The Courage to Act

My thoughts have been ranging lately on the acts that we are called to carry out - each doing what we are called to do and not worry about doing it all. Sometimes it's making art. Sometimes it's writing. Sometimes it's marching. Sometimes it's signing petitions. Sometimes it's gathering in community.

I have also been watching videos on youtube about WWII. Oh, my goodness the acts of courage that happened during that time period. People being parachuted behind the lines to work with the resistance, all the while knowing that their life span was not great. The people of England and elsewhere enduring all the bombing, the privation and not know when or if the war would end. The men sent into battle and the courage it took to keep going. This reminded me of a book I read sometime ago. This is the book review that I wrote for a now defunct blog called Explore Beyond the Usual. 

"Among other books, I am currently reading Sheila Isenberg’s Muriel’s War: An American Heiress in the Nazi Resistance. I am continually asking myself, “Would I have the courage to act?” The answer, so far, is I hope so, but I cannot say so with certainty.

Muriel was Helen Muriel Morris, the granddaughter of two of the three Chicago meatpacking (dare I say robber) barons of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. She ended up inheriting a large amount of money in her teens when her father died. This money was placed in trust and was managed well by her oldest brother. She could have chosen to live a life of luxury and ignore the world around her.

In fact, though, due to circumstances of her upbringing, she became quite liberal and possibly bordered on being a socialist. This started with her nanny who told her stories of poverty in Ireland and the difficult trip to America. She saw the conditions of steerage on a ship when her family sailed to Europe when she was ten. These started her thinking about justice and fairness, which she continued to think about for the rest of her life.

She was educated at Wellesley and then went to Oxford. She was refused her Oxford degree because she did not condemn Mary Shelley’s suicide attempts in her thesis. After this, she traveled finally ending up in Vienna where she started psychoanalysis with one of Freud’s protégés. (I am not listing her various relationships here as they are not the point of this post.)

She continued to read avidly, a habit she gained as a child. She especially paid attention to politics and the world situation even during the deteriorating situation Austria. She chose to stay in Vienna rather than leave, although she sent her daughter and daughter’s nanny to Switzerland. Muriel became part of a network of American and English people who provided money, food, forged documents, and support to Jews and socialists who were in danger of being arrested or murdered. She even hid some of them in her apartment. All the while in medical school and continuing her psychoanalysis.

I have not finished the book, but I do know that she survived. I cheated by peaking at the pictures in the book—there she is in old age. I do not know yet if she stayed for the whole war or how she managed to evade the Nazis and survive. I admire her courage in making this choice because I am sure that while it was a bit easier to act because she was a wealthy American, I am not sure the Nazis would have cared if they had discovered her participation in the resistance. 

Which brings me back to my question: Would I have the courage to act, even for a short period of time in this kind of circumstance? Again, I hope so. May we see more and more people of courage and light."

I did finish the book, and yes she did indeed survive the war. At this point, my vague recollection is that she finally left before she was caught by the Nazis. 

I am not saying that we are in such dire times, but surely if people could act and speak out in that time, we can surely speak and act in our times. If they did not give into despair at was going on around them, we can surely not give into despair, although I do confess that I at times just delete all the political emails because I get tired of the language of despair and desparation that is used in them. I work to see hope everywhere along with the possibility of ending divisiveness between people, groups and countries. Sometimes, I think, that refusing to give into despair is an act of courage. Refusing to give up, to keep working in the face of ambiguity is an act of courage. What is yours?