Profiles In Courage

John F. Kennedy wrote Profiles in Courage.

I haven't read it in a long time, but if memory serves me, he tends to focus on public courage which is connected in some way or other with worldly success, note-worthiness (in other words, on "victorious courage"). I will have to check the book to be sure.

These stories can be inspiring, but in my view they hold second place to an entirely different kind of tale. I am more moved by courage in the face of utter oblivion, by what I might call "tragic courage". I will share stories of such courage below. If you know any - please email them to me!

1) The Polish Officer

During World War II, at an unnamed German concentration camp, a captured Polish artillery officer arrived on the train with the jews, gypsies, homosexuals, and others destined for death.

The SS saw the Polish oficer as racially closer to the German "overman" than the various ragtags on the train. So they took him aside and offered him a choice. He could help them execute a group of old Jews, using pistol shots to the back of the head. If he agreed to do this, they would allow him privileged status in the camp (decent food, quarters, and other relative luxuries).

The oficer asked, "and if I do not comply?"

"Then you will be beaten to death by the rifle butts of the Latvian camp guards who are just now lounging against the wall of that holding pen over there," said the SS man, indicating a group of thugs who loosely cradled their rifles while smoking cigarettes.

The Polish Officer stood straight and tall, facing the SS man. After a brief silence, he indicated his choice.

"Your work is abominable," he said. "Nothing you can promise me would induce me to join you in your murders."

"Very well," said the SS man. He gestured to the Latvians.

The Polish Officer, as promised, was beaten to death. All around, the killing continued apace.

Echo-Location

Utterances are chains
Not imprisonment, but links
Comparable to action
They are feather-brush, not cannon-shot

If, indeed, they do affect
Then who is to say there's
Any ending? They will finally die
In a terminal implosion, or
Dissipate, woven into entropic heat
In the caverns of foamy space

If they are found hollow,
Is this error? It may be
That they enter the ear
As a bomb, lacking explosives
Might penetrate the earth
It burrows in
But is effaced in days, as the hole
Fills in completely - craterless

Some liken them to arrows;
When launched, the archer
Has no further effect. But
To me, there is only ignorance

I shout into the canyon
I don't know what becomes of the sound

Diving In

You were everything unawakened in me

Is it possible, in my ancient longing for you
I was sifting through my own darkness?

Already dreaming you'd left me
Which came after you'd left me
I gave chase

While you dreamt of strangling me

I dreamt of you again and again

After you were gone, I was, at last
Able to tell you everything

We walked the dirt road
Looking over the bay

Where you had disappeared for a moment, swimming
While I watched from the dock

Riddle

4/2/05

Just the other day, I saw them
Their arms all faced, more or less
The same direction, were slim, barren
And they danced, waving to the sky
Their colors white, ragged, brown

I knew not to disturb them
Simply to let them cross the blue
As they chose to. It was as though
I had never seen anything like them
before and had to ask : what are they?

Heard on the Street

"Mr. G., everything that happens to you is ironic."
- Casey Gordon

"Alex, to be honest, I am not interested in you romantically."
-Anonymous

"Divine Love has met, and always will meet, every human need."
- Mary Baker Eddy

"Maybe it is just whine and recline recovery today."
- RainbowGrl

"The disappointed one speaks : "I searched everywhere for great men, and I always only found the apes of my ideals.""
- Nietzsche

"Quite frankly, it was a bit like walking onto the set of an independent film."
- Kelly Dowd, after his first visit to the Palache Trust

"That which is won in battle is easily lost in celebration."
-Ancient Proverb

"The quality of one's Partner is a direct reflection of the degree of one's Self-Love."
-Alex Gutterman

"Tragedy is never engendered by the conflict of right against wrong, but rather by the conflict of right against right."
-GWF Hegel

"We can always forgive those who bore us, but never those whom we bore."
-Nietzsche

"If the first law of frinedship is that it has to be cultivated, the second law is to be indulgent when the first law is neglected."
-Voltaire

"16 in the clip and one in the hold, Nate Dawg is about to make some bodies turn cold. Now they's droppin and yellin, but it's a tad bit late. Nate Dawg and Warren G had to regulate."
-Warren G and Nate Dawg : "Regulate"

"Women control the gates of pleasure. Men can only knock."
-Alex Gutterman

Passengers

Crawling -

He needed to get to the hospital because his leg was in bad shape.

I went to pick him up yesterday at the run-down green house with the couch and rusted bicycles outside. He asked specifically that I back in to the driveway so the passenger side would be as close as possible to the path from his front door. As I was backing in I saw his extremely bulky form stepping out of the house onto the snow and ice covered path. His mother, also rotund, was supporting him by one arm. Under his other arm was jammed a metal crutch; he had a long splint on his leg and was moving slowly. His mother was yelling at him and he was yelling back. When he saw me he called out for help.

I left the car and hurried down the path to assist him. His mother tailed us. He hesitantly advanced the rubber tip of his crutch, trying to avoid icy and snowy patches, then leaned on the crutch and, using me for leverage on his left side, heaved himself forward.

The path to his driveway is about tweny feet long. We were two thirds of the way to the car when he slumped down, putting all his weight on my arm and the crutch.

"I can't do it!" He said. He stood still, shuddering, his breath deep, sinking more and more onto my strained arm.

"Sure you can", I said. "Just take a rest X, and we'll get to the car. No rush."

"No", he said. "I can't make it. I'm going to crawl."

With that he sank immediately to his knees on the path, then heaved his metal crutch towards the driveway. As it clattered on the ice he shook off my grip, and went down to all fours. Slowly, laboriously, he began to crawl on his hands and knees down the icy, snow patched path. It was 24 degrees out. He was in shorts and a tee shirt.

He looked up at me, "this is how I get around at home", he said. Then he dragged himself up into the passenger seat. The seat belt doesn't fit around him so I never ask him to put it on.

Once inside, we had an uneventful ride to the medical center. He thanked me a few times for helping him, and offered to buy me a soda at Mr. Mike's Mini Mart as a sign of his gratitude. When I told him I don't drink soda because I'm watching my weight, we settled for juice instead. I pulled in to Mr. Mike's, then went inside to buy my juice, his litre of Coke, and the Little Debbie peanut butter snack he wanted. They were out of the peanut butter snack, so I went back outside and asked him if he wanted a substitute.

"Get me a candy bar", he said.

Thus fortified, we drove off for the hospital

One day later I was at work, sitting in the main office, joking around with the receptionist. My boss came to the doorway and asked how the ride had gone. I said it was just fine. My boss looked a little puzzled. He told me that X had called up complaining that I hadn't helped him, that I had left him to crawl helplessly through the snow to my vehicle. I explained that X had said thank you, and had bought me some juice.

That seemed to satisfy my boss. He hasn't mentioned it since.

Stay tuned for more:

Encounter

Written 9/2/04

Who are you? Can I be certain if you beckon me?
And if so, from where? A pallid face in the core
Of a cold pond? A wild haired child atop lightning
Scarred pinnacles? Softly speaking woman lingering
In the shade?

Why did my Soul leap when I first encountered you?

There is this strange sense that you are a Sister
to me. Proud, solitary. Am I right that your heart
Occasionally must strain to encompass your outer
Horizons, or shorten sail in the gale of your Love?

The Holidays

Hunger :

I hope to post at length about the Holidays this year, but I wanted to share this little string which sums up how I was experiencing yesterday's New Year's Eve party, and festivities with my extended family in general :

"Like a starving man viewing a lavish dinner through a plexiglass window."

My friend Rainbowgrl (see comments section below) was surprised by the statement above; she knew I was included in, and enjoyed thoroughly, all the various family events.

I explained to her that the glimpses of joy, fulfillment, and conviviality which I had through this Holiday season, and they were many, awakened in my heart a deep yearning for love, fearless union with others, and a satisfying marriage. I was surprised at the depths of the hunger.

The Abysmal (changing) :

After 1200 on New Year's Eve (so, on New year's morning actually), the Gregorys rolled an I-Ching to give us some guidance for the coming year. Each sibling rolled one line, then David rolled the last, as Taliesin was not present.

The hexagram received was The Abysmal/Danger. It had a number of changing lines, turning into The Taming Power of the Small. The general sense was that we will progress out of danger and difficulty, but not into a situation of dramatic energy release or great success. Instead, a period of small accumulation is to come, wherein the major prescribed effort is the cultivation of character. The text of the most significant moving line is below :

"Six in the third place means : Forward and backward, abyss on abyss. In danger like this, pause first and wait, otherwise you will fall into a pit in the abyss. Do not act in this way."

"Here every step, forward or backward, leads into danger. Escape is out of the question. Therefore we must not be misled into action, as a result of which we should only bog down deeper in the danger; disagreeable as it may be to remain in such a sitution, we must wait until a way out shows itself."

After the general hexagram, numerous guests rolled individual hexagrams relating to their own private concerns. On the whole the outlook is extremely favorable, with the dramatic exception of Rohan. I believe he received Conflict leading to Exhaustion.

Ghosts

You were once substantial

Without any warning you changed form
Into fog

I can put my hand through your impression
I reach for you, and come up empty

Now arrives a new question :
How to live amongst ghosts?

I then sought myself
And found only dry dust

Sprouting temporary flowers

I reached to pick the flowers
But they were gone