Quest of the Spirit: From Suffering to Acceptance

3.5 Courage in Chaos!Socrates,Liebman, Bryant,James, Buber,Trueblood

                                                                Courage Defines Character

 1.   Courage defines character, as Boethius suggests as he faces his final hours before his execution as a Christian. In Boethius' words, "Commit your boat to the winds, and you must sail whichever way they blow." This passage from Ancius Boethius, a Roman philosopher whose fearlessness in the face of death has inspired others for over fifteen hundred years, represents a noteworthy example of a hero on a spiritual quest. The following passage from the imprisoned Ancius Boethius suggests the omnipotent influence of the Wheel of Fortune, as it governs the lives of men impartially and indifferently. Awaiting torture and death at the hands of the religious leaders of the Roman Empire in 524 A. D., Boethius pens these lines as he courageously finds the inner strength to accept  a verdict  that will lead to his death. In essence, we give, love, and forgive because we live; no other standard is necessary, save faith and courage.

  2.    The Wheel of Fortune:  "With domineering hand she moves the turning wheel, Like currents in a treacherous bay swept to and fro; Her ruthless will has just deposed once fearful kings While trustees still, from low she lifts a conquered head; No cries of misery she hears, no tears she heeds, But steely hearted laughs at groans her deeds have wrung. Such is the game she plays, and so she tests her strength: Of mighty power she makes parade when one short hour Sees happiness from utter desolation grow "(Boethius II 56). In this passage, Boethius employs four illustrations to reflect man's courageous quest against the forces of his physical existence. Using the metaphor of servitude, he observes that man's struggle  may serve merely as sport for tragic irony, but that "once you have bowed your neck beneath her yoke, you ought to bear with equanimity whatever happens on Fortune's playground." One's course cannot be changed as one would "choose a mistress to rule [his] life" and then expect to control her behavior. Boethius understands that just as a relationship would suffer under similar circumstances, so would any attempt at predetermining one's fate. He next employs the metaphor of the courageous steersman, saying, "Commit your boat to the winds and you must sail whichever way they blow, not just where you want." One must allow the winds of Chance to plot his journey. Boethius' final metaphor compares man to a farmer who "entrusts his seed to the fields" and must "balance the bad years against the good." In essence, the prisoner's realization of his inability to chart his earthly course encourages him even more to demonstrate his faith and devotion through a stoic acceptance of his lot (Boethius II 55-56). Boethius, martyred for personal views that divided the Roman and Greek Orthodox Church, calmly and courageously goes to his death, like Christ and Socrates. In Peace of Mind (1946), Joshua Liebman expresses a similar sentiment when he says, 'Man perhaps displays his most remarkable and his most unselfish genius when the turns from the thought of individual immortality and finds strength and inspiration in the immortality of the human race, when he transfers his allegiance from his own small ego to mankind as a whole. Man at that moment transcends himself, his own life becomes significant as one link in the magnetic chain of humanity. The more we concentrate upon the immortality of mankind, strangely enough, the richer becomes our own individual life. As we link ourselves to all of the heroes and sages and martyrs, to all of the poets and thinkers of every race and every clime, we become a part of a great and moving drama" (Liebman 140).  As William Cullen Bryant wrote in "Thanatopsis":  "So live, that when they summon comes to join   The innumerable caravan which moves                                                                                                                      To that mysterious realm where each shall take                                                                                               His chamber in the silent halls of death,                                                                                                               Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night,                                                                                                         Scourged by his dungeon; but, sustain'd and soothed                                                                                   By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave,                                                                                                     Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch                                                                                                      About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams."