Yesterday a friend declared, "The battle lines are drawn atthe capitol and we need a white knight." Talk about knights will always get myattention, ever since I was a little girl.I always had to re-image the concepts, of course. In my fantasy, the princess was also suitedup and fought along side her knight. As I talked with my friend about the good fight, I confessedthat a part of me longs for a good fight.Victory has a seductive aroma. The problem is which fight is the goodone and which side is the good side? I would give up a lot, perhaps even my life, if I knew thatI was on the right side and that it was the right time. That would be especially true if I was surethat the outcome would be worthy of my sacrifice. But can I ever know that to be true? It isalways much more grey than that. Theenemies aren't quite so evil as I might make them out to be and the whole concept ofenemy needs to be set aside more often than not. To divide the world that way does not get uswhere we need to go. Can we ever know for sure? Mustn't we always leave room toconsider that I might be wrong?
Yet, there are times one needs to put oneself forward forthe right, nevertheless. Remember in the movie Gandhi when early in his adult life;while in South Africa,he refuses to cooperate with the requirements about carry an id card? He just about lost his life right there and Iremember, as I watched, thinking that this is the core of his heroism--that hewas ready to resist evil even without knowing that it would make anydifference. Perhaps only believing thatit would. I appreciate the writing of Fr. Edward Hays but disagree withhim in his encouragement that "No single action of heroic sacrifice isever wasted or goes unnoticed." Ithink he is wrong. I think there are those acts all the time that we never hearabout. There likely was another brother,like Gandhi, who resisted, who lost his life right there on the spot, and whowe never heard about. But then I amguessing Fr. Hays is assuming the notice is by the Transcendent not necessarilythe public. By what shall I be encouraged? By a notion that by my action I will be ahero or great or even holy? Or that bymy action my life will have integrity with the life giving values of theuniverse? I suppose you can guess myanswer. Now if I cna get celar about what are the life-giving values - that would be worth a good (butpeaceable) fight.
