Real Courage

 Real Courage

     There would be no society if living together depended upon understanding each other.

                                                                                                                   

                                                                                                             Eric Hoffer

                                                                                                             Philosopher

                                                                                                             1902 - 1983

On the other hand, what would life be like if we did?

And isn’t that the reason we are on this planet?

To learn how.

                                                                                                              Thom Singleton

                                                                                                               Grandpa

                                                                                                               

This morning, as I was having my coffee while gazing out the window, a female oriole landed on the grape jam feeder which hangs from a nearby shepherd’s hook. It wasn’t long before the oriole was challenged by a grackle at least twice its size. The grackle attempted to intimidate the oriole by pecking at the smaller bird in order to scare it away from the grape jam. Each time, the oriole would fly to a different spot on the shepherd’s hook, would not leave the area, and then would return closer to the grape jam. With the oriole’s persistence, this back and forth went on for several minutes until the grackle, guarding “his” grape jam, relented and flew away. 

Meantime, two squirrels were at the base of the birdseed feeder where we often see them feeding on the seeds dropped down by birds as they feed above. Again, as is often the case, one squirrel tried to chase the other away from “his” birdseed. 

Humans, though supposedly evolved somewhat higher, seem not to have grown beyond our squirrel-like and grackle-like nature. As evidence: our ego-driven power-mongering with all of its manifestations, such as, competition at all cost, bullying, abuse, intimidation, and racial slurs, all of which, we think, somehow raise our status by putting others down. The ultimate result of this power-mad course is war, though the seeds of these weeds always lie inside the damaged abuser. 

There is an antidote: looking inside ourselves to discover why we act this way, and what  we need to purge and release in the presence of a compassionate person. What does this owning-up to our base impulses take? Courage. Real Courage.