Finders Keepers

"He just kept going like a bullet-torn battle flag and nobody captured his colors and nobody silenced his drums."
   --James Thurber writing about his editor Ross of the New Yorker

Fred Craddock in his wonderful wise way asks often: Have you ever lost a word? Good question. Looking out at the terrain today—I think we have lost the word, courage. The old song says, “You gotta have heart.” And heart is the Latin root for courage. I don’t see much courage around me today. It’s the reverse of cowardice. Courage enables one to face dangers and difficulties and threats.

Sometimes listening to the news, reading the paper my heart sinks. Am I just hard of hearing or is there an absence of the word, courage today? In Alabama our Legislators cannot possibly let the people of Alabama struggle to update our 1901 Constitution. Lurking in the shadows, of course is the big money that keep them ticking. No, no—the moneyed people say. And so in some ways Alabama is stuck in 1901 where the poor were pitted against the rich and the blacks were pitted against the whites. They’ve lost the word courage in Montgomery, our state capitol. Does anybody wonder why we are close to the bottom of every poll on almost every issue?

Why can’t we deal with health care in Washington? Same reason. Somewhere along the way courage got lost in the shuffle. All those Senators and Congressmen mostly are scared to death. Scared of the voters. Scared of the lobbyists. Scared for their own skins. Scared come November they will be booted out. And so some 36-40 million people still have no health care. And the stories of all the people who lost their health care—seem to fall on deaf ears. We need some folk with guts in Washington that are looking out for more than their backsides. We will be crippled as a people if there are not leaders with courage. And unless we are careful we will be at the bottom of every poll with countries around the world.

The church, of course, isn’t much better. Maybe the church never has stuck her neck out too far. We have pulled up the rear with about every social issue that has come down the pike. Who talks about health care in the church? Who stands up for gay people and all the injustices that still reign down on their heads? Who speaks for illegal immigrants—who pay taxes and have no benefits? Not many stand against the flat-earth folk who are more concerned with smearing Al Gore than deal with climate change and global warming.

But once in a while somebody steps up to the mike and we hear a word we haven’t heard in a long, long time. Courage. And it always makes an incredible difference. That’s why I keep close Daumier’s wonderful drawing of Don Quixote riding his horse, followed by his side-kick tilting windmill after windmill. Remember The Man from La Mancha that set to music his story?
         "To dream the impossible dream,
          To fight the unbeatable foe,
          To bear with unbearable sorrow,
          To run where the brave dare not go…”

Deep in my heart, like our embattled President, I do believe we just might find the word once again.