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If you are pursuing a hero’s quest, the time will come when you must face a life-changing challenge. This is not a stone in the road; this is a man-eating, fire-breathing dragon. You will not escape unscathed. You will not emerge unchanged. You must sacrifice part of yourself in order to conquer and move forward.
When this great fight comes, you will succeed only if you have prepared in advance for the moment. Assess your battle readiness by asking these questions:
Have you developed your strength by facing and overcoming various obstacles along the road?
Have you developed wisdom by practicing self-discipline and heeding your ethical guardrails?
Have you learned to persevere, to try one method after another until you find success?
Have you learned to use your imagination in order to keep your eyes fixed on the prize, even and especially when you are facing danger?
If you can answer yes to these questions, then you are prepared to fight whatever dragon may come. You have a good chance of reaching your goal.
And what if you don’t? Do heroes ever lose, falling beneath the enemy’s sword, the monster’s teeth? Of course they do; and so might you.
But if you are well prepared, you won’t lose in the ways that matter most. You won’t dishonor yourself, your dream, your companions, or your God. You will be faithful to the end, and in doing so, even in defeat you will triumph.
Before the Dragon Arrives
Rev. Robert Sirico
Diet (pronounced “Deet”) Eman was only twenty years old when she began resisting Hitler’s “Final Solution” against the Jews in Nazi-occupied Holland during World War II. She and her fiancé, Hein Sietsma, started smuggling Jews into the surrounding countryside, hiding them with farmers—sixty Jews in the first two weeks alone, eventually hundreds.
Then Diet and Hein also began arranging false identification cards in order to more safely transport the Jews to their hiding places out in the country. By 1943 the group that Diet worked with needed eight hundred cards a month.
The whole enterprise was dangerous. It easily could have cost Diet Eman her life. It did cost the life of her fiancé, Hein Sietsma. He was intercepted by the Nazis and deported to the Dachau concentration camp, where he died. And yet, even as Diet grieved, she went right on helping the Jews.
Where did she find the courage? What inspired her to give up so much and to risk so much for people she did not know, whose religious faith she did not share, whose ethnicity was different from her own? What could inspire a person to do a thing like that?
I was able to ask the question directly to Diet Eman, now ninety-one years old, because she survived the war and immigrated to America and to the same corner of the Great Lakes region where I live and work. We were together at a public gathering and I took the opportunity to ask her why she had risked so much, and had she been afraid.
Diet said, “Yes, you were in fear. You never knew in the morning whether you would be free in the evening.” She went on to say, “I always feel funny when people applaud me for what I did because if you love God and love Jesus, you would have done the same, so it’s nothing special.”
Her words led me to an insight about the nature of the heroic. Diet’s secret was that she had decided, long before the crisis came, what was right and what was wrong. She had not waited for a dragon to arrive before she set about practicing moral courage.
To paraphrase one ancient Jewish writer, from her youth she had carved what was right onto the tablets of her heart. That is why she could speak of what she felt she “had to do” as though it were not a big thing. By the time the crisis arrived, her convictions, her habits of moral courage, were so deeply rooted in her that she didn’t think twice about doing what was necessary to fight a great evil and protect those who were being hunted and killed.
After Diet had answered my question, she looked at me and asked her own question. “What if this had happened to you?” she said. And then, in her simple manner, added, “So we must do unto others. And you may be scared stiff, but you do what God asks.”
When Will Your Dragon Appear?
Jeff Sandefer
Here’s the good news—and trust me, it is good news, however it may sound: You have your own special dragon you are meant to slay in order to advance on your journey, and you have the talents and courage needed to slay it.
Here’s the bad news: If you refuse to face this dragon, it will keep turning up in the oddest of places, at the worst of times.
Your dragon will be the biggest challenge you must face, at least at this stage of your journey. No mere stone in the road, the dragon requires you to sacrifice a part of yourself to defeat it, in ways that will feel like death itself. That’s what makes slaying the dragon so difficult and so powerful.
Sound like some sort of psycho-drama? It won’t when you face a dragon for real.
My first dragon was about money and power. I had been raised all my life to worship those things above all else, in a way that weakened my soul and cheapened even the most legitimate accomplishment.
Fighting this dragon was all-consuming. I was only able to lay it in the dust after the financial windfall from my first business. The windfall itself didn’t do it—it was just fuel for the dragon. But I had promised someone that I wouldn’t invest the profits for a year, which meant that for a full year I had world enough and time to face that dragon. I held still, looked it in the eye, and in that long moment it became obvious to even a fool like me that money was not the road to happiness, satisfaction, or fulfillment (and if you feel otherwise, trust me, you will find yourself as disappointed as I did when you become rich).
Then came the dragon of “being right.” It took many years of hard practice as a Socratic teacher to put this dragon down. And every now and then, along with the money and power dragon, he revives and tries to rear his ugly head. But time and practice and habit make it easier and easier to put both in their proper places.
What’s my next dragon? I’m not sure. Possibly the fear of death and decline, though there may be other dragons before I face that one.
Searching for that next dragon, that next great encounter that is much more than a simple stone in the road ahead, is both frightening and exhilarating, not because it might kill me but because each time, I don’t know if I will have the courage to face it.
So each dragon is a test of what I am made of; and the knowledge that another dragon lies in wait somewhere down the road motivates me to keep striving for another helping of strength and wisdom.
If you choose to be brave and noble regardless of what dangers and troubles you face, are you in some important respect a conqueror?
Invictus
William Ernest Henley (1849–1903)
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud,
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find me, unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
When Nelson Mandela attempted to end South Africa’s apartheid system of racially based division and discrimination, he was imprisoned for twenty-seven years. While in prison he continued to work for equality, and his reputation around the world grew.
Four years after his release he was elected President of South Africa and served for five years (1994–1999). He also was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993.
In 2007 Mandela was interviewed by Reader’s Digest. The magazine noted that throughout his many years in prison, Mandela “refused to let his spirit be broken.”
The interviewer asked, “When you were in prison all those long years on Robben Island and elsewhere, was there something that came back to you, something you had either in your mind, a message or passage from a book, a song, something that helped sustain you and keep up your spirits?”
Mandela replied, “There was a poem by an English poet, W. E. Henley, called ‘Invictus.’ The last lines go: ‘It matters not how straight the gate, How charged with punishments the scroll, I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul.’” Reading such words “puts life in you,” Mandela says.
In 2009 a biographical movie of Nelson Mandela’s life was released; its title is Invictus.
Are you brave enough to fight a mighty battle alone, if need be? Are you willing to come to someone else’s aid, even if no one else does?
Beowulf
Old English Poem (circa 700–1000)
Retold by Hamilton Wright Mabie
In due time Beowulf himself became King, and well he governed the land for fifty years. Then trouble came.
A slave, fleeing from his master, stumbled by an evil chance into the den of a dragon. There he saw a dazzling hoard of gold, guarded by the dragon for three hundred winters. The treasure tempted him, and he carried off a tankard of gold to give to his master, to make peace with him.
The dragon had been sleeping, now he awoke, and sniffed the scent of an enemy along the rock.
Presently the sun sank, and the dragon had his will. He set forth, burning all the cheerful homes of men: his rage was felt far and wide. Before dawn he shot back again to his dark home, trusting in his mound and in his craft to defend himself.
Now Beowulf heard that his own home had been burnt to the ground. His breast heaved with anger. He meant to rid his country of the plague, and to fight the dragon single handed. He would have thought it shame to seek him with a large band, he who, as a lad, had killed Grendel and his kin. As he armed for the fray, many thoughts filled his mind; he remembered the days of his youth and manhood. “I fought many wars in my youth,” he said, “and now that I am aged, and the keeper of my people, I will yet again seek the enemy and do famously.”
He bade his men await him on the mountain-side. They were to see which of the two would come alive out of the tussle.
There the aged King beheld where a rocky archway stood, with a stream of fire gushing from it; no one could stand there and not be scorched. He gave a great shout, and the dragon answered with a hot breath of flame.
Beowulf, with drawn sword, stood well up to his shield, when the burning dragon, curved like an arch, came headlong upon him. The shield saved him but little; he swung up the sword to smite the horrible monster, but its edge did not bite. Sparks flew around him on every side; he saw that the end of his days had come.
His men crept away to the woods to save their lives. One, and one only, Wiglaf by name, sped through the smoke and flame to help his lord.
“My Lord Beowulf!” he cried, “with all your might defend life, I will support you to the utmost.”
The dragon came on in fury; in a trice the flames consumed Wiglaf’s shield, but, nothing daunted, he stepped under the shelter of Beowulf’s as his own fell in ashes about him. The King remembered his strength of old, and he smote with his sword with such force that it stuck in the monster’s head, while splinters flew all around. His hand was so strong that, as men used to say, he broke any sword in using it, and was none the worse for it.
Now, for the third time, the dragon rushed upon him, and seized him by the neck with his poisonous fangs. Wiglaf, with no thought for himself, rushed forward, though he was scorched with the flames, and smote the dragon lower down than Beowulf had done. With such effect the sword entered the dragon’s body that from that moment the fire began to cease.
The King, recovering his senses, drew his knife and ended the monster’s life. So these two together destroyed the enemy of the people. To Beowulf that was the greatest moment of his life, when he saw his work completed.
The wound that the dragon had given him began to burn and swell, for the poison had entered it. He knew that the tale of his days was told. As he rested on a stone by the mound, he pondered thoughtfully, looking on the cunning work of the dwarfs of old, the stone arches on their rocky pillars. Wiglaf, with tender care, unloosed his helmet and brought him water.
The brave King took from his neck his golden collar, took his helmet and his coronet, and gave them to his true knight, Wiglaf. “Fate has swept all my kinsmen away,” said he, “and now I must follow them.”
That was his last word, as his soul departed from his bosom, to join the company of the just. Of all Kings in the world, he was, said his men, the gentlest to his knights and the most desirous of honour.
What is worth fighting for?
Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death
Patrick Henry (1736–1799)
On March 23, 1775 the Virginia Convention debated whether to pass a resolution arming Virginia’s militia in support of the colonies’ struggle for independence from Britain. On that day Patrick Henry made a rousing speech that swung the decision in favor of arming the troops. His speech was not written down, but various men later wrote what they recalled. Here is a portion:
They tell us, sir, that we are weak; unable to cope with so formidable an adversary. But when shall we be stronger? Will it be the next week, or the next year? Will it be when we are totally disarmed, and when a British guard shall be stationed in every house?
Shall we gather strength by irresolution and inaction? Shall we acquire the means of effectual resistance by lying supinely on our backs and hugging the delusive phantom of hope, until our enemies shall have bound us hand and foot?
Sir, we are not weak if we make a proper use of those means which the God of nature hath placed in our power. The millions of people, armed in the holy cause of liberty, and in such a country as that which we possess, are invincible by any force which our enemy can send against us.
Besides, sir, we shall not fight our battles alone. There is a just God who presides over the destinies of nations, and who will raise up friends to fight our battles for us. The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave.
Besides, sir, we have no election. If we were base enough to desire it, it is now too late to retire from the contest. There is no retreat but in submission and slavery! Our chains are forged! Their clanking may be heard on the plains of Boston! The war is inevitable—and let it come! I repeat it, sir, let it come.
It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, Peace, Peace—but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have?
Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!
In this tale, a young man is prepared for battle in his own way and refuses to be diverted into using other people’s methods. Are you confident and comfortable with your own preparations?
David and Goliath (Excerpted)
1 Samuel 17
King James Version
Now the Philistines gathered together their armies to battle. And the Philistines stood on a mountain on the one side, and Saul and the men of Israel stood on a mountain on the other side: and there was a valley between them.
And there went out a champion out of the camp of the Philistines, named Goliath, of Gath, whose height was six cubits and a span. And he had an helmet of brass upon his head, and he was armed with a coat of mail; and the weight of the coat was five thousand shekels of brass. And he had greaves of brass upon his legs, and a target of brass between his shoulders. And the staff of his spear was like a weaver’s beam; and his spear’s head weighed six hundred shekels of iron: and one bearing a shield went before him.
And he stood and cried unto the armies of Israel, and said unto them, Why are ye come out to set your battle in array? Am not I a Philistine, and ye servants to Saul? Choose you a man for you, and let him come down to me. If he be able to fight with me, and to kill me, then will we be your servants: but if I prevail against him, and kill him, then shall ye be our servants, and serve us. And the Philistine said, I defy the armies of Israel this day; give me a man, that we may fight together.
When Saul and all Israel heard those words of the Philistine, they were dismayed, and greatly afraid.
And the three eldest sons of Jesse went and followed Saul to the battle. And David was the youngest. But David went and returned from Saul to feed his father’s sheep at Bethlehem.
And the Philistine drew near morning and evening, and presented himself forty days.
And Jesse said unto David his son, Take now for thy brethren an ephah of this parched corn, and these ten loaves, and run to the camp of thy brethren; and carry these ten cheeses unto the captain of their thousand, and look how thy brethren fare, and take their pledge.
And David rose up early in the morning, and left the sheep with a keeper, and went, as Jesse had commanded him, and ran into the army, and came and saluted his brethren. And as he talked with them, behold, there came up the champion, the Philistine of Gath, Goliath by name, out of the armies of the Philistines, and spake according to the same words: and David heard them.
And all the men of Israel, when they saw the man, fled from him, and were sore afraid. And the men of Israel said, Have ye seen this man that is come up? Surely to defy Israel is he come up: and it shall be, that the man who killeth him, the king will enrich him with great riches, and will give him his daughter, and make his father’s house free in Israel.
And David’s words were rehearsed before Saul: and he sent for him.
And David said to Saul, Let no man’s heart fail because of him; thy servant will go and fight with this Philistine.
And Saul said to David, Thou art not able to go against this Philistine to fight with him: for thou art but a youth, and he a man of war from his youth.
And David said unto Saul, Thy servant kept his father’s sheep, and there came a lion, and a bear, and took a lamb out of the flock: And I went out after him, and smote him, and delivered it out of his mouth: and when he arose against me, I caught him by his beard, and smote him, and slew him. Thy servant slew both the lion and the bear: and this uncircumcised Philistine shall be as one of them, seeing he hath defied the armies of the living God.
David said moreover, The LORD that delivered me out of the paw of the lion, and out of the paw of the bear, he will deliver me out of the hand of this Philistine. And Saul said unto David, Go, and the LORD be with thee.
And Saul armed David with his armour, and he put an helmet of brass upon his head; also he armed him with a coat of mail. And David girded his sword upon his armour, and he assayed to go; for he had not proved it. And David said unto Saul, I cannot go with these; for I have not proved them. And David put them off him.
And he took his staff in his hand, and chose him five smooth stones out of the brook, and put them in a shepherd’s bag which he had, even in a scrip; and his sling was in his hand: and he drew near to the Philistine.
And the Philistine came on and drew near unto David; and the man that bare the shield went before him. And when the Philistine looked about, and saw David, he disdained him: for he was but a youth, and ruddy, and of a fair countenance. And the Philistine said unto David, Am I a dog, that thou comest to me with staves? And the Philistine cursed David by his gods.
And the Philistine said to David, Come to me, and I will give thy flesh unto the fowls of the air, and to the beasts of the field.
Then said David to the Philistine, Thou comest to me with a sword, and with a spear, and with a shield: but I come to thee in the name of the LORD of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom thou hast defied.
This day will the LORD deliver thee into mine hand; and I will smite thee, and take thine head from thee; and I will give the carcasses of the host of the Philistines this day unto the fowls of the air, and to the wild beasts of the earth; that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel. And all this assembly shall know that the LORD saveth not with sword and spear: for the battle is the LORD’s, and he will give you into our hands.
And it came to pass, when the Philistine arose, and came, and drew nigh to meet David, that David hastened, and ran toward the army to meet the Philistine. And David put his hand in his bag, and took thence a stone, and slang it, and smote the Philistine in his forehead, that the stone sunk into his forehead; and he fell upon his face to the earth.
So David prevailed over the Philistine with a sling and with a stone, and smote the Philistine, and slew him; but there was no sword in the hand of David.
Therefore David ran, and stood upon the Philistine, and took his sword, and drew it out of the sheath thereof, and slew him, and cut off his head therewith. And when the Philistines saw their champion was dead, they fled.
Do you agree with Thomas Paine—that what we attain too cheaply, we esteem lightly? Have you fought hard to attain something that you still esteem highly?
The American Crisis, Essay 1 (Excerpted)
Thomas Paine (1737–1809)
During the time of the Revolutionary War, Thomas Paine wrote a series of essays in support of an independent and self-governing United States. General Washington ordered the following essay to be read to the Continental troops on December 23, 1776—two days before the famous Christmas Day crossing of the Delaware.
These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.
Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated.
Britain, with an army to enforce her tyranny, has declared that she has a right (not only to TAX) but “to BIND us in ALL CASES WHATSOEVER” and if being bound in that manner, is not slavery, then is there not such a thing as slavery upon earth. Even the expression is impious; for so unlimited a power can belong only to God.…
I have as little superstition in me as any man living, but my secret opinion has ever been, and still is, that God Almighty will not give up a people to military destruction, or leave them unsupportedly to perish, who have so earnestly and so repeatedly sought to avoid the calamities of war, by every decent method which wisdom could invent….
I shall not now attempt to give all the particulars of our retreat to the Delaware; suffice it for the present to say, that both officers and men, though greatly harassed and fatigued, frequently without rest, covering, or provision, the inevitable consequences of a long retreat, bore it with a manly and martial spirit. All their wishes centered in one, which was, that the country would turn out and help them to drive the enemy back.
Voltaire has remarked that King William never appeared to full advantage but in difficulties and in action; the same remark may be made on General Washington, for the character fits him. There is a natural firmness in some minds which cannot be unlocked by trifles, but which, when unlocked, discovers a cabinet of fortitude; and I reckon it among those kind of public blessings, which we do not immediately see, that God hath blessed him with uninterrupted health, and given him a mind that can even flourish upon care.
… I once felt all that kind of anger, which a man ought to feel, against the mean principles that are held by the Tories: a noted one, who kept a tavern at Amboy, was standing at his door, with as pretty a child in his hand, about eight or nine years old, as I ever saw, and after speaking his mind as freely as he thought was prudent, finished with this unfatherly expression, “Well! give me peace in my day.”
Not a man lives on the continent but fully believes that a separation must some time or other finally take place, and a generous parent should have said, “If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace;” and this single reflection, well applied, is sufficient to awaken every man to duty.
Not a place upon earth might be so happy as America. Her situation is remote from all the wrangling world, and she has nothing to do but to trade with them. A man can distinguish himself between temper and principle, and I am as confident, as I am that God governs the world, that America will never be happy till she gets clear of foreign dominion. Wars, without ceasing, will break out till that period arrives, and the continent must in the end be conqueror; for though the flame of liberty may sometimes cease to shine, the coal can never expire.
America did not, nor does not want force; but she wanted a proper application of that force. Wisdom is not the purchase of a day, and it is no wonder that we should err at the first setting off. From an excess of tenderness, we were unwilling to raise an army, and trusted our cause to the temporary defense of a well-meaning militia.
A summer’s experience has now taught us better; yet with those troops, while they were collected, we were able to set bounds to the progress of the enemy, and, thank God! they are again assembling.… Say not that thousands are gone, turn out your tens of thousands; throw not the burden of the day upon Providence, but “show your faith by your works,” that God may bless you.
It matters not where you live, or what rank of life you hold, the evil or the blessing will reach you all. The far and the near, the home counties and the back, the rich and the poor, will suffer or rejoice alike.
The heart that feels not now is dead; the blood of his children will curse his cowardice, who shrinks back at a time when a little might have saved the whole, and made them happy.
I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. ’Tis the business of little minds to shrink; but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death.
Ask This
Perhaps you’ll never be called to risk your life for someone or something. But if it came to that, do you think there is anything worth risking your life for? What?
Now take it down a step. What are some things you wouldn’t die for, but would be willing to fight hard for?
In what ways can you fight for these people, ideals, or achievements?
Try This
Certain groups of people—police officers, soldiers, rescue workers—routinely risk their lives for others or for a noble cause. Talk to someone belonging to one of these groups. Ask what he or she believes is worth fighting for, even dying for.