Honorable Life And An Honorable Death

 

There are two great requests that all great men (and women) will make of their Creator. Even if never vocalized, it is a silent cry of their heart.

  The First is an Honorable Life.

  The Second is an Honorable Death.

There are many who desire to be famous, to be wealthy, to be powerful, to be influential and to be honored for such is the fullness of this desire. To be a Celebrity in the eyes of those they want to admire them.

There is a remnant though that doesn't seek to be Honored, they only seek to dedicate their lives to that which is Honorable. To be a Warrior if only in the eyes of their Creator.

Living a Honorable Life is a life that is larger than our own comfort, our own wealth and status and even our own reputation. And a Honorable Life is evidenced by a Honorable Death. As we can take none of those with us in death. It is the ultimate surrender of all we have enioyed in life, so something larger than our own individual life can live on and flourish.

In the words of Sleeping At Last "You taught me the Courage of Stars, before you left. How one Light can carry on, endlessly, even after Death."

Your honorable life may be as simple and quiet as feeding your babies, staying loyal to your honey, sacrificing both the freedoms and comforts of your own body for the good of your family and holding the hand of your grandmother as she passes. But it is honorable just as much as those with White House Funerals and Evening News Coverage. It carries on through the generations just as much as the light of the stars that help the ships we are living on navigate dark times.

Real Honor is often quiet, but not always.

Sometimes we can choose an Honorable Death, even if that is not our intention we understand that risks we take stepping out of our spiritual (and by extension our social and political) foxholes. 

Maybe we are burned at the stake, or face the sword, or the sniper's bullet?

Maybe it's the Black Lung of the overworked Coal Miner who has no other way to feed his family, or the Aneurism of a mother who pulled double shifts to feed her children, or the Shepherd who lost his status and career defending the Lost Sheep from the Wolves?

Maybe it's our reputation and our celebrity and our income?

Maybe it is simply our desires and expectations and the life we had planned that is the Lamb on the Altar of Honor when we choose to keep the baby, or put diapers on the baby, or even what we miss when we choose to place the lonely in our own spiritual or woods and stone homes (The Creator's Sons and Daughters) like King David speaks of in the Psalms?

"A father of orphans, defender of widows,
is God in His holy dwelling.
7 God settles the lonely in a home.
He leads prisoners out to prosperity.
But the rebellious live in a parched land." 
Psalm 68:6 Tree Of Life Version

"I am a Warrior, everyone is a little safer because I am there" Jack Hoban in the book "Ninjutsu History and Tradition". 

The truly honorable life is in laying yours down to protect those you love, even when you have never met them eye to eye. 

The protection the warrior offers is not always from bullets and swords and fangs, it is from the cold, the hunger, the loneliness, and it is from the darkness and the lies and the ignorance. The HOW of protecting often places warriors on differing sides.

"Oh I was aching with freedom and kissing the damned. You've got to learn to respect, what you don't understand. Are they coming for us, with cameras or guns? We don't know which, but we've got to run. If you say that this is not what I've bargained for. So hide yourself for me. And I will hide myself for you" Fugitive by the Indigo Girls.

This is to be expected in a world that confuses Good with Evil and Evil with Good, as the Prophets warned us would be the condition of the World.

"Oy to those who call evil good
    and good evil,
who present darkness as light
    and light as darkness,
who present bitter as sweet,
    and sweet as bitter!"

The Prophet Isaiah Chapter 5 Verse 20 Tree Of Life Version

Still we all live in a world where we have limited information, limited life experience, limited connections to lives outside of ours with viewpoints contrary to our own. Our idea of what is an honorable pursuit therefore will vary. But on the field of civilized battle, there is often a Code between even opposing forces. It comes from the understanding that even though the other side may be so misguided in their thinking you would lay down your life to oppose them you still recognize their commitment to a path they believe to be honorable or worthy of their own life. We see this is in the warring clans of Samurai Era Japan and on the fields of the American Revolutionary War and the Civil War. 

This civility was meant to be extended in both directions, to both sides, as there can be no progress and ultimately no lasting peace without it. 

The Compassion of the Warrior, Bushi No Nasaki, is in understanding this about those who oppose us, and taking their condition into consideration.

As Jesus (Rabbi Yeshua) said 

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’  But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,  so that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Even the tax collectors do the same, don’t they?  And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than anyone else? Even the pagans do that, don’t they? Therefore be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.” 

Matthew Chapter 5 Verse 43 Tree Of Life Version

May your have the Courage of Stars dear readers.

Brian Nicholas Newman

Dream Helper Coaching and Psalm 16 Ministry

Photo Credit: Andre Chung (Politico)