chambers and champions of the heart

courage: (noun) the quality of a confident character not to be afraid or intimidated easily but without being incautious or inconsiderate. (the italics are all mine :-)

It's time to think about babies and courage, at least for me anyway. And I'm not just talking about the courage to open up that diaper after you just felt the H-bomb of a solid-food palpable poop drop into the diaper like your kid just laid down the heavy science for you, although that takes real fortitude so props to the parents out there.

I'm talking about courage in the face of our unknown future. Has Chris been reading articles about the accelerated pace of increasingly unpredictable climate change? Heck yes. Is this going to be a doom-and-gloom blog about diaper dumplings hitting the proverbial fan, during which you'll get depressed and wonder whether you actually want to think about it? Hopefully not. I haven't gotten very far yet, so stick with me my campesinos and campesinas.

What do I mean by an unknown future? I mean the sea levels are likely coming up, but we're not sure how soon and how high. I mean hurricanes are supposedly going to get stronger and more frequent, yet we're still allowing new people to settle in Florida and we'll likely as taxpayers (yes, I actually paid taxes this year too) cover the costs of cleaning up the next big one. (Actually, just looking at bang for your housing buck, now IS the time to go down and scoop up a condo in that crazy, depressed market known as the Sunshine State. Pennies on the dollar, that's all I have to say... oh wait. Houses on big stilts. I need to throw that in there too as a public service announcement for real estate speculators.) I'm talking about the ever-present threat of nuclear weapons, which don't get much press coverage but get an awful lot of geographical coverage when deployed. On Fox News and other quality media outlets, we're usually looking at what the left hand is doing over in North Korea or the Pakistan/India border, while the right hand is maintaining thousands of warheads throughout the Western world as well. (Nukes creep me out, and if they creep you out too, go to the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation website and see what you can do to help). Food shortages, water wars, building nuclear power plants to fuel the extraction of oil from dirty sources - the list is long and I don't want to go there right now 'cause it's late. These are factors in our present reality, and they stretch into the future like a freight train full of wheat and corn syrup crossing the Prairies bound for North American mouths and bellies.

There's the 3 Tbsp. of gloom and 2 tsp. of doom to get things rising. So what's the murmuring about courage related to? I feel like courage is a/the key element in how we get from automatons to radical, peaceful throwers of monkeywrenches who can deconstruct our trends and break through to new ways of being. It's the power to shrug off our chains (real and imagined) instead of shrugging our shoulders.

Why do I use the word "courage?" I don't know about you, but I find it hard to swim against the stream of just doing our thing, keeping our nose to the grindstone (there's an interesting image that I think we don't usually visualize when we hear it), and not rocking the boat for fear of falling "behind." The etymology of the word is that it comes from the Latin root cor for "heart." We need that bit of heart, just like the cowardly lion was seeking, to speak about this stuff. We need it to remind ourselves that we can speak about this stuff and still have a good time in life. We certainly need it to do things that might be labeled deviant, difficult, strange, inconvenient, or other terms meant to dissuade and intimidate us.

Where do we find courage? Good question. A few folks have told me that they find courage reading this blog (one of the best compliments ever.) I find it in talking with other people who seem to have cool, inspiring ideas about how to swim against the stream and yet are able to smile, be pleasant at the party, and don't have to corner the rest of us to unload diatribes and hard-edge worldviews. I find it occasionally in works of art that inspire me. When I'm seeking courage, I can usually find it around town in a few places.

One of my main motivators to courage recently is spending time with babies. I feel like I'm in the baby boom of friends and peers close to my age. It seems like I woke up in a tent in the tundra one night, and instead of being surrounded by 10,000 migrating caribou cutting a swath through the scrubby vegetation, it was a stream of babies from friends all over the country. There's Asha, Maya, Gwendolyn, Gwendolyn, Cohen, Indy, Lukas, and lots of others... It's been a big year for birthin' babies.

I'm not sure about you, but when I'm holding a baby, I like the idea of being able to say that I did my best that day to make the world a better place for him/her. I have trouble saying that when I've been driving all over Creation, chucking styrofoam in the trash like there's no tomorrow, using mondo amounts of electricity from (regardless of those TV ads, not-so-clean) coal, buying sweatshop clothes, or any other of a number of things we all do from time to time. I do find, though, that I can call upon a reservoir of courage, that I sometimes forget I even have, to go the extra mile (by bike or bus or foot) and be a little more of an Earth steward than I might otherwise. I find that I can get a lot of umph in talking about living lightly and taking action when I do it in the context of helping future generations. It makes it easier to spend a few cents more on fair trade coffee/bananas/sugar/teas/chocolate/clothes/whateva. It keeps me warm when I'm biking on a cold fall day. It helps me feel appreciated even if I haven't been thanked for much in the past few days or weeks for anything. It helps me stay up 'til 2 a.m. writing these blogs... (no, wait, that's an ill-timed cup of coffee.)

For me, thinking about these babies also inspires me to talk more with other folks in an encouraging way rather than spreading the guilt-and-shame cream cheese on the everything-is-hopeless bagel. I feel empowered to ask about how much is enough, and follow that beast from the tail back close to the head. I feel encouraged to have deep converstions with my mom about my hopes and fears, so as to have a deeper sense of connection in this one life that we've got. I can ask myself what my heart longs for, and be patient waiting for an answer. I can make changes in my life with less begrudging and fear that I'm going to give things up, other people won't, and the planet will get screwed anyway and I'll miss out on the fun that I could have had by trying to help in an effort that was futile. (Is that just me? Someone get back to me on that one.)

So for me, tonight, under the near full moon, babies and courage go hand in tiny hand. If you have access to a baby, or even a small child under the age of 8, visit him or her and try this experiment. Look them in the eyes and say, out loud preferably or just in your head if you're shy, "I'm doing my best to make the world a better place for you." How does it feel? Important? Honest? Sad? Uncomfortable? Take that feeling and run with it. I guarantee it will give you wings.


(On an unrelated note, I'm attempting to reach a broader audience with this blog. If you like it, can you do me a small favor? Take a moment right now and send an email to someone who you think will enjoy it and give it a small endorsement to them. I know this seems like vanity (and I admit to a bit of that), but I'm actually trying to a) get more feedback, b) fortify my mental process by imagining a broader audience of readers, and c) inspire myself to write more so as to work towards generating longer, comprehensive piece(s). If you have an entry from my backlog that you like, recommend that too. I know I can be a hit or miss sometimes. Thank you!)