“When I am afraid, I put my trust in you.” — Psalm 56:3, NRSVUE
American Historian Timothy Snyder, author of On Tyranny, is staying in Kharkiv, Ukraine, a city near the Russian border where missiles can arrive in less than a minute. Each night, he shares brief thoughts on his Substack about what living close to war has taught him.
His first reflection focused on cowardice.1 It’s an old word that we rarely use seriously anymore. Today, we prefer to talk about incentives, interests, strategy, psychology, and systems. These terms sound more analytical and objective. Words like courage, cowardice, greed, cruelty, and mercy feel like judgments, and many educated people have learned to be wary of making judgments.
Snyder wonders if we have lost something by making this change. In Kharkiv, he thinks about people who launch missiles and drones at strangers they never see. Distance changes the moral situation. Someone can kill a person eating dinner, pumping gas, or sleeping next to a child without ever meeting them. Snyder asks if our modern language sometimes hides what older moral words would have named directly. Maybe, at times, cowardice is the right word.
In his second reflection, Snyder turns to courage.2 He also wants to separate the word from the myths around it. We often picture courage as dramatic scenes: a soldier running into battle, a dissident facing a tank, or a firefighter going into a burning building.
These acts can take great courage. But Snyder has noticed something among people living through years of war. He calls it “small courage,” which is “usually humble and, at meaningful moments, within our grasp.”
Aristotle thought about courage over two thousand years ago and reached a conclusion that challenges how we usually see it. He said courage exists alongside fear. The courageous person “endures and fears the right things and for the right purpose and in the right manner and at the right time.”3 In other words, courage does not mean having no fear. Sometimes fear tells us important truth. A courageous person knows that something can be truly dangerous and still worth doing. The fear is still there, but it does not get to decide what is right.
Most of us will never have to show courage in a place like Kharkiv. Our chances to be brave are usually smaller and less dramatic. Maybe we see someone being mistreated at work, and speaking up will cost us. A friend tells a cruel joke and everyone laughs. An institution we care about starts betraying its values, and we know that speaking out will change how others see us. Someone vulnerable needs support, but helping them will make us vulnerable too. Sometimes, we know what needs to be said even when everyone else stays silent.
This is where Snyder’s idea of “small courage” becomes important. Courage is not something we own. It is something we practice in certain moments, often before we know if anyone else will join us.
The same goes for cowardice. Most cowardice probably does not feel like cowardice when we are doing it. It feels sensible. We tell ourselves this is not the right time. Someone else is better suited to speak. We do not know the whole story. We have other responsibilities. We could risk the relationship. We might make things worse.
Sometimes these reasons are true. Wisdom is not the same as recklessness, as Aristotle pointed out. Running into every conflict without thinking about the consequences is not courage. But sometimes, our reasons are just fear pretending to be respectable.
This is why moral language matters. Words like courage and cowardice ask something different from us than words about strategy and calculation. They make us think not just about whether an action will work, but about the kind of person we become by choosing it.
Spiritual traditions have always cared about this question because character is built over time. We become generous by doing generous things. We become compassionate by showing compassion, even when it is inconvenient. Courage grows when we feel fear but learn we can act anyway.
Howard Thurman saw fear as a powerful force in the lives of people facing oppression. In Jesus and the Disinherited, he wrote about how fear can become so strong that it shapes a person’s inner world.4 His goal was not just to tell people to be braver, but to ask how we can become free enough inside that fear no longer controls us.
This is similar to what Snyder sees in Kharkiv. Sometimes courage asks for something heroic, but more often it asks for things that seem ordinary. Tell the truth. Stay present. Make the call. Admit when you are wrong. Stand up for someone who cannot defend themselves. Refuse to tell a convenient lie. Keep working even when there is no promise of success. The chance to act may only last thirty seconds. No one else may notice, but something inside us will know what we did.
This is why bringing back these old moral words matters. We need language that can describe more than what happens around us. We need words that help us notice what is happening inside us.
So I do not think the most important question is whether the people we see on television are courageous or cowardly. That is an easy judgment to make. The harder question is much closer to home. When fear comes into my life, how much power will I give it? I can listen to what it tells me. I can respect the danger it points out. I can prepare and choose carefully.
But eventually there are moments when fear has said everything it has to say.
Then, something else must decide who I will be.
We are in this together,
Cameron
Reflection Questions
When has fear protected you by telling you something you genuinely needed to hear?
When have you used prudence, timing, politeness, or uncertainty to justify staying silent when you knew something needed to be said?
Where in your life might you be facing an opportunity for what Snyder calls “small courage”?
A Prayer for the Day
A Prayer For When Fear Has Spoken
Holy Mystery, Fear has wisdom of its own. It knows what can hurt us. It remembers old wounds and watches for danger. Help us listen without surrendering. Give us wisdom to know when fear is protecting life and when it is shrinking it. When truth carries a cost, steady us. When someone needs an ally, move us closer. When silence would be easier, give us the words we need. And when fear has said everything it has to say, give courage the final word. Amen.
Spiritual Practice: Thirty Seconds of Courage
You don’t need to search for a chance to be brave today. Just notice when one comes your way.
It will likely be something small. Maybe you catch yourself holding back the truth because saying it feels uncomfortable. Someone might need your help. You might realize you should apologize. Maybe you need to make a call you’ve been putting off, ask a tough question, respectfully disagree with someone in charge, or admit you don’t have the answer.
When you notice that moment, take a pause.
Listen to your fear and ask what it’s trying to protect. Some fears are worth respecting, and being brave doesn’t mean ignoring real danger.
Then ask yourself, “If fear wasn’t deciding for me, what would I do?” You might still choose not to act. Sometimes, good judgment means holding back.
But if you know what needs to be done, do it before you start convincing yourself that someone else should handle it.
After that, just continue with your day. You don’t need any congratulations. No one else has to know.
Showing small acts of courage helps us get ready for the bigger challenges life might bring.
Upcoming Events That Might Be of Interest…
My team and I launched a new experiment we are calling “The Commons.” It’s an online space centered around communities of practice: groups of people who share a common concern, set of problems, or passion for a topic, and deepen their knowledge and expertise by interacting on an ongoing basis. Join the community here.
September 29, 2026 - 12:30 - 1:30pm ET - FREE ONLINE BOOK CLUB - We are starting our next book in The Commons. For the next 5 weeks will we read Fr. Gregory Boyle’s, “Cherished Belonging: The Healing Power of Love in Divided Times.” Father Gregory Boyle, founder of Homeboy Industries, has spent decades building community among people whom society has often discarded. In Cherished Belonging, he draws on those relationships and stories to explore what might happen if we stopped sorting people into categories of worthy and unworthy, us and them. Don’t worry if you don’t have time to read the book. We always have incredibly rich conversations. All are welcome. RSVP Here.
October 6, 2026 - 7-8:30pm ET, ONLINE EVENT - Matthew Fox and I are teaming up again to launch a series called Journeying with the Mystics. The mystics have always emerged in times of uncertainty. They appear when old certainties are crumbling, when institutions no longer provide easy answers, and when people find themselves longing for a deeper experience of the Sacred. Join us for an 18-session exploration of the teachings of St. John of the Cross, Thomas Merton, Hildegard of Bingen, Kabir and Rumi, Meister Eckhart and more. This is more than a lecture series. It is an invitation into a living spiritual journey. REGISTER for the first session HERE!
October 15, 2026, 7-8:45pm ET - I will be joining Jackie Sussman for an online session on practicing eidetics as a part of our “Reclaiming the Power of Imagination” monthly series. Eidetic Imagery is a powerful tool for pastors, denominational leaders, coaches, and spiritual directors working with others, and for individuals seeking deeper integration and healing in their own lives. Jackie is a psychotherapist, author, and leading expert in Eidetic Image Psychology, and has spent over forty years helping leaders and individuals unlock creativity, uncover hidden strengths, and move through limiting patterns. During this session, she will lead a live Eidetic process shaped by mythic imagery, offering a direct experience of the work. REGISTER HERE.
October 18-21, 2026 - PREACH! 2026 Conference- I’ll be co-hosting PREACH in Minneapolis with Church Anew, a new gathering for preachers, storytellers, worship leaders, and spiritual communicators navigating what it means to speak with clarity, compassion, and courage in a changing world. If you’ve sensed that the preaching moment has changed and are longing for thoughtful community and renewed imagination for this work, I hope you’ll join us.
November 10, 7-8:30pm ET - I’ll be joined by theologian, writer, and professor Dr. Debra Rienstra for a special ONLINE conversation on Refugia Faith. In ecology, refugia are small places where life survives amid disruption, pockets of resilience from which life can eventually regenerate and spread. Debra invites us to consider what this might mean spiritually in an age of climate instability, political turmoil, institutional decline, and profound uncertainty. What if our congregations, communities, relationships, and even our own lives could become refugia, places where courage, compassion, beauty, wisdom, and possibility are protected and cultivated for whatever comes next? I hope you’ll join us for this timely and deeply hopeful conversation. REGISTRATION COMING SOON!
December 15, 7-8:30pm ET - FREE WEBINAR - I will be joined by Dr. Charissa Mikoski, Assistant Professor of Research and Hartford Institute for Religion Research for a presentation on “The State of American Congregations: What the Latest Data Tell Us.” This webinar explores findings from the 2025 Faith Communities Today survey, including changes in worship attendance, congregational vitality, finances, volunteering, programming, and leadership. It will also examine what more than 24,000 individual attenders tell us about participation and their experiences of congregational life. Together, these findings offer a picture that is neither simply one of decline nor one of revival, but of significant change and uneven recovery. REGISTER HERE.
Fun Things My Friends Are Up To…
I get to work with such amazing, creative people. This section is my way of celebrating them—no paid promotions, just joy in what they’re creating.
The Convergence Music Project has scheduled the fall conference on October 7-10, 2026 in Louisville, Kentucky. We will sing new community songs created specifically for this time in our history and explore together how the songs we sing in worship (and beyond) can empower and encourage us as we live out the biblical call to “do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with our God.” Learn more here.
Every Monday, 12pm ET - ONLINE WRITING GROUP - My dear friend, Meryl Marshall-Daniels, is leading a writing group open to all. This is a simple and spacious writing circle for people who want time to listen inwardly and put words on the page without overthinking, performing, or polishing. Meryl offers a prompt designed to invite reflection, imagination, and attunement to what is already alive within you. The practice honors writing as a way of listening, of letting images, memories, questions, and insights surface in their own time. Learn more here.
If you are a leader or member of a congregation looking for consulting support in visioning, planning, hiring or staffing, please consider Convergence.
Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Book III, chapters 6–9
Howard Thurman, Jesus and the Disinherited (Abingdon-Cokesbury Press, 1949), chapter 2, “Fear.”
Cowardice… courage…
moral language/acts matter.
Snyder reminds us.
In the classical Western tradition, beginning with Plato and continuing with Aristotle, courage (also called fortitude) was one of what were long called the "cardinal (hinge) virtues."