Dear Friends,
During my recent vacation in Palau we snorkeled almost every day. There was a reef right off the beach of the resort we were staying at which was filled with wonderful fish. Four times we went out in a boat to snorkel at one of the more than 200 islands that make up the country of Palau. It was during those swims far away from the resort that we would see the sharks.
I had asked our boat driver and guide to take us to places where there were no sharks, but he said that was impossible. There are sharks. Wonderfully, there were no tiger sharks or great whites. Just the smaller sharks that live in the reefs.
The experience of going into water where there is some danger got me reflecting on courage and fear. It seems to me that there are four common fears: fear of death, of loss, of pain and of humiliation. Over the years of my life I have felt them all to some degree. I do not think of myself as living in fear, but I am also not an adrenaline junky who needs to do wild things to feel alive. I feel no regular need to prove myself, if only to myself. I require no false fear stimulants: I do not watch horror movies, I ride no roller coasters, I answer no serious dares. Having lived much of life, I am under the clear belief that life, left to its own devices, has more than enough fears on its own.
Though I need to say that I think we live in an era where paranoia has the better part of valor. Listening to talk radio or commentaries on tv you would think we are suffering terribly or will be suffering terribly very soon. This last election seemed to be run on paranoia. I have been in many third world countries. Believe me, my friends, we are doing quite well. Our country has never suffered a war on its own soil. The poor in our country can usually find someplace to get a meal.
I have witnessed tremendous courage during my years of the priesthood since I have been invited into people’s lives at a depth others may not see. Sometimes the greatest courage is when people have to carry on in the face of small but genuine setbacks. When one’s dreams have been dashed, one’s hopes rendered nil, all of your life bets have come back losers. At those times it would be the temptation to walk away from it all, but they have the courage to simply hang in there.
It takes courage to die with serenity. I have watched many people die with great courage as they say to their loved ones, that they are not frightened, that they want to say thanks for all the love they have been given, reminding their loved ones of all the good times they had together, in short, they do all the work for their loved ones. That is great courage.
So was it courageous to swim in waters with sharks or simply foolish? If I wanted to see the beauty of the reef and the millions of brightly colored fish, then I had to get in the water. It required courage from me. And, I must say, I was happy at the end of each day when all the encounters with sharks were peaceful. They were minding their own business and they wanted me to simply mind my own.
Peace,
Fr. Damian