Courage

Visited my sister's house last week and we had an interesting discussion on The Help. I liked the movie and wrote a review of it, but after hearing her take, I am convinced that I was wrong. Not that my observations were inaccurate, just that I missed what should be the over-riding theme. The movie was primarily about courage (or lack thereof). And I think if you watch the movie from that prism, not only will you enjoy it, as I did, but I think you'll get the point of the movie. And I haven't spoiled anything for you yet.:)

The reality is that people will frequently follow a strong leader, even if they don't fully support it cognitively. I have seen in my personal experience that a dynamic leader was able to get two intelligent, dynamic people to completely follow him, despite the fact that personal conversations with the two followers allowed me to know that they did not agree with the direction at all. Just as many from the Help did not "agree" with the sway of the culture, they went along with it.

This really began to sink home with me, when I watched a mini-documentary on Evan Kaufmann, who is a Jewish hockey player living in modern day Germany. I realized that most of the Germans who participated in the holocaust were doing terrible things that immediately after the change in regime were willing to completely change.

Then, as if I might not fully get the message, my continued memorization of Acts 9 (by the way, if you aren't on a Scripture memorization program, you need to be) allowed me to see the story of Saul of Tarsus as he became the Apostle Paul. One thing I found interesting is that the people that were with him on his torturing Christian expedition immediately changed tact.

A charismatic leader can lead many and get those people to do things they do not "agree with" on some level. As I write this, my children are listening to Following the Leader from Peter Pan. The problem is that we have many who merely follow along and do what the leaders tell them. This isn't an American issue exclusively, this is a part of the human condition throughout centuries. So, for today, my desire is courage to do the things that I know I should do, even if they are counter-cultural!