Coffee & Weeds
The first week of July is traditionally the beginning of the vacation season here in the United States. Americans begin to clog their highways with their cars piled high with suitcases, lounger chairs, bicycles and other vacation "equipment". And if the kids in the back seat of the auto begin to get too troublesome, they can be threatened with being added to that small mountain of possessions atop the vehicle. No, I’ve never really seen any children tied up there, but the threat is good for at least a hundred miles of silence. ;-)
Now, unfortunately, I am not on vacation and likely not to have one this year. (sniffle) But I have a job that provides the money that I need to pay for my ISP and the electricity I need to connect my computer to it and so am reasonably happy none the less. But I am keenly aware that even at the company that I am working at; people are on vacation this week. For one thing the cafeteria is shut down outside of providing the usual free coffee.
I’m a coffee-addict, though of the decaffeinated variety. You don’t want to be around me when I’ve drunk caffeinated coffee or any caffeinated beverage for that matter. I become very hyper with my mind racing from one thought to the next without pause. I’ll admit that its somewhat fun for the first few hours but like any athlete my brain muscles begin to ache after those first few hours and I get very cranky afterward.
Anyway, with the company cafeteria shut down this week I was able to get my cup of decafe and sort of wander around the area and examine whatever there was to examine. Now the very nice girl who is usually behind the counter, Christine, has a son in the Marines who recently returned from a tour of duty in Iraq. Yay, Lance Corporal Coffee. And yes, Christine’s last name is Coffee. And no I am not going to poke any fun at his mom’s or his name -- mainly because in the pictures that his mom has taped up on the wall the Lance Corporal looks as broad in the shoulders as I am tall. :-)
Like I said, Chris has taped up pictures of her son in uniform and in his fatigues and over those pictures is taped a small poster that says, Home of the Free, because of the Brave. It’s a sentiment that I particularly believe, not only for here in the US but anywhere in the world where citizens are free to express themselves as they wish and are granted a feeling of security by those men and women in uniform.
Going outside into the mid-morning sunshine with my cup of decaffeinated coffee, I reflected on what it was to be brave and the answer was simple - you had to have courage. The courage to face an enemy, no matter who or what that ‘enemy’ might be. Entering a burning building to save a person trapped by flames requires just as much courage as it is to face an enemy in war. Courage requires that one puts everything one has into the opposition to an enemy -- and being keenly aware that ‘everything’ could be lost, but going forward none the less. That’s courage.
While we all hear or read about what I like to call headline courage there’s also a type of quiet courage that doesn’t get that type of notice. A type of courage that is just as outstanding as that shown by a soldier or a firefighter and was pointed out once to me. It’s the courage exhibited by a little weed growing up through the cracks in the pavement. Certainly not an exhibition of strength or bravery that will garner blaring headlines. In all probability that little weed is not going to make it and yet -- here’s where the courage comes in -- it tries none the less.
Trying in the face of probable (and perhaps inevitable failure) seems to be the common denominator of courage, whether it’s the headline type or the little everyday courage. The little courage exhibited by that tiny weed or perhaps the everyday courage shown by a mother fatigued almost to tears by being awake half the night caring for her sick child and then getting up the next morning to go to work. That mother will most likely not get any headlines of praise, adulation for doing that, or even a simple pat on the back -- but she shows the same type of courage as that exhibited by any soldier.
Back in 1942 when the world was aflame in a global conflict between a Totalitarian World and the Free World, the burning border between the two worlds plainly showed that the Free World’s chances of survival were in serious doubt. The organized, militarized and regimented Man of the Totalitarian World, with his sole purpose in life determined for him as being just one more cog in the machinery of the State was winning.
And yet, perhaps in defiance of that dark threatening future, the American composer Aaron Copland wrote what undeniably stands out as one of the most recognizable pieces of 20th Century classical music - "Fanfare of the Common Man". To me that musical statement is what "little courage" sounds like. The unrewarded and perhaps unrecognized courage shown by an individual soldier stationed in a foreign land, a mother overcoming exhaustion to keep her family together, or just perhaps the courage shown by a humble little weed in challenging the inevitable.
July 4th is America’s day to celebrate her independence. And yet in a larger sense it can also stand as a day to celebrate the courage of all the common men/women of the world who show courage by continuing to try despite all the odds. Each like a lone little weed.
Now, unfortunately, I am not on vacation and likely not to have one this year. (sniffle) But I have a job that provides the money that I need to pay for my ISP and the electricity I need to connect my computer to it and so am reasonably happy none the less. But I am keenly aware that even at the company that I am working at; people are on vacation this week. For one thing the cafeteria is shut down outside of providing the usual free coffee.
I’m a coffee-addict, though of the decaffeinated variety. You don’t want to be around me when I’ve drunk caffeinated coffee or any caffeinated beverage for that matter. I become very hyper with my mind racing from one thought to the next without pause. I’ll admit that its somewhat fun for the first few hours but like any athlete my brain muscles begin to ache after those first few hours and I get very cranky afterward.
Anyway, with the company cafeteria shut down this week I was able to get my cup of decafe and sort of wander around the area and examine whatever there was to examine. Now the very nice girl who is usually behind the counter, Christine, has a son in the Marines who recently returned from a tour of duty in Iraq. Yay, Lance Corporal Coffee. And yes, Christine’s last name is Coffee. And no I am not going to poke any fun at his mom’s or his name -- mainly because in the pictures that his mom has taped up on the wall the Lance Corporal looks as broad in the shoulders as I am tall. :-)
Like I said, Chris has taped up pictures of her son in uniform and in his fatigues and over those pictures is taped a small poster that says, Home of the Free, because of the Brave. It’s a sentiment that I particularly believe, not only for here in the US but anywhere in the world where citizens are free to express themselves as they wish and are granted a feeling of security by those men and women in uniform.
Going outside into the mid-morning sunshine with my cup of decaffeinated coffee, I reflected on what it was to be brave and the answer was simple - you had to have courage. The courage to face an enemy, no matter who or what that ‘enemy’ might be. Entering a burning building to save a person trapped by flames requires just as much courage as it is to face an enemy in war. Courage requires that one puts everything one has into the opposition to an enemy -- and being keenly aware that ‘everything’ could be lost, but going forward none the less. That’s courage.
While we all hear or read about what I like to call headline courage there’s also a type of quiet courage that doesn’t get that type of notice. A type of courage that is just as outstanding as that shown by a soldier or a firefighter and was pointed out once to me. It’s the courage exhibited by a little weed growing up through the cracks in the pavement. Certainly not an exhibition of strength or bravery that will garner blaring headlines. In all probability that little weed is not going to make it and yet -- here’s where the courage comes in -- it tries none the less.
Trying in the face of probable (and perhaps inevitable failure) seems to be the common denominator of courage, whether it’s the headline type or the little everyday courage. The little courage exhibited by that tiny weed or perhaps the everyday courage shown by a mother fatigued almost to tears by being awake half the night caring for her sick child and then getting up the next morning to go to work. That mother will most likely not get any headlines of praise, adulation for doing that, or even a simple pat on the back -- but she shows the same type of courage as that exhibited by any soldier.
Back in 1942 when the world was aflame in a global conflict between a Totalitarian World and the Free World, the burning border between the two worlds plainly showed that the Free World’s chances of survival were in serious doubt. The organized, militarized and regimented Man of the Totalitarian World, with his sole purpose in life determined for him as being just one more cog in the machinery of the State was winning.
And yet, perhaps in defiance of that dark threatening future, the American composer Aaron Copland wrote what undeniably stands out as one of the most recognizable pieces of 20th Century classical music - "Fanfare of the Common Man". To me that musical statement is what "little courage" sounds like. The unrewarded and perhaps unrecognized courage shown by an individual soldier stationed in a foreign land, a mother overcoming exhaustion to keep her family together, or just perhaps the courage shown by a humble little weed in challenging the inevitable.
July 4th is America’s day to celebrate her independence. And yet in a larger sense it can also stand as a day to celebrate the courage of all the common men/women of the world who show courage by continuing to try despite all the odds. Each like a lone little weed.