What Price Courage?

I love movies, and while my tastes are fairly omnivorous, my favorites have often been true stories.  (Intention and Inspiration, 2/18/14)  Since we are in Oscar season, Turner Classics has been playing Oscar-nominated and Oscar-winning films for the last month. Since I am recovering from eye surgery, I really need no more reason than the need to sit in a dark room to allow me to indulge myself in watching some of these great films.

Over this weekend, I've watched Indians fight for independence in "Gandhi," the British withstand incredible torture in "The Bridge Over River Quai," and heroism and leadership as Arabians also fought for freedom in "Lawrence of Arabia."  I recalled other films of incredible courage this year of as I've reflected on "42" and Jackie Robinson's courage to not fight back, "12 Years A Slave," being lost in space in "Gravity," being lost at sea in "All is Lost," and facing real-life pirates in "Captain Phillips."

Over and again, what kept bubbling up in my psyche was a story about which I first became aware as a youngster of about 10, as I explored the dimensions of my grandmother's bookcase to find entertainment in a sleepy small town summer.  Several books all by the same person--Corrie ten Boom--mesmerized me.  They poured out the story of a Christian family in Haarlem, The Netherlands, during World War II.  The family ultimately ended up in Nazi concentration camps, and Corrie's sister succumbed there. 

Their crime was harboring Jews escaping the jaws of those very same concentration camps.  At the very moment that they were captured, six Jews hid in their walls and eventually made it to safety because of the courage and sacrifice of the ten Boom family.  It would have been easy for them to turn away from the many fugitives that passed through their home over several years of that war, but they did not.

A number of years ago there was a theory put forth that age 10 is when we are most impressionable, and what we experience at that age will be defining for the rest of our lives.  Perhaps that is why every time I see a movie in which a character displays extraordinary courage, my mind inevitably drifts back to the ten Booms.  As a 10-year-old just as freshly as yesterday, the question lingers in me: if I needed to demonstrate such courage, would I find it in me? 

My best me would like to think that, of course, I would.  And, in my heart I pray that would be so.  However, I am not sure I would find it.  That leaves me feeling humble and hopeful--hopeful that I would find that courage and hopeful that I won't need to find it.  Thinking about Corrie's family puts everything in perspective for me.  No matter how grim some days might seem, they really don't even scratch the surface of the greater picture of courage in human history. 

I am glad that I have these moments of personal soul-searching brought forth in films of courage.  Somehow, I find it assuring that each time I pledge that no matter how deeply I will need to reach within myself, that I will find the courage I first pledged to find as I read Corrie's story when I was 10 and found again today.