1/30/08:
"Profiles in Courage" - Adi Redzic
Last night, while walking through the campus and stepping on the fresh white carpet that just shortly before covered my path, I was fighting yet another storm that was aimed on blowing me away from the journey that I embarked upon a number of years ago. The wind was furious, and the watery snow was sneaking into my shoes, like a dark enemy in the late night. But it was this very snowstorm that took me back to the time when I first saw the light.
During the 1990s in the war torn Yugoslavia, my family experienced a number of situation in which fear became the driving force of our existence. Attempts to take our lives away, the economic crisis that took us down to our knees and various explosions around us are all too familiar to many of you. This was my childhood. Cliché, isn’t it?
But, it was not until 2001 that I felt real fear for the first time. Have you ever been afraid? Can you raise your hand if you have? It seems that we all have been scared at one time or another. But why? Why do we allow fear to flow through our veins? For me, it was losing someone who had been my strongest support.
It was not the bank accounts that were empty at the dawn of April 1993, or the letters that were sent threatening our lives, or even the NATO bombing of 1999 and thousands of refugees, that served as the critical storm of my life. All these events portrayed the first snow, the first wind; but not the actual storm. It was the death of my grandma in 2001 that announced the long winter in front of me-a time of uncertainty, hesitation, and fear.
I had seen death before then. According to some, I had seen worst things than the death of my grandma, the lady in her early 70s. But, there was something in this particular experience that really shook me up. The storm of grief blowing at me was unbearable to the point that it caused me to lose my balance, and I fell without knowing how to get up. Sounds familiar? I know it is—as a popular Bosnian writer, Mesha Selimovic, once described, “everyone’s life is hard, but our own is the hardest.”
And then, one morning, a ray of sun peeked through the tightly closed drapes into my room. It was a beautiful sunrise that indicated a new beginning. This was the morning when I realized that while the departure of dear people leaves an enormous gap in our lives, we must use their memories as an inspiration and consider rough times as learning opportunities and as a force behind us, rather than an obstacle in front of us. Once we have fallen, we must get up, dust ourselves off and keep going, because, as famous Leo Tolstoy once proclaimed, “it is not the one who gets up and keeps going that loses, but rather the one who remains laying.”
From that moment on, I looked at the life of my grandma and all of her successes and failures. I was searching for something; I was looking for a sign or maybe a discovery that would tell me—what was HER driving force? And after many, many nights, I realized, it was courage. She believed that you start with courage, and then you always act honorably, with rectitude and loyalty; with compassion, appreciation for arts and certainly with honesty, with politeness and finally, with a warrior’s spirit. My grandma was a warrior who always demanded the truth and followed it because she was not scared of what other people thought. Her truth was her life, and it was then that I decided that the truth will be the purpose of my life, as well.
Today, many experiences, many years and many fears later, I stand here at Old St. Joe’s Church at St. Norbert College thanks to a number of people who might be even sitting in these rows. I have gone a long way. I have gone from fearing religion and priests to proudly standing in the church today, leading a prayer inspired by this very place, and embracing the Norbertine tradition. I have gone a long way from a small, war torn country, to being here today, in the new world, with new people, embracing new life. But most of all, I have come to know a deeper meaning of life.
Have I always behaved in the way my grandma would have wanted me to? Probably not! Actually no, I have not lived my life in a way she would have been proud of me. Do you know why? Because, I have not been bold enough. I have not been courageous enough. Because, I have not taken enough time to comfort the challenged, and challenge the comfortable. Because only recently have I discovered my true fear and what it means to actually be fearless. And I would like to express my gratitude to the person who pointed this out to me. I finally feel that I have overcome the loss of my grandma in a way that I know she is right here, same as is St. Norbert and my God. And next time when they ask you “What is God” – please answer, God is the truth.
I named this Common Prayer based on JFK’s book, “Profiles in Courage” but really with St. Norbert in my mind. As members of the St. Norbert Community, I think that we owe one single thing to the founder of the Premonstratensian Order, Norbert of Xenten, and to the Founder of this very church and the College-Abbot Pennings—we owe them to be courageous. We must not yield, we must not rest, and we must not relent in waging this struggle for truth, courage and equality for all.
In conclusion, I would like to ask you-what are you afraid of? Are you afraid that you might fail your class? Miss a meeting? Even lose your job? Get overwhelmed or stressed out? That an administrator might not say hello to you? Or you might lose a game of Scrabulous on Facebook? Don’t worry about that! Think about your values! What do you believe in? What is important to you? What makes YOU happy? Take that, and run with it. Use your values to guide your emotions, as your emotions will guide your actions. And take that torch that is burning in each and every one of us, take it – and run with it. Live the best life you can! Don’t worry what other people have to say—if they are scared enough that they need to attack you in order to feel good about themselves--they are not important. Your life is your life. It is your opportunity to make things right—and the least you can do is exactly that-be honest and truthful with yourself and others, have courage to do the right things right. And finally, DO NOT BE AFRAID!
