What'd You Call Me?

RAVELLO, ITALY

Relationships are kinda my thing. Whenever there’s a breakup or someone’s fighting or there’s some other rift in a friendly or lover-ly relationship, somehow, I end up in the middle of it with both ears being filled with each person’s side. It’s been that way since I was a kid. Maybe it was being an OC (the term some of us ‘sib-challenged’ people have taken on) for much of my life or maybe it was the heart of the caretaker my maternal grandmother spotted early on and nicknamed ‘Mama Hen’.

Either way, throughout my teenage and collegiate years, on through adulthood and my business management career, into my years as a counselor and Women’s Leader at the ministry I co-pastored in Los Angeles, and on and on, I have found myself at the heart of trying to help find a resolution to some of the stickiest messes and trickiest tests to bonds that, sometimes, existed long before I came on the scene.

Usually it comes down to communication. But sometimes it doesn’t.

Sometimes it’s about something even more fundamental than the fact that we need to talk to each other to resolve our problems. Sometimes it’s about the makeup of the people involved (noooooo I don’t mean whatever new trend the mags are pushing this season, ladies). I’m talking about the internal structure and substructure that, with each piece, creates the essence of who we are in relation to the world we occupy and the people around us. I’m talking about character.

Last year, I made a new friend. I love that because, as I’ve traveled this world more, I have come to value and have a greater appreciation for what that word really means. I don’t take it lightly. Maybe it’s that OC thing again. One day, as I was talking with God about why this person was in my life, I heard one thing: “…to teach him bravery”.

To say I was surprised would be putting it mildly. From all outward appearances, bravery was not a problem for this guy. He was pretty direct and upfront without being cruel, in my opinion – qualities I love and admire – and he seemed to live his life on his own terms without being that guy that’s always yelling “YEAH!! I’m living my life on my own terms!!!!” But I’d asked the question and God had given His answer. We’d just have to table it until there was evidence to either support or refute it.

Fast forward a bit, and me and my new friend are friends no more and I had a few ideas why. I had somehow missed the signals that said he was interested (hey…sometimes they’re subtler than you think…) and had inadvertently rejected him. Suddenly some of his remarks became crueler and more cutting even as we interacted less and less with each other.

I was a little saddened; esteeming friendship the way I do. However, I have learned that, often, when something starts floating out of your life of its own accord, it’s best to let it keep on heading down that ol’ river unmolested. Bye, Felicia.

Around the same time, I started having memories of the demise of another friendship a few years back. This friendship had started much earlier, lasted much longer, and blew up amidst the fiery explosions of organizational splits and power moves. This friend had long dealt with fear which appeared in an array of forms – starting from the castrated insecurity born of being the only son of an overbearing mother and ending with the silent agreement to decisions and betrayals previously unfathomed.

He too had been interested and, once again, I had missed it until it was too late. I’d had to unequivocally shut that down for many reasons (one of the least of which was because he was married!) and that rejection led to a series of lessons I’ll not soon forget.

One day as I was thinking on this former friend (and after I had gotten a little time and distance away from that toxic pileup), the Lord interrupted my thoughts with one statement that has since echoed through time from my past into the future:

“…this is what it looks like when cowardice is fully formed.”

I knew exactly what He meant.

All the years of excuses for behavior, all the workarounds for whyyy this person was this way and why it should be forgiven and overlooked, all the times we’d talked till we were blue in the face about passive-aggressiveness towards others only to see no sign of changed behavior or attitude…all the ‘alls’. All the signs.

In my former ignorance, I had missed them. But I wasn’t ignorant any longer. I was wiser, I was more equipped and I had learned that the root of betrayal was one thing and one thing only. Cowardice.

If you want some fun, Google the definition of “cowardice” and grab some popcorn. Lol. The Cambridge English Dictionary defines it as “the condition of lacking bravery, being easily frightened, or being eager to avoid danger” but I’m a little fonder of Wikipedia’s less scholarly, more colorful description:

Cowardice is a trait wherein fear and excessive self-concern override doing or saying what is right, good, and of help to others or oneself in a time of need—it is the opposite of courage. As a label, "cowardice" indicates a failure of character in the face of a challenge.

Yep…that was it. Fear. Cowardice. Betrayal. That was the order.

You can be afraid and not be a coward. You can be afraid and not betray. But you’d be hard pressed to find someone who lives and operates in cowardice and who does not, at the same time, betray.

Boyfriends, girlfriends, husbands, wives, friends, family, coworkers… people.

Cowardice is the crystallized image of all the fears that were given a comfy place to sit and lay and a beautiful suite to live in within our moral and spiritual beings. It’s the image and character we present to the world when we have given up (or never learned) the hard lessons and dubious rewards that come to those who dare to stand for what’s right…even if no one ever sees or knows about it.

Cowardice is the mortal enemy to faith and integrity and the hangman to long-lasting, honest, and mutually-respectful relationship. At its core it’s all about self-serving. It’s hopping from this foot to that to constantly ensure that the lines fall for you in pleasant places – whatever the cost; whatever the casualties.

So how do we escape this cycle? Easy. Death. Noooo not literally, although if you study your military history, convicted cowards were routinely executed as a means to encourage others to discourage this particular character trait.

You see, cowardice is contagious.

No unified group can afford it to linger around for long.

But this is not the military and, though physical death is not required, death is nonetheless the solution. Death to self-service. Death to worrying only about how results will ultimately affect our, and only our, bottom line. We have to live for something bigger than just ourselves that serves the larger whole and a greater good. We can do it and, what’s more, we DESERVE that in our lives. Yaaasss…in our day-to-day, regular old “burn the toast/take the trash out” lives.

It all starts really simply: with each one of us caring a little less about ourselves and a tiny bit more about our fellow man. It all starts with a question: “does this help anyone but me?”

If you look around – in your environments, at your job and in the society at large – you’ll see this pattern play out again and again. What does betrayal look like? The made-up faces may change from time to time and from person to person, but when you wipe the goo off with your favorite astringent, the bare-naked image that remains always looks the same.

Fear. Cowardice. Betrayal. In that order.