Do You Choose Fear, or Courage?
I was listening to a story yesterday about these 7,000 refugees walking 2,000 miles from Honduras and El Salvador to the US Border.
[As a reference point, only about 700 hikers complete roughly the same distance on the Appalachian Trail each year.]
How bad must the situation be in their home countries that they would do something this risky? What courage these people must have? To uproot themselves from their home. Their families. Their friends, communities, and livelihoods. To venture into the unknown in hope of a better life for themselves and their families.
This story reminded me of what some of my ancestors went through, especially those who were kicked out of Acadia (now Nova Scotia) by the British and had nothing to carry but hope of a better life 1,500 miles away in Louisiana. What courage they must have had to venture into the unknown?
Q: Why are the former Acadians now called Cajuns? Clue: think heavy accent.
I imagine you have the same stories running through your blood. Economic, political, and religious refugees, by choice or force. Caravans of carriages, boats, horses, and feet. Husbands, wives, and children, hopefully together, but often separated. Nothing but the belongings on their backs, and surely no money to their names. That is what the United States is made of. We are made of that courageous refugee blood.
So when I hear fear in the words of our leaders, it surprises me.
Fear, both rational and irrational, of something being taken away. Fear of others who are courageous enough to make the same journey our ancestors did. Fear of those who speak a different language or worship a different God. Fear of the unknown or new. Fear of giving up the good life (or to put more accurately, fear that we’ll never have enough). Fear that being generous to others will impact the square footage of our house (or for the privileged few, how many houses they have). Why are we so afraid all of a sudden, especially when as a nation we’ve never had it better?
Apparently the refugees hadn’t heard. The United States that was once the beacon of freedom, bravery, and liberty, is now mired in greed and fear. (Greed is just economic fear.) Do we no longer live by the saying on our Statue of Liberty?
“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
But our courageous ancestors still live within us, and together they and us have created one of the most prosperous, free, and strong nations in the world. We ARE bold. We ARE brave. We ARE creative. When we have problems, we figure it out. We venture into the unknown, whether that’s space, deep underground, or our brain. That is who we are.
As Nelson Mandela said:
“Courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.”
Every day, not just every two years, but every moment in our own lives, we get to choose: live behind a wall of fear, or be courageous.
What are you choosing today, tomorrow, and for the future?
