Mother Courage

**oily oaf** · 22nd September 2007, 05:14

In yesterdays rather vacuous thread I may have intimated that it is in some way laudable or courageous to go around thumping the life out of our fellow human beings.
This is of course not the case and indeed most of the men of violence I have known have been rather unpleasant individuals who use the fist and the boot to overcome their own deep-seated feelings of inadequacy and social exclusion.

Courage for me was epitomised in a piece I heard last night on the national treasure that is the mighty BBC World Service which chronicled the work of a Roman Catholic nun in war torn East Timor.
This remarkable woman has set up a refuge for children made homeless by the fighting and cares for a few hundred of them in a small compound on the city limits.
Despite the fact that she's been threatened with guns and knives by various warlords who want to recruit these kids into their respective gangs to serve as boy soldiers or sex slaves to the troops she has remained steadfast in her role as protector to these youngsters.
On one memorable night Sister Wilhelmina, for that is her name, quietly recalled how two rival gangs fought a bloody battle outside the compound before turning their attentions to stoning her refuge and the kids within it.
Swallowing her fear she went outside, locked the children in the compound and made her way toward her assailants amidst a fusillade of bricks and stones whereupon she sought out the gang leaders and ordered them to stop endangering the safety of her small charges.
Whether they had become bored by their activities or whether through respect for the doughty little nun I know not but the gangs dispersed and melted back into the streets.

Now in this perverse world where the rock musician, the film idol and the sportsman are feted, worshipped and richly rewarded, every now and then a story of the utter dignity of the human spirit emerges which is enough to make you weep.
As I listened to the good Sister quietly and unassumingly tell her harrowing story which she also littered with some delightful self-deprecating humour it dawned on me that this little scrap has more courage in her little finger than I have in my entire lumpen mass of a body.
And that my friends is a fact.

**Curryhead** · 22nd September 2007, 09:12

nice story, there are countless people like Sister Wilhelmina on this planet, and very rarely do their stories get told, there is no shortage bad guys stories unfortunately

**BDunnell** · 22nd September 2007, 11:01

I see two Oriental nuns every morning on my walk from bus to station. They very rarely walk together and one is always smoking. How strange is that?

**Daniel** · 22nd September 2007, 15:01

Very true Oily. Why do we worship negative influences moreso than positive ones.

**oily oaf** · 23rd September 2007, 06:36

Two standoffish Chinese nuns one of whom is recklessly flying in the face of the percieved medical wisdom??????????

Mr Dunnell = A smoker of acrid smelling "long cigarettes" and is a present day acolyte of Professor Timothy Leary who reads The Doors Of Perception by Aldous Huxley night in night bloody out. FACT!

Daniel. It beats the hell out of me old chap.
(picks up copy of Hello and pores avidly over article detailing Posh Spice's 6 day detox plan)

**schmenke** · 24th September 2007, 19:18

Originally Posted by oily oaf

... rather unpleasant individuals who use the fist and the boot to overcome their own deep-seated feelings of inadequacy and social exclusion....

I didn't realise Ferrari fans were so violent

**Mark in Oshawa** · 25th September 2007, 14:11

Oily, sometimes courage takes strange forms....but I do know that those thugs she stared down must have had some inkling put in their head somewhere that you don't mess with a nun. Catholic schoolboys know it instintictively.....

**oily oaf** · 25th September 2007, 18:15

Originally Posted by Mark in Oshawa

Oily, sometimes courage takes strange forms....but I do know that those thugs she stared down must have had some inkling put in their head somewhere that you don't mess with a nun. Catholic schoolboys know it instintictively.....

You're not wrong there mate even if you are lying through your teeth about your present location

Years ago a used to do a bit of private work, mainly servicing, on a mini bus that was owned by a group of about 6 nuns that all lived together in a big old drum in North London.
They were a lovely, gentle bunch of ladies but when they used to come bowling down the drive towards me with those long flowing habits seemingly floating eerily above the ground it used to give me the screaming ab dabs