Courage defies easy definition and easy depiction. We rely on dramatic stories of bravery under fire or unimaginable sacrifice to tell us what true courage is. Courage, it is said, is being afraid and busting into the burning building to rescue the baby anyway. And this is true. But looking to the big and audacious for what courage looks like may leave us believing we lack courage.
While the Redheaded-Wildflower and I were in Las Vegas to watch a live Denver Broncos game, we ate lunch on the roof of Brad Shelton’s restaurant called Ole Red. They feature live music, and we sat near the stage, listening to a married couple croon country songs. Unexpectedly, we also saw them live out a small but beautiful act of courage.
They were excellent performers, blending their voices perfectly and throwing fun looks at one another across the stage. They perched on stools, hers a sturdy orange high-top table chair. He played guitar masterfully and sported a well-kept beard, boots, and a cowboy hat. He was country handsome, rugged but not torn up. His voice bent with that smooth country twang. She was next-door-girl pretty and leaned into the mic, her smile inviting us to the party, adding a deep, delicate voice and wide open emotion to their covers. Occasionally, she brushed her long blonde hair back and sang solo with a lovely layered confidence, especially on the surprising and delivered a faultless rendition of White Rabbit, originally done by Grace Slick and Jefferson Airplane. Not a country song, but wonderful.
Their friends, groupies, continually called out encouragement and song suggestions. We clapped along. Between songs, I noticed a wheelchair stowed against a wall near the stage stairs. No one near appeared to need it or own it. Something made me look back at our musical hostess. Her black cowboy boots were perfectly perched on a rung of her stool. Her thin legs peeked out of her dress. She rocked and moved her torso to the songs, but her legs and feet never budged. Still, she compelled the crowd of about 75 to dance and move to the love stories country music tells so well.
“Her legs are paralyzed,” I whispered to the Redheaded-Wildflower, pointing out the wheelchair. There she was laying her ability and disabilty along side each other in a courageous vulnerability I’d seldom seen. And even less often expressed myself. Our sandwich arrived, and they played about four more songs. I hardly tasted the sandwich or heard the music. My emotions crashed inside me like waves. Awe, respect, gratitude, and shame thundered on the beach of my heart.
What courage! If I were her (and I am! Paralyzed in so many invisible ways.), I would have sung along with the radio in the safety of my living room—or maybe at church. Then I would berate myself for my cowardice. But I would have never let myself be hauled up on a stage, my disability parading in front of God and everyone. I would have hidden my meager gifts—and do. As a writer and speaker, I put myself out so tentatively, my soul resounding to the occasional response like Sally Field in her Oscar acceptance speech, “You like me!”
I’m ashamed of my fear of being unliked. I then hide my light under a basket, or a rock if I can move one big enough.
I often have two responses to situations that call for courageous vulnerability: play it safe and stay hidden. In a contradictory sleight of hand, I make myself invisible by becoming visibly what you expect of me. I become noticably unnoticable. This has been my lifelong pattern. Am I doing that even now? Or I become bold and loud and demanding. I smear red paint over the subtle tones of my self-doubt. With bombast, I make you doubt yourself lest we both doubt me, and my whole facade collapses.
What I rarely practice is vulnerability. Strange though, vulnerability expressed through God-given gifts is what I am drawn to in my favorite writers and poets. Frederik Beuchner. Pauli Murray. Eugene Peterson. Madeline L’Engle. Bruce Cockburn. Louise Erdrich. Strangely, as a kid, this courageous vulnerability was what I loved about Spider-Man. Yet I sit in the audience and clap, never daring to climb onto the stage.
Early in my writing career, I read The Courage to Write: How Writers Transcend Fear by Ralph Keyes. He wrote, “Mastering techniques will do far less to improve your writing than will finding the guts to put on paper what you really want to say.” Do you see how he combines courage and vulnerability? They are oars in the same boat. It takes immense courage to be vulnerable. And deep vulnerability to express courage.
Keyes was the first to suggest to me fear was not to be hidden from, denied, or battled, but rather used. My difficulty in finishing my novels (or finishing much of anything) lay in my fear of both failure or success. My fear was pointing to something real I’d not named. Yes, I could fail to write the Great American Novel and be shown a fraud. Or I could succeed and also be shown a fraud. With either, I’d need to come out of hiding, show my heart, my dreams. Admit my grandiose hopes and fears, put on paper what I really wanted to say. Let you, my dear reader, see me for who I really am.
Watching this courageous couple, I heard a whisper to that terrified soul of mine. “Using your gifts: poetry, pastoring, storytelling, friendship, love, whatever, to their height requires vulnerability. No hiding. She could only use her gift by embracing courageous vulnerability. Watch!”
He placed his guitar in its stand and walked over to her, giving her a full frontal hug, lifting her from her stool. They were chest to chest, cheek to cheek, her legs dangling uselessly above the stage. It was one of the most intimate and beautiful expressions of love I’ve seen in public. So much so that one of their groupies called out, “Get a room.”
The couple melted into laughter, obviously comfortable in their vulnerable skin together. Courage defies easy definition and easy action because it requires vulnerability.
More stories you may appreciate. How Does God’s Perfect Love Drive Out Your Deepest Fear? Why Conquering Your Fears Won’t Make You Fearless, How Longfellow Found Real Hope in Despair in Christmas Music and You Can Too
Eugene – It seems that whatever you write you challenge me :). I was interested to note your takeaways from Vegas. I have never been there. With the story that you shared though was a good reminder that light still shines in the darkness. I wasn’t expecting, and i don’t suppose you were either, that such a revelation of vulnerability would be found in Vegas. I have read very little of the authors that you noted. I am conservative in my faith life as I am in my sectarian life and so I began reading, in my early years, the Greek Philosophers and then the early Church writers until todays theologians who still hold to traditional values as I do. Although we follow different theologians I think we still come up with the same understanding of courage and vulnerability. I do enjoy your gift for writing. Thank you again for this. Terry
Terry: It’s an honor that you read and comment on my blog, and that I challenge you. I was surprised and not to have God open my eyes about him in Vegas. I’ve long taught on God-sightings. Buechner says it this way in The Magnificent Defeat: “There is a God right here in the thick of our day-to-day lives who may not be writing messages about deity in the stars, but who in one way or another is trying to get messages through our blindness as we move around down here knee-deep in the fragrant muck and misery and marvel of the world.”
I bet (to use Vegas language) we have more theologians in common than we imagine. Progressive friends call me conservative, and conservative friends call me progressive. I don’t read as much pure theology as I once did. And as you said, we agree on courage and vulnerability. Your comment shows a good measure of both.
I hope you have a holy and true Christmas.