大象传媒

Good morning.
There are two sorts of occasion when it seems very easy to be brave.
The first sort is The Crisis:聽 adrenaline pumping, people shouting, the danger is looming and there鈥檚 no time to think.聽 And afterwards the hero interviewed by the media saying, 鈥淭he training kicked in and I just got on with it.鈥�
And then there鈥檚 the sort of occasion when I myself have been incredibly brave.聽 At two o鈥檆lock in the morning when I can鈥檛 sleep and I鈥檓 thinking about how heroic I鈥檇 be if I got involved in A Terrorist Incident.聽 And in those situations my bravery would be the stuff of legend.聽 And then I fall asleep.

But experience tells us it鈥檚 more difficult to show courage in the cold light of day when there鈥檚 no adrenaline and you鈥檝e got plenty of time to think.
Like when your city has been flattened in air raids, your friends and neighbours 鈥� and their friends and neighbours right out to the suburbs 鈥� have been killed or damaged.聽 And your cathedral has been left as a blackened ruin.聽 It takes real courage then to preach peace when every human instinct calls for retribution 鈥� or even revenge.聽 And perhaps even more courage to build links with a city where the bombs that destroyed homes and people were dropped by us.
Or when you decide you鈥檙e going to try and broker peace in a complex situation where enmity runs deep between communities, and you know you鈥檙e going to be criticized for compromise.聽 And that success may at best be only partial.聽 It takes courage to act when you know you鈥檙e unlikely to emerge to universal acclaim.
Father God,
in the difficult situations we meet today, large or trivial,
may we have the courage to do what we what believe is right,
to do what would please you.
Amen