“Unspeakable”

Cultural Context: The word used by Peter Geren, secretary of the U.S. Army to describe the sights seen by Private James Hoyt on April 11, 1945 when he was one of four American soldiers to discover the Buchenwald German concentration camp.  Mr. Hoyt died on Monday, August 11 and was the last surviving member of the four man team.

“Unspeakable” was right, for the CNN news account/tribute to Mr. Hoyt’s heroism indicated that he had kept his involvement in the liberation secret from many he knew for much of his life.  The story indicates that Mr. Hoyt still suffered nightmares and attended post-traumatic stress disorder support meetings for veterans 63 years after his experience.  Mr. Hoyt had begun to share his memories with author Stephen Bloom.

From the article:

“It’s important that we don’t allow ourselves to lose him,” Geren told CNN by phone. “It’s the memory of heroes like James Hoyt and the memories of what they’ve done that we must ensure that we keep alive and share with the current generation and future generations.”

Captain Fredrick Keffer, commander of the small mission to locate Buchenwald later wrote:

“Memories of evil get erased, for life must go on, and new generations cannot be locked in the past. But they would do well to remember the past.”

It was interesting to me that when army files about the liberation were located, Mr. Hoyt, who was a veteran of the Battle of the Bulge and the recipient of the Bronze Star, had been asked to account for his greatest achievement.  He listed his accomplishment as the 1939 Johnson County Iowa Spelling Bee champion.  The word he spelled to win, ironically was “archive.”  As his story, his sights are now archived, I’m confronted by our need to speak the unspeakable.

We don’t want to.  We want to “lose” the memories, to push them away, to look away from ourselves and the realities of who humans are.  But, history shows us–today’s media shows us–that there is no depth to the unspeakable that man can and will perpetrate on man.  God tells us through the prophet Jeremiah that the human heart is “more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick; who can understand it?” (jeremiah 17:9)

I have always been fascinated by history and mystified by the surreal circumstances of the Jewish Holocaust of World War II.  The accounts are overwhelming in their depravity.  But, they are not unlike countless other situations in the history of our world.  And, it is not easy to point a finger and single out perpetrators over there somewhere in the great category of “someone else”–not when you see the seemingly endless reports of bizarre and cruel crimes that grace the rotating “featured stories” of today’s news.  For all the writing and teaching on our race’s “evolution” toward the best of ourselves, we remain depraved.  And, if “evolution” is man’s way, a chance betterment of our species, then we are doomed to depravity.  For, survival of the fittest inevitably means the destruction of the weaker.  Even the rules of the theory of evolution don’t allow for the possibility that our deceitful and sick hearts can be made truthful, healed, compassionate toward one another.

Beyond the hopelessness of our own evolution, there is a cosmic intervention available.  It’s not by chance.  It’s not accidental.  It’s a desire by a Creator God to take his beloved handiwork back to the communion of Eden.  It’s the new ancient reality that all is not lost, and we can change.  We can BE CHANGED.

“I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.  And I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes… so you will be My people, and I will be your God.” (ezekiel 36:26-28)

Thinking About Courage

One of my children’s favorite DVDs is Winnie-the-Pooh and the Honey Tree. In one part of the story, Winnie follows a bee to its honey tree. After a failed attempt at climbing the tree, he comes up with an ingenious plan to get to the honey (as only a bear of “very little brain” can do.) He asks Christopher Robin for a balloon and then rolls around in the mud to create a clever disguise. When Christopher asks him what he is supposed to be, Pooh bear responds, “a little black rain cloud, of course” as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. Of course the “disguise” didn’t work out well for Pooh (and therefore, Christopher Robin) and some chasing by bees ensued — just another mishap for the cause of honey in the Hundred Acre Wood. But, I can relate…

Last night I realized that I was discouraged. Isn’t that how it happens sometimes? It sort of sneaks up on you. I had gone about the day (the weekend, actually) all muddied in mind and spirit, and adopting the persona of a “little black rain cloud” — of course. Nothing overwhelmingly discouraging had happened, I was just vaguely aware that I was feeling down, dissatisfied, uncertain, overwhelmed, tired, and all the other partly cloudy emotions that stand ready to release their storms when conditions are favorable for a downpour.

There were quite a few random downpours.

Chalk them up to the emotional upheaval and exhaustion of being 7-months pregnant in Mississippi in June, the struggle to balance love and discipline with training our children, the hesitation about looking for a new church that we feel we can “plug into,” the concerns about my husband’s business growth, the financial needs that go along with that, or the desire to be outside watching my boys play in the water, but knowing that would do me in for the rest of the day. Regardless, it took needing to formulate an answer to the third or fourth time my husband asked “so, what’s going on?” for me to realize and articulate it. I was discouraged.

I was reminded recently that “courage” is at the root of both discouragement and encouragement. It seems obvious now — right there after the prefix — but, strangely, I don’t often associate courage with my partly cloudy experiences. I looked at the derivation of “discourage” and found it stemmed from an Old French word meaning literally “away + courage.” Being “away” from courage. Discouragement boils down to a lack of courage in facing situations. We get overwhelmed or intimidated or fearful. We lose our gumption and forget our power in conquering the hurdles.

How can we regain our courage?
For me, it started with correcting a few basic assumptions:

1. Courage is not about me. Contrary to the greeting cards, mustering it up from within can only get you so far. We learn to summon courage in the face of challenging circumstances not because we are important, but because the positive outcomes of those circumstances are important. Soldiers behave courageously in battle because they know winning the battle is more important than themselves.

“Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may win.”  (1 Corinthians 9:24)

2. Courage is not a result of my power, which is limited. Courage derives from a true source of power. I can maintain courage in a situation because I know Who’s really in charge. If I know who’s in charge and who’s character is really on the line, then I can trust the outcome. My husband reminded me of this verse:

“Ah Lord GOD! Behold, You have made the heavens and the earth by Your great power and by Your outstretched arm! Nothing is too difficult for You” (Jeremiah 32:17)

If that is true, then to give in to discouragement is to deny God’s power, not mine. You see, sometimes I have the idea that courage is a lack of fear. Not really. It’s actually the presence of a healthy fear, a recognition of my own shortcomings and the place of rest I have in the One with no shortcomings.

3. Courage isn’t necessarily a one-woman show. The picture of courage we sometimes conjur is one of me against the world. Most often, however, that’s not really the case. It’s just our own self-sufficiency talking. I like to be “strong.” I don’t like to rely on someone else. The truth is, however, that I will never be the last one standing. God will always still be standing there, not to mention the “great cloud of witnesses” (Hebrews 12:1) that have already stood the test. And if I pay attention, I’ll also find others as well — my husband, my family, my friends, my support system. True strength really is found in numbers:

“A cord of three strands is not quickly torn apart.” (Ecclesiastes 4:12)

Certainly not as easily as one measley thread. (Just ask the buttons holding my every-growing baby bump!)

Beyond Assumptions
When I’ve reminded myself of everything that’s true, sometimes the best path to regaining courage is just to focus on the task at hand and let time work its magic. I had every intention last night of delving into my own discouragement issues after everyone went to bed… Until a sleepy little 3-year-old became convinced he “wasn’t tired” and a sniffley little 18-month-old decided one bottle wasn’t enough. So, after another bottle, finding pup-pup, reading the best of Dick and Jane, a few extra kisses and stumbling to bed, discouragement wasn’t at the top of my list anymore.

Two pint-size distractions. One new perspective.  Today’s forecast:  mostly sunny with only a small chance of little black rain clouds.

(See this article on ehow.com under the title “How to Overcome Discouragement“