At Home on Earth | Kyle Kramer

Kyle Kramer

Kyle is the executive director of the Passionist Earth & Spirit Center, which offers interfaith educational programming in meditation, ecology, and social compassion.

He serves as a Catholic climate ambassador for the US Conference of Catholic Bishopssponsored Catholic Climate Covenant and is the author of Making Room: Soul-Deep Satisfaction through Simple Living (Franciscan Media, 2021). He speaks across the country on issues of ecology and spirituality.

He and his family spent 15 years as organic farmers and homesteaders in Spencer County, Indiana.

EarthandSpiritCenter.org

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The Search for Courage

“I wish it need not have happened in my time,” said Frodo.

“So do I,” said Gandalf, “and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”

This passage from J.R.R. Tolkien’s epic trilogy, The Lord of the Rings, has been coming to mind recently as I’ve struggled with discouragement in the face of COVID-19, our polarized and unequal society, and the critical environmental threats facing our beloved earth. Even though I don’t claim to be on the front lines of suffering, I still find myself wishing that “it need not have happened in my time.”

And yet it has, and so I have to ask myself: What is mine to do in the time that is given me? If we want to create a better world for future generations, how can we act with courage in our troubled times?

By courage, I don’t simply mean bravery, though I certainly admire it. Plenty of Tolkien’s characters are brave, larger-than-life warriors, rushing fearlessly and boldly into battles against impossible odds, hoping, if not for victory, then at least for an end worthy of their ancestors. I admire such heroic bravery, but I find that I can’t relate to it all that well.

I don’t consider myself to be especially heroic or brave. I lead a relatively comfortable middle-class existence, and I struggle with plenty of fear and anxiety. I have dim hopes for how I would react if I found myself in a situation that required dramatic bravery.

In other words, I can relate more to the hobbits of Tolkien’s stories. Until they were pulled into a much larger adventure, Frodo and his fellow hobbits led safe, uneventful lives amid the quiet confines of their homeland, the Shire. They aren’t formidable warriors but small, unimpressive farm folk, used to the predictable rhythms of agriculture but not the vagaries of battle.

A TALE OF COURAGE

I don’t think of Tolkien’s hobbits as being brave, but I do think they are courageous. The root of courage is the Latin word cor, meaning “heart,” and although hobbits may be small in stature, they prove to be big of heart. Their courage ends up playing a crucial role in defeating much larger forces of evil and cruelty.

Love is the engine of heart-centered courage. Hobbits are grounded in a deep love of the Shire, with its particular hills, valleys, and fields. Out of that love, they come to understand that the welfare of the Shire is inseparable from the fate of all Middle Earth. Even as they stumble through the barren wastes of distant lands and face both danger

TIPS LOVE IS THE ROOT OF COURAGE. What loves can you nurture and strengthen in yourself and others?

COURAGE INCLUDES FEAR, AND THE BEST WAY TO MANAGE FEAR IS THROUGH CURIOSITY.

• What core fears drive you? Naming your fears is a step toward overcoming them. • How might you allow them to arise without reacting to them or letting them call all the shots in your decisions and actions?

and discouragement, they hold in their hearts the beauty of the green, living world. They remember the small, simple pleasures of their settled life, the relationships of their tightknit community. These loves sustain them, especially when all hope seems lost.

The courage of hobbits includes their vulnerability, which leads them beyond themselves. They know they need the help of those who are stronger and that the only possible path to victory is through fellowship. The hobbits love each other and their other companions fiercely, and that loyalty ultimately makes them willing to sacrifice themselves for others and for the sake of a larger good—even in the face of fear.

WORK IN PROGRESS

I admire those brave ones of our day who risk arrest, chain themselves to trees in endangered forests, call world leaders to account, or go up against powerful corporate polluters. But realistically, I suspect such bravery is beyond me. I aspire instead to the courage of hobbits, rooted in love of particular places and particular people and leading to a love and concern for all places and all people (and creatures).

I believe that we can be schooled in courage: that our characters can be formed and shaped so that courage becomes possible. Jesus didn’t send his disciples out into the world until they had spent a great deal of time with him, coming to know and love him, his message, and each other. The early Christian martyrs were likewise schooled in the radical community of the Church.

Those in the military aren’t sent into harm’s way until they have spent time building strong bonds of brotherhood and sisterhood that will sustain them in the thick of battle. So we will need to cultivate courage—in ourselves and in others. In our families, in our parish communities, in our schools, and in other groups and gatherings, we can and we must teach and learn how to care for ourselves, each other, and the rest of the living world. We can and we must be formed in the ways of love, so that the taproot of our courage has a profound source of sustenance through difficult and dangerous times.

Fortunately, we have been given plenty of resources to grow into loving courage. Of course, we have our Scriptures, telling us story upon story about how love is made real through particular places and people but encompasses all of creation. We have creation itself, which shows us in myriad ways what care and nurture can look like. And we have, I believe, divine instructions inscribed on our very hearts, needing only to be called forth and nurtured.

When I consider the challenges of our current moment in history, I get as knock-kneed as Tolkien’s hobbits do when they first learn of the evil stirring in Middle Earth. Maybe you or I will never show battlefield bravery, but I believe we all can grow into the loving, heart-centered courage of hobbits. Our world needs no less.

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