Commendable Committment

Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.
(John 15:13)

At least three miners perished last night trying to rescue the six miners still missing in Utah. People are asking why? Why send men into dangerous places to find others who might not be, odds are probably aren’t, alive? Does this, they wonder, make any kind of sense? Yes it does.

Throughout history we humans, for all our wars and barbarism, have also acted with commendable courage and admirable selflessness. Often at the cost of our own lives. I know that it may not make logical sense for a soldier to risk losing his, and now her, life to pull the body of a dead comrade off the battlefield. But we must. Abandoning them goes against our innate generosity and sense of connection with the men and women with whom we work and risk and struggle. We do not, cannot, accept that even though they may be dead, our obligation to them is over. Our Marines take pride, and it is part of their code, to leave no fallen comrade on the battlefield.

Soldiers have been known to lose their lives in order to pick up our flag. Are they dying for a piece of cloth—or is there something greater, something truly grand here? They are not throwing their lives away for cloth. The flag is a symbol of more than even our nation, though it surely is that. More deeply it is a contract we make with one another to honor the values that make this country what it is. We risk our lives not for glory but for honor—and that is quite different. We risk our lives not because life is cheap or expendable but because it is precious. That is the value in the gift of our commitment to one another.

Yes, it may sound like a paradox, but it is life’s preciousness that binds us in times of crisis to each other. Courage is not the absence of fear. The absence of fear, when danger looms, is denial. Courage is when we act despite our fear. It is when our love for each other is greater than our fear of death.

First responders are not crazy risk-takers. Police, firefighters, EMTs go into dangerous places knowing that they may not get out alive. They don’t go because of orders. They don’t go because they love the rush. They go because that is who they are. It is a matter of character far more than of training.

For all our myriad imperfections, our weaknesses of both flesh and spirit, we got here by learning to cooperate, to overcome animals that were bigger, faster and stronger. We hunted together and knew that some might not come back. We went to war for people, for family, for ideas and understood the possibility of self-sacrifice. Our willingness to go after trapped miners, wounded soldiers and people in burning buildings reveals the best in our nature. This is probably why we have come to this place in the order of things we have. This is why I expect humanity, as Faulkner said not merely to endure but to prevail.