Compassion Brings Courage

During the Summer of 2001, 8-year-old Jessie Arbogast was attacked by a shark while playing in the ocean off the coast of Pensacola, Florida. Jessie screamed for help when the shark bit his arm and leg. His uncle Vance and another man sprinted from the beach into the bloody water. Jessie lost his arm to the shark but was taken to shore and looked after by his mother, but two girls were still further out in the water. 

What happened next makes the Crocodile Hunter pale in comparison. Uncle Vance grabs the vicious, 7 1/2 foot, 200 pound shark by the tail with his bare hands and wrestles it to the shore, where it continued to thrash about. A park ranger rams an expandable baton into the shark's mouth, shoots it four times in the head with a hand gun, and a volunteer fire fighter/lifeguard reaches in and pulls out Jessie's arm, which was packed in ice, rushed to an ambulance and eventually re-attached to Jessie's body.

The most amazing hero of this story has got to be uncle Vance. I'm sure that on a normal day at the beach if he saw shark fins rising out of the water he wouldn't even think of sprinting out into the surf and attacking it! But something welled up inside him when the children were attacked. I still can't imagine how he wrestled a powerful 200 pound shark from its natural environment, with the shark desperately thrashing about trying to stay in the ocean, and pulled him onto the shore. I've got to wonder if today's sharks tuck their fins and swim out to sea when they realize uncle Vance is in the water.  He brought a new meaning to the phrase ''shark attack.'' He attacked the shark! 

But it's a perfect example of how love and compassion can overcome fear. The more we develop compassion for others, the less we have to be controlled by our fears. This week, let's try to ignite our compassion for others and see how this might help us to conquer our fears. (Copyright August, 2001 by Steve Miller. Source: ''Saving Jessie Arbogast," by Timothy Roche, pp. 40,41, Time, July 30, 2001)

Discussion Questions

1) What did "Uncle Vance" do that was so courageous?
2) What do you think motivated him to do it?
3) How can compassion help us conquer some of our fears? (It gets our eyes off of ourselves and sets our eyes on others, rather than worrying about what might happen to us.)
4) What are some areas of your life in which you need courage that you you could concentrate on this week? 

Fighting an Imaginary Army

James Dobson tells of a friend who won a bronze star for courage in Vietnam. But he was not always so brave. The first night in Vietnam, they dug holes into a hill and watched the sun go down as they anticipated an enemy attack. At about midnight, the sound of rifles and grenades filled the air as they desperately fought for their lives. The battle continued until the break of dawn, when they discovered, to their embarrassment, that although they had apparently won the battle and none of their own soldiers were wounded, the enemy had never even shown up. They had been bravely fighting an imaginary enemy all night long. 

Like these soldiers we're often immobilized by imaginary fears. They say that most of our fears will never come about, yet those very fears keep us from joining the band, trying out for cheerleading or taking a challenging job that we might just love. This week, let's try to overcome some of those imagined fears. Instead of fighting imaginary foes, we can use our energies to try new things. Even if we fail, we can at least say that we tried. (Copyright August, 2001 by Steve Miller. Source: Straight Talk, by James Dobson)

Discussion Questions

1) How do you think the soldiers ended up fighting an imaginary army?
2) Since most of the things we fear will never happen, how do we end up "fighting imaginary armies?"
3) What are some of the fears that hold students back?
4) What are some practical ways we can overcome our fears?

You Can Be Both Scared and Courageous

While Martin Luther King was pastoring in Montgomery, Alabama, a lady named Rosa Parks refused to obey the city's rules to give her seat to a white man. Five days later black residents launched a bus boycott and elected King as president of the newly-formed Montgomery Improvement Association. 

As the boycott continued during 1956, King gained national prominence as a result of his exceptional speaking skills and personal courage. His house was bombed and he was convicted along with other boycott leaders on charges of conspiring to interfere with the bus company's operations. Despite these attempts to suppress the movement, Montgomery buses were desegregated in December, 1956, after the United States Supreme Court declared Alabama's segregation laws unconstitutional. Subsequent mass demonstrations in many communities culminated in a march on August 28, 1963, that attracted more than 250,000 protesters to Washington, D. C. Addressing the marchers from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, King delivered his famous "I Have a Dream" oration. 

During the year following the March, King's renown grew as he became Time Magazine's Man of the Year and, in December 1964, the recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. 

Because of his convictions, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. paid a tremendous personal price for the way he lived out his values. It wasn't that he didn't experience fear. But he held firm to his values in spite of his fears. While marching in Chicago in 1966 to promote open-housing in that city, a man who marched with him said, "Those cherry bombs that the counter protesters would set off when we were marching -- Dr. King would jump a mile when they went off. I could see he was really scared, but he never wavered. That to me was real heroism." 

Martin Luther King wasn't fearless. Apparently, he was often scared. But he went forward in spite of his fears. This week, let's realize that our fearfulness doesn't mean we can't be brave. Let's hold to our dreams and convictions in spite of our fears. (Copyright Steve and Cheryl Miller, January, 2003, all rights reserved)

Discussion Questions

1) What great conviction or cause motivated Martin Luther King?
2) In what way did he experience fear?
3) How do you think he kept pressing forward in spite of his fears?
4) What are some areas where students let their fears keep them from pressing forward?
5) What is one area of your life that you could keep pressing forward in, in spite of our fears. 

On November 2, 2005, nearly 7,000  people packed the Greater Grace Temple for the funeral of a little woman who had a great heart - Rosa Parks. Attendees included government officials and celebrities. During her lifetime she received almost countless awards and honors. Why all the honors?  What can we learn from her?

Fifty years ago, as a 42-year-old tailor's assistant in a Montgomery, Alabama department store, Rosa made her stand against segregation by staying seated in her bus seat after being ordered to give up her seat. She was black; the new arrivals were white. At the time, laws allowed for the separation of whites and blacks in public places such as city buses. Blacks had to sit toward the back. If the white section filled, blacks had to sit further back. The laws were wrong, and she knew it. 

It would have been easy for her to take the easy road and go with the flow like most people. But segregation was wrong. She'd experienced it in many ways. As a child, she'd see white kids ride by her in the school bus, while she had to walk to school. She remembered, all too vividly, hearing a lynching by the Klu Klux Klan outside of her house, fearing that they would burn her house down. As an adult, she'd step up to the front of the bus to pay the fare, only to have to walk back out of the bus to enter further back on the bus. Sometimes the bus would take off before she could get back in. It was wrong. Someone had to do something about it. 

As an adult, she fought discrimination through her work with the local chapter of the NAACP (The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People), devoting her time to support the rights of Afro-Americans. 

So it was no surprise that when Rosa and three others were asked to give up their seats, although the others complied, she politely refused. She sat alone. She wasn't physically tired. She was tired of discrimination. Somebody needed to make a stand. She made her stand by sitting. 

Here are the blow by blow details, according to Rosa: 

The bus driver demands, "Y'all better make it light on yourselves and let me have those seats." 

Rosa comments: "The driver wanted us to stand up, the four of us. We didn't move at the beginning, but he says, 'Let me have these seats.' And the other three people moved, but I didn't." Rosa simply moved over to the window seat and stayed put. 

The bus driver continues: "Why don't you stand up?" 

Rosa replies, "I said I don't think I should have to stand up." 

Bus Driver: "Well, if you don't stand up, I'm going to have to call the police and have you arrested."

Rosa: "You may do that." 

The bus driver proceeded to call the police, who promptly arrested her.   

The ensuing arrest, detainment and fine were small stuff compared to the later harassment and death threats to her and her husband. They also lost their jobs. 

As a result of Rosa's stand, many people rallied around her cause. A new minister in town, Dr. Martin Luther King, took up the cause and led a boycott of the bus system for 381 days. Since 2/3 of the bus riders in Montgomery were black, they got the system's attention. 

After she was convicted of breaking the law, she appealed her decision until in November 1956, the U.S. Supreme Court outlawed segregation on buses.

Very few people can say that their actions caused positive change on a national scale, but Rosa could. She was able to live the rest of her life knowing that she'd faced her fears, stood up for something significant, and made a difference. 

Many of us have heard the story of Rosa Parks, but may have never thought through just how her character was necessary to make her mark on the nation. 

First, she needed courage and determination to make her stand. In her own words:

"When that white driver stepped back toward us, when he waved his hand and ordered us up and out of our seats, I felt a determination cover my body like a quilt on a winter night."

Second, she was neither violent nor hot-tempered.  Had she been either of these, the press and lawyers might have swayed public opinion and juries by arguing that she was simply an argumentative rabble-rouser who deserved to be moved to another seat. 

Third, she had built a great reputation. The NAACP needed a person who could stand up to public scrutiny and represent Afro-Americans well. Rosa had completed school and studied to be a teacher. She had a job. She was faithful to her husband. She had developed not only a quiet fortitude, but an understanding of the political system.  

According to Dr. Martin Luther King, "Mrs. Parks...was regarded as one of the finest citizens of Montgomery—not one of the finest Negro citizens—but one of the finest citizens of Montgomery." 

Her character not only motivated her to make a stand, but allowed her stand to shake the nation. 

1. What did Rosa Parks do that changed the country?
2. What did she risk by refusing to move from her seat?
3. How do you think she got the courage to defy the law?
4. How is our country better because of her courageous stand?
5. Do you think she felt good because of her actions?
6. Are there issues today where we might have to take a stand?
7. How can we become a person who can stand against the crowd and make a difference?

(Written by Steve Miller, Copyright November 2, 2005, all rights reserved. Sources: CBS News, Final Tributes For Rosa Parks, Detroit, Nov. 2, 2005; Pioneer of Civil Rights, Rosa Parks www.achievement.org ; Civil Rights Leader Dies (Scholastic News) by Ezra Billinkoff; The Time 100, Rosa Parks, Her simple act of protest galvanized America's civil rights revolution, by RITA DOVE; Wikipedia)

Outside the Comfort Zone 

Instruct students that you're going to play some music and have them walk randomly about the room and that when you stop the music, you'll shout out a number. At that time the students should gather that number of the closest people around them into a group and wait for the instructions. You might come up with creative, yet simple ways of giving the number, such as "1 + 6 - 2," or "The number of blind mice in the nursery rhyme". (Don't make it too hard so as to not embarrass anyone. Tell those left out to join another group.) Here are ideas for what to share each time the music stops:

First stop: Each person tell your name and your favorite school subject.

Second stop: Your name and a favorite hobby or past-time.

Third stop: Your name and your favorite style of music. 

Fourth stop: Your name and a personal hero or person you respect and why.

Debriefing: For some of you, this was pretty uncomfortable. We're typically comfortable among our close friends and family, but get pretty intimidated talking to those we don't know. It takes courage. But I think it's worth it. Why is it good to constantly meet new people at school? 

Think about three students, one in the band, one playing football and another in the chess club. Since their lives aren't limited to these activities, they may actually have a tremendous amount in common. In fact, after all are out of school, odds are that none of them will be involved with these activities. If we don't have the boldness to get to know others, we may miss out on some of life's greatest friendships. 

Peer Pressure Parade (Drama prepared for 5th and 6th graders)

Purpose

To persuade students to resist peer pressure by demonstrating how silly it often looks.

Setting

Outside the school at the bus stop.

Drama

(Put some frivolous/lighthearted music in the background to make this more entertaining.)

Scene I

Camera zooms in from view of school to find two students walking toward each other, one with her umbrella up and the other with her umbrella folded by her side.

Each politely says “Hi!” as they pass.

Immediately upon passing one another, each look to the sky briefly to view the weather, then, without looking back, the one with the umbrella closed opens it and puts it over her head. Simultaneously, the one with the umbrella open closes hers and puts it by her side.

Scene II

Camera pans back out to reveal the school once more, this time showing two jock-looking guys walking towards one another. One has his shirttail out and the other in.

As they pass, they say “Hey Man” (or your localized, cool equivalent. Ask students what they would say.) and slap a high five.

Immediately after passing one another, each glances around to make sure nobody’s watching. The one with his shirttail out tucks it in and the one with it in pulls it out.

Scene III

Narrator: “Wait a minute!” (The actors pause, or the film stops (if being filmed), freezing the characters in place. What just happened? Let’s see that again!

Characters go backwards in fast motion until at the first of their walks, or rewind if filmed. (This should bring some laughs!)

As we see them go through the routine a second time, the narrator says:

Defining Courage

Thomas Aquinas said that courage consists of two parts: patient endurance and the willingness to risk. Risk without endurance is foolhardy. Endurance without risk is to become a door mat. Courage is not possible without the wisdom to know when to ''hunker down'' and when to ''step up.'' In all cases, courage is the willingness to stand against that which would seek to destroy you.

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Courage is being scared to death but saddling up anyway. (John Wayne, American film star)

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Courage is doing what you are afraid to do. There can be no courage unless you are scared. (Eddie Rickenbacker)

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To Be Successful in Business

Tim Berners-Lee has been credited with inventing the World Wide Web, because he gave us the ability to mouse click on a link and jump uninterrupted to sites around the globe. Without his technology, we couldn't surf the web. The idea for the development sprang from his inability to remember random things like names and faces. So, he wrote some software to keep track of these links, sort of a memory substitute for what he lacked. (Time Magazine, 5-19-97) So don't get discouraged by those areas you seem to lack. They may turn out to be your greatest asset.

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. (Mahatma Gandhi) 

Tom Brady, the super-successful quarterback for the New England Patriots, doesn't try to be "just another jock." Elwood Reid, one of his college professors, noted that Brady was his own person. The other jocks in his class were too cool to do homework or act interested in his class. Not Brady. He was polite, sincere, did his reading, brought his books to class. Reid expected the other athletes to treat him with contempt, making fun of the skinny athlete.

But to Reid's surprise, "the most disruptive guys in the class did more than leave the quarterback alone. They seemed to look up to him. In fact, they seemed to look up to him more because he wasn't following their lead." I suppose you can't very well lead the crowd if you're following it. [Moving the Chains: Tom Brady and the Pursuit of Everything, by Charles P. Pierce (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2006), pp. 4,5].

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“Courage is the first of human qualities because it is the quality which guarantees all the others.” (Winston Churchill)

To laugh is to risk appearing a fool.
To weep is to risk appearing sentimental.
To reach out to another is to risk involvement.
To expose feelings is to risk exposing your true self.
To place your ideas, your dreams before the crowd is to risk their loss.
To love is to risk not being loved in return.
To live is to risk dying.
To hope is to risk despair.
To try is to risk failure.

But risks must be taken because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing.
The person who risks nothing does nothing, has nothing, is nothing.
He may avoid suffering and sorrow, but he simply cannot learn, feel, change, love...live.
Chained by his certitudes, he is a slave, he has forfeited freedom.
Only a person who risks is free. (Can't find source)

''Courage is contagious. When a brave person takes a stand, the spines of others are stiffened.''

Be Willing to Be Different

He who joyfully marches in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would suffice. (Albert Einstein)

Believe That You Can Change the World

The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do. (Apple Computer ad)

Don't Become Discouraged by Defeats

Be Willing to Change

''There is nothing wrong in change if it is in the right direction. To improve is to change, so to be perfect is to have changed often.''  (Winston Churchill)

Expect Opposition

World War II fighter pilot Nimrod McNair said, ''I never once flew over the right target without being fired at.'' 

Endure and Learn Through Criticism

Criticism is something we can avoid easily--by saying nothing, doing nothing and being nothing. (Aristotle)

Realize That Many of Our Fears Are Imaginary

James Dobson tells of a friend who won a bronze star for courage in Vietnam. But he was not always that brave. The first night in Vietnam, they dug holes into a hill and watched the sun go down as they anticipated an enemy attack. At about midnight, the sound of rifles and grenades filled the air as they desperately fought for their lives. The battle continued until the break of dawn, when they discovered, to their embarrassment, that although they had apparently won the battle and none of their own soldiers were wounded, the enemy had never even shown up. They had been bravely fighting an imaginary enemy all night long. (From Straight Talk, by James Dobson)

Famous athletic coach Vince Lombardi used to say, ''When the going gets tough, the tough get going.'' 

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During the Summer of 2001, 8-year-old Jessie Arbogast was attacked by a shark while playing in the ocean off the coast of Pensacola, Florida. Jessie screamed for help when the shark bit his arm and leg. His uncle Vance and another man sprinted from the beach into the bloody water. Jessie lost his arm to the shark but was taken to shore and looked after by his mother, but two girls were still further out in the water. 

What happened next makes the Crocodile Hunter pale in comparison. Uncle Vance grabs the vicious, 7 1/2 foot, 200 pound shark by the tail with his bare hands and wrestles it to the shore, where it continued to thrash about. A park ranger rams an expandable baton into the shark's mouth, shoots it four times in the head with a hand gun, and a volunteer fire fighter/lifeguard reaches in and pulls out Jessie's arm, which was packed in ice, rushed to an ambulance and eventually re-attached to Jessie's body.

The most amazing hero of this story has got to be uncle Vance. I'm sure that on a normal day at the beach if he saw shark fins rising out of the water he wouldn't even think of sprinting out into the surf and attacking it! But something welled up inside him when the children were attacked. I still can't imagine how he wrestled a powerful 200 pound shark from its natural environment, with the shark desperately thrashing about trying to stay in the ocean, and pulled him onto the shore. I've got to wonder if today's sharks tuck their fins and swim out to sea when they realize uncle Vance is in the water.  He brought a new meaning to the phrase ''shark attack.'' He attacked the shark! 

But it's a perfect example of how love and compassion can overcome fear. The more we develop compassion for others, the less we have to be controlled by fears. (Copyright August, 2001 by Steve Miller. Source: ''Saving Jessie Arbogast, by Timothy Roche, pp. 40,41, Time, July 30, 2001)

Take On Tasks Worthy of Courage

Don't Let Your Handicaps Inhibit You

I can't make it through the grocery store line these days without noticing Tom Cruise staring at me from a magazine cover. How many of you saw him play Ethan Hunt in Mission Impossible II? His accomplishments are pretty incredible. At 37 years of age, he has starred in blockbuster after blockbuster, is one of the highest paid actors in Hollywood, has been recognized for his achievements in acting by a Golden Globe award and an Oscar nomination, and has the physical agility (and guts) to perform 95% of the stunts in MI2. It's easy to look at Cruise and assume that he probably always had everything going for him. Think again. His life is actually the story of a survivor who learned to turn his shortcomings into assets.

His dad was consumed with his work and finally abandoned the family when Tom was 12. Tom couldn't afford some of the things other kids had because his dad refused to pay child support for his four children. He and his sisters had to work to contribute to the family income. They sometimes survived on food stamps. His social life was disrupted regularly by moves that forced him to change schools an average of once a year (8 elementary and three high schools). Lots of kids made fun of him. He was always the new geek, never the cool guy that girls flocked to. Lots of kids made fun of him

And to make matters worse, he felt stupid and embarrassed because he was put in the remedial class for slow learners. He was later found to have a learning disorder called Dyslexia, which makes it incredibly difficult to learn skills like reading. Not knowing what was wrong, he just thought he was dumb and would often come home crying. He couldn't even distinguish his right hand from his left.

Concluding that academics weren't his forte, he plunged into athletics. He played football but was too small to excel. Wrestling, however, is divided into weight classes, giving him the opportunity to compete. But when running some stairs (trying to lose a pound to compete in his weight class) he slipped on some papers his sister had left and tore a tendon on his leg. So much for athletics. Unable to wrestle on the team, he tried out for a part in their high school play. He landed a starring role and fell in love with acting. A theater agent ''just happened'' to be in the audience the night of the performance, encouraged him to go into acting and the rest is history.

Cruise could have turned inward and bitter about his circumstances. But instead, he learned from them. He draws from the heartache he experienced as a child to express emotion when he acts. He learned to work harder than others by having to learn with a disability. He says that his school difficulties were a character course that made him a better person. As a result, he goes the extra mile for his producers and has the character that makes people love to work with him. (© Copyright 2002 Steve Miller - All Rights Reserved. Sources: 1 – ''Cruise Control'' (excerpt from 'Cruise')( Cosmopolitan) Frank Sanello; 12-01-1995; 2 – ''Man With a Mission,'' ( The Calgary Sun ) Lisa Wilton, Calgary Sun, 05-21-2000; 3 - ''Conversations With Cruise,'' Vanity Fair, June, 2000; Tom Cruise, by Phelan Powell, Chelsea House Publishers, 1999)