mughes

The most impactful thing I ever heard Tim Haviland talk about in a Del Mar Toastmasters meeting was the origin of the word courage.  The root of courage is Latin cor, the word for heart.  The American Heritage definition of courage is:  The state or quality of mind or spirit that enables one to face danger, fear, or vicissitudes with self-possession, confidence, and resolution; bravery.  The reason I’m thinking about this word is because I recently saw the movie World Trade Center.  Now, I wasn’t particularly drawn to see this movie, but went with a friend who really wanted to see it.  I cried a lot. There were lots of examples of courage in the movie.  The firemen who volunteered to go into the building, the firemen who went in to rescue people, the marines who disobeyed orders to discontinue searching and climbed into the dangerous rubble so they could search for survivors.  I started thinking about courage when I read the article about the unsung hero Marine, Sgt. Thomas who just recently came forward to claim his role in the rescue. But the courage I’m curious about wasn’t exactly addressed in WTC, but I can’t stop thinking about it. I heard a news story about the new airport security profiling and an expert talked about airport security video of the 9/11 highjackers. He said that the highjackers were exhibiting a great deal of anxiety. Airport security profiling need not be racially based, but a study of body language. Which is what got me thinking.What exactly were these highjackers exhibiting? The expert on NPR said “anxiety”. These highjackers, so-called terrorists, were anxious because they were afraid. They weren’t twirling, smiling and skipping through the airport with joy because they were destined to become martyrs. They were scared! And isn’t the real definition of courage our ability to face our fear?  We cannot experience courage unless we have fear.  

These men, who were trained and raised with a belief system that is very different from our western culture came into our country with a brilliant scheme to wound Americans.  Their individual tasks were not devised by them, but by a powerful, persuasive group of individuals with an egoic agenda to attain power through the use of force.  These unfortunate individual highjackers, or terrorists, were full of terror.   Courage is what it took for them to get on those planes, overpower their enemies and fly those planes into the American symbols of power.  The people of the United States, who value freedom so much, have handed our freedom over to our powerful government, in exchange for security.  Security from people who are courageous and . . . afraid. I submit that a terrorist is not one who creates terror, but one who embodies terror.  This terror is the seed of courage. 

This entry was posted on Monday, August 21st, 2006 at 9:53 pm and is filed under Compassion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.