courage it takes to admit to the world that we regret something that so divides us.  

When our group of marchers approached the capital building, I began to honestly feel fear.  It had been a peaceful march thus far.  Around me, groups were praying rosaries and singing beautiful hymns in Spanish.  But as the capital approached, our march slowed as our whole group bottlenecked trying to get through the gates.  And surrounding us were pro-choice advocates.  Some were vulgar, shouting curses at us and chanting crude rhymes condemning the Church for supporting the sanctity of life.  Some were taunting us and bowing up at us.  And behind me, someone spoke, ‘Remember, being pro-life also means being pro-peace.  We aren’t violent.’  In retrospect, I doubt anything violent would have occurred.  We had been escorted by police since the march began, and police were patrolling intermittently around the capital.  But I was slightly fearful as we slowly moved through the pro-choice crowd and toward the capitol steps.  The words of pope Francis kept ringing in my ear, though, ‘Ask Jesus what He wants from you and be brave!’  I had read the words a few weeks before and hadn’t been able to shake them.  And as I learned about the rally, the more I repeated the pope’s words until I finally committed myself to attending.  

Blessed John Paul II made an appearance.
I became interested in his Theology of the Body in college.

In front of the capital, we listened to many speakers.  The keynote speaker was Greg Abbott (who is of no relation to me), the Texas Attorney General and Republican candidate in the Texas gubernatorial race.  Abbott is wheelchair bound, and he said something that really struck me.  He said, “It does not take legs to take a stand; it takes a backbone.”  He wasn’t using his disability as a crutch, wasn’t making excuses as to why he could or could not do something.  But how often do we rationalize our actions (or lack thereof) by claiming inability for one reason or another.  How often do we let the possibility of bravery pass over us because our fear is too great and our reasoning is too sound?  We don't need every detail in order to take a stand; we don’t need reassurance that we’ll succeed or be on the winning side of an argument.  We just need a bit of bravery.  

As the rally drew to a close, I thought again of the woman I’d seen earlier.  The quietly courageous woman who proclaimed her regret, her mistake.  She had a backbone.  She wasn’t giving a speech to a crowd surrounded by the opposition.  She wasn’t filibustering in the Senate.  She was taking her own stand, being courageous in her own way.  In the most unlikely place, a pro-life rally, she was courageous in admitting she’d had an abortion.  There are other women, I’m sure, who regret making that decision.  But this courageous woman faced her fears and told the world that she regretted that decision.  I’m sure both sides of the fight have said unkind words to her, but it took guts to do what she did.   

Some perspective from Horton.

C.S. Lewis wrote, “Courage is not simply one of the virtues but the form of every virtue at the testing point, which means at the point of highest reality.”  Courage is what we get when we take any of the seven virtues (prudence, temperance, justice, fortitude, faith, hope, and charity) and test it within us.  When we feel temptation so strongly, the moment when we are able to turn from it is courage, when we are able to say no to the vice that appeals so much to us.  It is so, so simple for us to hide behind a vice.  It is at the moment when we feel most as if that vice, be it indifference, impurity, impatience, hatred, or a plethora of others, is the norm in our lives that we must be our most courageous.  It is when we are most tempted toward impurity that chastity becomes courage.  It is at the moment when skipping Mass on Sunday has become commonplace that our choice of piety becomes courage.  When it is so very simple to be hateful, being kind is courageous.  

When Tolkien’s unlikely place is our everyday lives, we must be brave.  We must ask Christ what he wants from us and we must be brave.