Re-examining the Meaning of Bravery After a Cross-Country Move
Letter from Madison Kearney
Photo by Chelsey Shortman
Dear kindred spirits,
I find that the most fascinating aspect of literature is the way that stories and characters can completely change our lives, especially when they reveal the presence of God in everyday life. Great works such as The Brothers Karamazov, The Lord of the Rings, and Jane Eyre illuminate this divine presence through complex, compelling characters who live out the vivid struggles and glories of the spiritual life. Such characters invite us to take a closer look at our own lives and discern our ever-deepening need for God. In many great stories, we find a particular virtue that winds all throughout literature: bravery. Oftentimes, a character arrives at a crossroad of good and evil - the paths to sainthood and sin - and must not only choose but remain faithful to that choice. He must be brave. That virtue appears again and again in stories – but what does it truly mean to be brave?
I remember being 16 years old when my family prepared to move from Nashville to snowy Michigan. I was an angsty teen and I resented anything that had to do with change, so my attitude was hardly positive regarding my parents’ decision. At that time, I was also reading Thornton Wilder’s The Bridge Over San Luis Rey. The story explores the themes of courage, love, and family through five Peruvian characters. The first part of the book describes the Marquesa de Montemayor, a lonely, insecure woman who writes pleading letters to her estranged daughter in Spain, coveting her child’s undying devotion. Meanwhile, Pepita, a young orphan girl raised at the local convent, becomes the Marquesa’s companion. She, too, feels alone and writes a letter to her Abbess, describing her intense loneliness and how the Marquesa’s servants isolate her. Pepita asks the Abbess for a little affection in the form of a responding letter, implicitly begging to be loved. Pepita writes,
I want to do only what you want [. . .] But I am so much alone and not talking to anyone, and everything. Sometimes I do not know whether you have forgotten me and if you could find a minute to write me a little letter or something, I could keep it, but I know how busy you are.
The Marquesa reads the letter and offers to post it. Yet Pepita takes the letter and destroys it, simply saying, “It wasn’t . . . it wasn’t . . . it wasn’t brave.”
There’s nothing inherently cowardly about Pepita’s letter. Her yearning for love is natural and beautiful. In fact, her vulnerability is quite courageous. The key, though, is that while her homesickness and isolation in her new position as the Marquesa’s companion weigh heavily on her heart, Pepita knew that she had a choice: To either send the letter and perhaps continue to dwell on her misery during her difficult transition, or she can choose to simply obey and accept the cross that the Lord had given her. Her act of courageous obedience utterly floored the Marquesa and myself, and invited me to look at how I was handling my own cross at that time in my life. I quickly realized that as hard as the upcoming move was, I hadn’t even tried to be brave about it. I preferred to remain bitter, angry, and overall unhelpful. Yet Pepita’s courage inspired me to try to simply accept God’s will – so I picked up my cross and ventured north. God went on to abundantly bless those next few years in Michigan, a place I now call home.
Pepita’s letter resurfaced during my next move some years later – this time 3,000 miles away from my Michigan home to Arizona where I had accepted a job as an elementary school teacher. During that challenging transition, I tried to be brave, yet it was becoming clear that I had a rather narrow understanding of bravery. I thought it meant shouldering the struggle in silence while I explored this foreign land filled with cacti, scorpions, and strangers . . . that courage meant not complaining -- which turned into not talking about the struggle at all, because I didn’t want to fuss over this transition that was clearly God’s will. And so I gradually took Pepita’s example of courage and began to turn it into something that I could do on my own. Courage began to mean exerting my own strength and will, and that it was my choice to grit my teeth and power through the difficulties. And because I had a friend in my only housemate, a job, an incredible team, adorable students, a beautiful house, a charismatic parish with amazing priests, I knew I shouldn’t harp on the internal lonesomeness or the shyness that began to cripple me in ways I hadn’t experienced before.
So I ordered myself to just “get over” the trepidation of meeting new people, of wading again and again into a sea of unfamiliar faces. Yet my shy personality continuously quaked at the thought of approaching folks at church for a third and fourth time only to endure the dreaded “So what was your name again?” from people that I had thought might be kindred spirits. But I was clearly blessed in every other area of my new life, and so had no real reason to complain, right?
That thought always came to me in prayer, and I figured I couldn’t tell God how I was feeling because I didn’t want to make Him think that I wasn’t grateful for all He gave me. I knew that wouldn’t be brave. And Pepita was right – merely complaining and ignoring the blessings isn’t brave. It’s not brave if feeling sorry for yourself is all you do. But curling up in that loneliness, refusing to talk to God about it, and being bitter because you’re not talking – that’s not brave either. I began to find that my stubborn silence merely allowed my emotions to run wild and free, dragging me far away from my one-dimensional ideal of heroism in the desert.
I began to wonder whether I really was being brave. Then one night after a perfectly normal, happy phone conversation with my mother, I suddenly lacked any and all fortitude. Sitting there on my new bed in my new room that still didn’t feel like mine, I experienced a wave of helplessness. I just wanted to go home and I couldn’t. And I couldn’t even suppress the thought; I didn’t have the strength.
My housemate and I went to Adoration that evening, as usual, and as I nestled into a pew by myself, I cried. Pepita’s letter and her call to bravery came to mind, but I didn’t know what to do with it anymore. Then gently, two thoughts began to arise in prayer: the Hosean image of God leading His straying bride out into the desert so that He could win her back, and a simple phrase I’d learned from my mentor: “Daddy loves you, you’re safe, and it’s okay.” As these two images echoed in my mind, the Father explained how He had brought me to the desert to be with Him – that He wanted so badly to be with me and have me lean entirely into Him and feel His love, His paternal love. Moving from home was His gentle yet direct way of inviting me to rely on Him and receive His abundant love.
During that prayer, He also brought up Pepita’s letter. Yet this time, I saw not merely a girl’s cry for help but the very cry of Christ Himself in the Agony in the Garden. There, alone in the dark, Our Lord prepares for the coming Passion. Alone, with snoozing apostles in the distance, He takes on the world’s sins, and prepares for the suffering that approaches. And it’s miserable; the weight of the cup is absolutely crushing. It’s also inevitable. Yet in the Garden, Christ doesn’t just repress his misery, and soldier ever onward and upward. Instead, He turns in prayer to His Father and is honest about how difficult it all is. He begs the Father upfront to take the cup away from Him. Yet He doesn’t end there. Christ concludes with: “Not My will but Thine be done.” His response is both honesty and courageous surrender. Our Lord was brave.
His own loving witness of vulnerability in bravery carried me to Spring Break, when God then granted me the consolation of spending two months at home during the early days of COVID-19. During that time, all my siblings came home where we laughed, talked, read, and went stir-crazy together. When I finally had to return to Arizona at the beginning of May, He blessed me with Himself: Our pastor received permission to distribute Holy Communion, and so I received Jesus the day after I came back. I have been blessed to receive Him nearly every day through the efforts of our pastor and parish community. And through recent volunteer work at the parish, the Father has also begun to bless me with the community and sense of belonging I yearned for. Praise!
Handwritten quote from the writer (Photo by Chelsey Shortman)
In writing this letter, I have come to see that true bravery is recognizing that as humans, we need to vocalize our difficulties in order to start processing them and moving towards a resolution. I found that permitting myself to have a human, emotional release and expressing my struggles to the Father actually made it possible for me to pick up my cross and face the problem ahead with renewed strength and courage. Just as Pepita’s letter and her response to the Marquesa mark a shift in Pepita’s life as she turns from seeking just consolation to leaning into God for strength as she accepts the cross He gave her, so have I reached a turning point in my own spiritual life. Following Pepita’s example of picking up the cross in peace-filled obedience and dependence opened my heart up to receive many graces that the Father wished to grant. Pepita shows me that expressing my difficulties and struggles is not incompatible with the pursuit of bravery. Rather, we need an emotional outlet so that the negative feelings and fears don’t just build up. But we don’t stay at that stage. Eventually, we need to choose to rise and answer God’s call.
Pepita’s letter and her courage exemplify the appropriate response to the Cross. The Cross is heavy and difficult to bear, but powering through our sufferings alone is hardly possible or courageous. What’s truly brave is leaning on the Father for help, believing that He is deeply trustworthy, and accepting His will in faith. Christian courage means looking to Christ’s example in the Garden. Just as He voiced His agony to the Father yet still embraced the Cross that saved the world, may we also not be afraid to say, “If it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will . . . but Thy will be done.”
Cheers,
Madison
About the Writer: Madison Kearney is a graduate of Franciscan University, where she earned her MA in Theology, and has her BA in English and History from Hillsdale College. Madison currently lives near Phoenix, AZ where she is living out her dream of being a 3rd grade teacher at a local charter school, while writing part-time for the Catechetical Institute. In her spare time, she loves reading Russian novels and Christian humanist authors, such as T.S. Eliot and J.R.R. Tolkien. While working out remains a daily battle, she enjoys tennis and horseback riding. Adoration remains her greatest solace, especially after hours of grading. .
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For Your Reflection:
Pray about it: Take those areas of your life where you are struggling to the Lord in prayer. Examine your own bravery – is your idea of bravery preventing you from seeking consolation in the Lord?
Write about it: Do you have any favorite literary heroines who constantly inspire you? If so, who are they, what do you love about them, and what qualities of theirs do you seek to imitate in your own life?
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