From the Scratching Post:Courage

By Ken Marks

[Originally posted four days ago (on November 25, 2021) on The Scratching Post. Extracted here by permission of the author.]

The subject of courage baffles me. I hear people use the word, I see it in news stories, but I fail to grasp its essence. Maybe it has no essence. I’m told it has a relationship with fear and virtue, but I can’t find a felicitous connection. I’ve sought help in collections of quotations, and ... well, I’ll just show you what happens.

      I’ll start with the view of courage held by Joe Sixpack, as expressed by John Wayne, The Duke of Hollywood legend. With cowboy brevity, he said:

Courage is being scared to death ... and saddling up anyway.

    So many problems there. Wayne is offering only the warrior’s notion of courage, the kind that would probably be the death of me. I imagine my sergeant ordering me and a few others to charge up Pork Chop Hill and take out a machine gun nest. That sounds pretty reckless to me; I’ve got a family back home, and, oh yeah ... I don’t want to die. And damn that sergeant for the conflict he’s laid on me — either being labeled a coward and court-martialed or being riddled with bullets.
    OK, say I and one other soldier survive….

[Read the whole thing on The Scratching Post.]

Copyright © 2021 by Ken Marks Ken Marks was a contributing editor with Paul Clark & Tom Lowe when “Moristotle” became “Moristotle & Co.” A brilliant photographer, witty conversationalist, and elegant writer, Ken contributed photographs, essays, and commentaries from mid-2008 through 2012. Late in 2013, Ken birthed the blog The Scratching Post. He also posts albums of his photos on Flickr.

Nine Years Ago Today: The Greatest Joke Ever Told

By Moristotle

[Originally published on August 22, 2009.]

Yesterday [nine years ago], in response to Steve’s comment [on “Ambrose Bierce on prayer”] that “[God] isn’t worth having a discussion over; waste of time and breath,” I commented that “on the contrary, it’s endlessly entertaining! Surely the biggest joke anyone ever told.” Being a slow-witted writer, I of course failed to take advantage of the opening to say instead, the greatest joke ever told. But it did put me in mind this morning (on my walk with Siegfried [then in his first year of life]) of the 1965 feature film directed by George Stevens and released by United Artists (after a lengthy pre-production period involving 20th Century Fox and a cast of characters almost as numerous as the credited actors).

The Greatest Joke Ever Told

Yesterday, in response to Steve's comment that "[God] isn't worth having a discussion over; waste of time and breath," I commented that "on the contrary, it's endlessly entertaining! Surely the biggest joke anyone ever told." Being a slow-witted writer, I of course failed to take advantage of the opening to say instead, the greatest joke ever told. But it did put me in mind this morning (on my walk with Siegfried) of the 1965 feature film directed by George Stevens and released by United Artists (after a lengthy pre-production period involving 20th Century Fox and a cast of characters almost as numerous as the credited actors).
    I'd forgotten that John Wayne played the Roman centurion who comments on the crucifixion, "Truly this man was the son of God." Yes, I'm sure that I saw the film. Must have. Who didn't?
    And given the year of my life, I probably watched it believingly, or at least trying to do so. Steve also commented, "You believe or you don't." I don't know whether he allows for beginning to believe, ceasing to believe, or trying to believe, but people do come to crossroads where they decide to believe or stop believing, or stop trying to do one or the other. I remember somberly reading as a teenager C.S. Lewis's conversion memoir, Surprised by Joy, the very copy given me by my high school English teacher. And there was my own decision, almost two years ago (I may comment on the anniversary on September 9).
    If God isn't worth discussing, then so much greater is the joke on all of us who once believed—and perhaps even greater on those who still do. But not at all of course on those who never wasted any time or breath on the subject. I guess it would be a joke on them only if God actually did exist.