{"id":30639,"date":"2024-07-07T03:00:48","date_gmt":"2024-07-07T09:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/?p=30639"},"modified":"2024-07-05T15:02:07","modified_gmt":"2024-07-05T21:02:07","slug":"courage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/2024\/07\/courage.html","title":{"rendered":"Courage"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

In one traditional Wiccan initiation<\/a>, the candidate is blocked at the edge of the circle and challenged at knife-point:<\/p>\n

O thou who standeth on the threshold between the pleasant world of men and the domains of the Dread Lords of the Outer Spaces, hast thou the courage to make the Assay? For I tell thee verily, it were better to rush on my weapon and perish miserably than to make the attempt with fear in thy heart.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Only a fool has no fear when a knife-point touches their skin, even if the knife is in the hands of someone they know and trust. Only a fool has no fear when stepping across the threshold between the world of the living and the world of the Gods and ancestors. And yet the challenge stands.<\/p>\n

The real challenge is not to pretend you have nothing to fear.<\/p>\n

The real challenge is to move forward in spite of your fears.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

We have reason to fear<\/h2>\n \ If there is one theme I\u2019ve seen over and over again these past couple of weeks, it\u2019s fear. And I understand why.<\/p>\n \ The same Supreme Court that reversed Roe v. Wade<\/em> reversed the Chevron<\/em> ruling, which helped insure that regulations \u2013 especially environmental regulations \u2013 are made and enforced by subject matter experts and not by judges. And then they said that Presidents have presumptive immunity for official acts, making it much more difficult to prosecute Donald Trump for his attempts to overturn the 2020 election, and opening the door for even greater misconduct in the future.<\/p>\n People are starting to become aware of Project 2025<\/a>, a far-right attempt to take the country back to 1890, including a nationwide ban on abortion, removing all legal protections for LGBTQ people, denying the existence of trans people, and banning \u201cpornography\u201d \u2013 which they define so broadly it would include books on sexual health and \u201cspicy romance\u201d novels.<\/p>\n And then there was the Presidential debate. Trump lied for 90 minutes straight, while Biden looked old and weak. Can Biden still beat Trump? Should he step aside? Can Kamala Harris beat Trump? Can anyone else replace Biden without alienating Black voters, who were critical to Biden\u2019s win in 2020? Despite his lies to the contrary, Trump lost decisively in 2020 and I think most of us were expecting him to lose by even more this year. Now that\u2019s much less certain.<\/p>\n You would have to be a fool to look at these things and not be afraid \u2013 and we are not fools.<\/p>\n

Fear is natural and necessary<\/h2>\n* ** Fear is an evolutionary adaptation that helps us stay alive. We have a natural fear of snakes and spiders (may be venomous), high places (falls can be deadly), and large wild animals (lions and tigers and bears can and will eat you). People who lose or ignore these fears are the ones we nominate for Darwin Awards \u2013 often posthumously.<\/p>\n ** Fear triggers the production of adrenaline, to prepare the body for \u201cfight or flight\u201d \u2013 another evolutionary adaptation. It\u2019s a very old adaptation, one we share with all mammals and some other vertebrates. It works well when it helps us take immediate physical action. But it\u2019s exhausting, and it\u2019s harmful when it builds up over and over again.<\/p>\n ** The physical and emotional damages caused by living in constant fear are very real, but also out of scope for this blog post. The point I want to make here is that while fear is not irrational it\u2019s often non-rational \u2013 we don\u2019t think, we just react. And when we react without thinking \u2013 without deep, reflective thinking \u2013 we often act in ways that are less than helpful.<\/p>\n ** Or we simply don\u2019t act. The third \u201cF\u201d after fight or flight is freeze. If a wild predator is stalking you, freezing can a helpful response. Mammalian eyes detect motion much better than they distinguish prey from the background. If you don\u2019t move and you make no sound, they may decide you\u2019re not really there and move on.<\/p>\n ** But the predators at hand are not wild animals, and freezing is not helpful in our current political environment.<\/p>\n ** Our current environment requires courage.<\/p>\n ** Courage: doing the right thing even though we\u2019re afraid<\/h2>\n ** You\u2019re welcome to google a dictionary definition of \u201ccourage\u201d if you like. My definition of courage in this context goes back to that knife-point challenge: not pretending you\u2019re not afraid, but doing the right thing even though you are afraid.<\/p>\n ** \u201cWhat\u2019s the matter? You scared?\u201d<\/p>\n ** That\u2019s the taunt of countless teenage boys and more than a few teenage girls. And other people who should know better. They\u2019re trying to get you to do something you don\u2019t want to do \u2013 usually for very good reasons \u2013 for their own entertainment. As the good parents taught, if you don\u2019t want to do it, you don\u2019t have to do it.<\/p>\n ** Our current situation isn\u2019t a thrill-seeking bully trying to peer-pressure us into some risky stunt. This is a very real risk to life, liberty, and justice. We can\u2019t just walk away.<\/p>\n ** Well, maybe you can. But even though I\u2019m an old, straight, white, cis man with a middle class job, I don\u2019t have enough privilege to ignore this. If the worst happens it will impact me, and it will impact my more vulnerable friends even more. So I can\u2019t ignore it.<\/p>\n ** *The first step of courage is recognize the situation for what it is, and understand that we are right to be afraid.<\/p>\n Doing what we can instead of obsessing over what we can\u2019t<\/h2>\n*** ** The second step is to decide what you\u2019re going to do. In the initiation, that\u2019s simple: you give the passwords, step into the circle, and continue with the ritual.<\/p>\n ** Here, it\u2019s anything but simple \u2013 in large part because the outcome is out of our personal control. We can vote for President \u2013 and we damn well better \u2013 but we cannot appoint the President. The Supreme Court is dominated by conservatives (as are most lower courts) and will be for years to come. Gerrymandering dilutes votes, especially in state legislatures (the majority of governmental evil is coming from the states, not from Washington).<\/p>\n ** I\u2019ve seen numerous people screaming \u201cadd more Justices\u201d \u201cget rid of the Electoral College\u201d \u201cdistribute Senators proportionally\u201d and \u201cranked choice voting!\u201d All of those things are good ideas and we should be working toward them, but none of them are going to happen any time soon.<\/p>\n ** ***So we do what we can do now.<\/p>\n I\u2019m voting for Joe Biden for President. If he decides to step aside (I don\u2019t think that\u2019s going to happen, but if it does) I\u2019ll vote for Kamala Harris, or whoever the Democrats end up nominating. Biden isn\u2019t a savior (as I reminded everyone<\/a> in 2020) but he\u2019s light years better than Trump.<\/p>\n Voting for a third party is the same as not voting. It accomplishes nothing and makes it that much more likely Trump will win.<\/p>\n I\u2019m voting for Democrats in every race. Colin Allred has a decent chance to finally unseat Ted Cruz. Most of the other races in Texas are lost causes, but I\u2019ll vote blue anyway. If you live in a place where a progressive independent or third party has a chance win, vote for them.<\/p>\n I\u2019m supporting Biden and Allred financially. My contributions aren\u2019t enough to get me a phone call from the candidates, but it\u2019s something.<\/p>\n I\u2019m encouraging my friends and neighbors to do the same.<\/p>\n That\u2019s all I can do, so it\u2019s what I will do.<\/p>\n The courage of experience<\/h2>\n*** ** Divination can show us what is likely to happen, and that can be helpful.<\/p>\n ** But divination has limits.<\/p>\n ** My divination for this situation says things will not be catastrophic but neither will they be easy. My objective analysis says the same thing. Is one influencing the other? Perhaps. In any case, divining for matters with so many possibilities and so many inputs (154 million people voted in the 2020 Presidential election) is extremely difficult. And in any case, what does \u201cnot catastrophic but not easy\u201d mean for the Presidential race?<\/p>\n ** Knowing what is coming helps us prepare for it \u2013 mentally and spiritually as well as tangibly. It gives us confidence that we\u2019re going to be OK.<\/p>\n ** But what do we do when we can\u2019t know what\u2019s coming with certainty?<\/p>\n ** Then we can have confidence in ourselves that we can handle whatever comes our way.<\/p>\n ** ***This is one of the advantages of getting older. It\u2019s not that I\u2019ve seen it all so I know exactly what\u2019s coming. It\u2019s that I\u2019ve experienced bad times before \u2013 both personally and in the wider world. I handled all those. So I\u2019m confident that whatever happen in the near future, I can handle that too.<\/p>\n That doesn\u2019t mean things will be easy or nice. One time \u201chandling it\u201d meant working 60 hours a week for six months straight, with some weeks going over 80 hours. Three times it meant making cross country moves, two of which I very much didn\u2019t want to make. It\u2019s going to mean making one more cross country move<\/a> in a few years.<\/p>\n Yes, I have skills that some do not. You likely have skills I do not. What worked for me may not work for you, and vice versa. The point is that humans are resilient creatures. We are the children of those who adapted and therefore survived.<\/p>\n And we will survive whatever 2025 and beyond puts in front of us.<\/p>\n Don\u2019t try to do this alone<\/h2>\n I said this in the post on Tower Time<\/a> and I\u2019ll say it again: don\u2019t try to get through this alone. Lean on your Gods, ancestors, and other spiritual allies. Lean on your friends and neighbors, and support them in their challenges and difficulties.<\/p>\n Humans are not solitary creatures \u2013 we are social animals. Our closest genetic relatives \u2013 chimpanzees and bonobos \u2013 live in groups ranging from a dozen or two up to about 150. And so have humans for most of our existence. Our contemporary society makes forming and maintaining these groups difficult, but it can be done.<\/p>\n This will become even more important in the future. We cannot survive and succeed alone and we cannot count on government to help. We have to help each other.<\/p>\n Starting now.<\/p>\n Hast thou the courage?<\/h2>\n*** ** Fear is natural and necessary \u2013 it helps keep us alive. But our current situation is not one where the evolutionary instincts for fight, flight, or freeze are helpful responses. We need to respond to our fears with courage \u2013 to do what is necessary in spite of our fears, for ourselves and for the wider world.<\/p>\n ** Hast thou the courage?<\/p>\n ** I think we do.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" ** ***Fear is natural and necessary \u2013 it helps keep us alive. But our current socio-political situation is not one where the evolutionary instincts for fight, flight, or freeze are helpful responses. 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