250 Global Ethics for Leadership
Thirdly, and at greater depth, courage can be rooted in transcend-
ence. It comes from elsewhere, from a Being who takes charge of one’s
whole being: it comes from God. This almighty God trains us to fight,
comes down and joins those whom he loves in their fight in an extraor-
dinary way. It is in such circumstances that he is best discovered. After
such experiences, we become stronger, more fervent, and our faith puts
down deep roots. Then people become unshakeable when assailed by the
storms and tempests of life. They remain calm and unflustered in the
midst of strife.
Courage is an energy that gets us to take action (internal and/or ex-
ternal) in order to attain a goal. Such courage as draws support from
God and the Spirit has inevitably a worthy conclusion. By contrast, the
worldly courage that rests on pride and carnal interests leads to actions
of the flesh and to shame and then to disaster.
Today, in a world of corruption and evil governance do we not need
to recover courage, that virtue of the heart and moral strength, to build a
fresh conscience in humankind? Victor Hugo was certainly right when
he said:
The great error of our time has been to incline, I would even say
to bend, the human spirit towards material things. It is necessary
to lift up the human spirit, turn it towards awareness, towards
what is beautiful, just, true, disinterested and great. Only there,
and only there, will we find peace with ourselves and consequent-
ly with society.
It goes without saying that in order to achieve that we need coura-
geous men and women sustained by the personal character traits of vir-
tue of the heart and moral strength. That is not an impossibility and the
prophet Micah provides us with an example of it.
Thus sustained by the moral and physical strength that comes from
God, Micah, one could say, becomes a symbol of those men and women