The worst and best of the film Braveheart was William Wallace’s heart-stopping scream of “freedom” as evil cut the life out of him.
I had just finished reading Foxe’s book of martyrs, and this scene brought to life the cost of true heroism.
Evil wages war. Injustice does not give up or retreat. Can the grip of injustice loosen without pain? I think not.
One hero recounts his painful love of the Afghanistani people:
Some years back, when I lived in Australia, and having fun was easy, I used to go surf-kayaking. In little squirt boats, we would surf the waves, rolling and flipping, like wannabe dolphins.
On one occasion, I got dumped, badly. I didn’t roll up immediately, and so I got a lungful of water, and got disoriented. When I finally did roll up, the next wave hit me, and by then, I was close into shore, and this wave pushed me deep into the sand. My head hit the sea bed, hard. A bit harder, I could have broken my neck. My mate Mike, who was watching, had no idea where I was. When I finally emerged, I was a wreck. I had to go to the doctor to get my ears syringed, to get the sand out. She didn’t believe me, when I told her what had happened.
That’s sort of how I feel now. The ride got really hard, this last year. I find myself wondering, has it been worth it? If I re-do the arithmetic, what will the answer be?
But, then, as I said, we are all ideologues in this business. We started this work, because we believed, long before the rest of the world was interested, that Afghanistan could be something more than a byword for misery and hopelessness. And that we could, or should, be part of that healing.
Mazar, Afghanistan
But why should that belief lead us to conclude that we would pass unscathed?
For those who refuse to leave evil and injustice alone, you are heroes. You are living for a more vivid, stronger reality than this present pain.
“I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.” -Paul
C.S. Lewis about the triumph of joy:
It must be one way or the other. Either the day must come when joy prevails and all the makers of misery are no longer able to infect it: or else for ever and ever the makers of misery can destroy in others the happiness they reject for themselves.
God, please liberate me to live with costly abandon for the day joy prevails.
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