Courage is an inner resolution…

 An 88 year-old veteran, mill supervisor, father and farmer was buried in a small town churchyard in North Carolina today. 

His daughter is a close friend of mine and so I stood at that service for the 21-gun salute that blasted as the church's flag flew at half-mast to honor Martin Luther King, Jr., and as Barack Obama was inaugurated for his second term as the nation's first black president.   

The church was full of people and those who spoke talked about William Summers' toughness, hard work, generosity, and exceptional willingness to help friends, family, church, and country.

I watched the uniformed elderly men of the VFW who stood at the gravesite to honor Summers, watched one gloved hand shake as the old soldier held the prolonged salute, and thought about how many different ways there are to be gutsy, to follow conscience, to do the best one can day after day for a long time. 

 

From Martin Luther King, Jr.

"Courage is an inner resolution to go forward despite obstacles;
Cowardice is submissive surrender to circumstances."

 And from King's speech on courage in Selma March 8 1965: text is below the video.   The courage speech is third on this video at 1:31.  What King says about a man's courage is equally true for a woman.

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"Deep down in our non-violent creed is the conviction there are some things so dear, some things so precious, some things so eternally true, that they're worth dying for. And if a man happens to be 36-years-old, as I happen to be, some great truth stands before the door of his life–some great opportunity to stand up for that which is right. A man might be afraid his home will get bombed, or he's afraid that he will lose his job, or he's afraid that he will get shot, or beat down by state troopers, and he may go on and live until he's 80. He's just as dead at 36 as he would be at 80, and the cessation of breathing in his life is merely the belated announcement of an earlier death of the spirit. He died… A man dies when he refuses to stand up for that which is right. A man dies when he refuses to stand up for justice. A man dies when he refuses to take a stand for that which is true. So we're going to stand up amid horses. We're going to stand up right here in Alabama, amid the billy-clubs. We're going to stand up right here in Alabama amid police dogs, if they have them. We're going to stand up amid tear gas! We're going to stand up amid anything they can muster up, letting the world know that we are determined to be free!"

 

Categories: 2013

Tags: conscience, courage, do the best, inner resolution, resolution, toughness, willingness to help