Defining courage in new ways

What is courage?

That would seem to be a simple question. It has to do with venturing into the unknown, with risking ourselves, with self-confidence, nerve, tenacity.

In the past few decades we seem to have found ourselves lamenting the seeming disappearance of courageous people - those willing to innovate, to take chances, to persevere. There even seems to be fewer instances in which courage is an easily identified option. The challenges, the threats, the evils of today seem less solid, less clear cut. They have become more difficult to identify or grab hold of.

Then again, every so often we are reminded that courage does continue to find expression in the world we live in. Sometimes we find it in the newspaper or magazine headlines: the radical new idea, the dramatic rescue, the eventual success after years of effort. More often, in my experience, courage is found in the day-to-day "mundane" lives of those around us.

A few Saturdays ago, I sat in a restaurant across a busy street from a Catholic church. A Mass was about to begin, a few people began to collect and enter the building.

As I watched, a smartly dressed young woman approached. She moved somewhat slowly, but surely to the entrance of the church, smiling and exchanging greetings with the other parishioners.

Her cane gave her away. She was blind.

You know, that's such an unfair word. This woman fit none of the stereotypes of such a "disabled" person. In fact, perhaps we might better say that she had lost the use of her eyes. Certainly she seemed to have learned to see in other ways.

With a bit of a start, I realized I had just witnessed an act of courage, and one which I was not too sure I would be capable of myself. This young woman had indeed ventured into the unknown, risked herself, and tenaciously continued to live out her life to its fullest potential.

I know nothing more about this person: her struggles, her failures, her successes. Yet I do know that her mere passing stirred in me a deeper understanding of the courage her life represented. For that I thank her.