Show Notes
In this episode of Peaceable and Kind, Derek Vreeland explores one of the four classic virtues: courage. While courage is often associated with soldiers, superheroes, and dramatic acts of heroism, Derek argues that the courage we need most is the quiet, everyday courage to do what is right in the face of fear.
Beginning with stories ranging from The Wizard of Oz to the heroic actions of twelve-year-old Ramir Parker, Derek shows that courage is not the absence of fear but the strength to endure it. Drawing from Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, and C.S. Lewis, he explores courage as the virtue that strengthens every other virtue. Without courage, honesty, mercy, purity, and compassion collapse whenever they become costly.
The episode then turns inward, examining the fears that often shape our lives beneath the surface. Whether our deepest fear is rejection, failure, inadequacy, abandonment, or loss of identity, courage grows as we honestly acknowledge those fears and bring them before God. Derek also introduces the Enneagram as a helpful tool for identifying the internal fears that often fuel hypocrisy and prevent spiritual growth.
Ask yourself: I am afraid of:
Being defective or fundamentally wrong?
Being unwanted or unloved?
Being worthless or a failure?
Having no identity or personal significance?
Being incapable or incompetent?
Being without support or emotional security?
Being deprived of something important or experiencing emotional distress?
Being harmed or controlled by others?
Being separated or disconnected from others?
Ultimately, courage is not about becoming fearless—it is about becoming the kind of person who trusts God’s love enough to keep doing what is right.
Key Takeaways
Courage is one of the four classic (cardinal) virtues.
Courage is not fearlessness but doing what is right despite fear.
Every virtue requires courage when it is tested.
Aristotle described courage as the virtue between cowardice and recklessness.
Thomas Aquinas emphasized endurance as the heart of courage.
Internal fears often shape our actions more than external dangers.
Identifying our deepest fears is essential for spiritual growth.
Perfect love casts out fear and enables courageous living.
Books Mentioned
The Screwtape Letters — C. S. Lewis
Nicomachean Ethics — Aristotle
Summa Theologiae — Thomas Aquinas
The Road Back to You — Ian Morgan Cron and Suzanne Stabile
The Enneagram for Spiritual Formation — A. J. Sherrill
Scriptures Mentioned
Joshua 1:9
1 John 4:17–18
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Transcript
Welcome back to Episode of Peaceable and Kind. I am your host, Derek Vreeland. Glad that you are with me for this episode. And before we get started, let me invite you to leave a rating, leave a review, and if you have not already. get subscribed to peaceable in kind we are excited about what’s happening not only with this podcast but with also the peaceable way we are creating All sorts of resources for you to help you grow in the Christian faith and to become the kind of person that is sowing seeds of peaceableness. And kindness in our world. And on today’s episode, I want to talk about courage. Now, if you remember The Wizard of Oz, I think that movie came out in the 1930s, if I remember right, but it dominated my childhood. I think it’s still around today. I haven’t watched any of the sort of remakes over the years. I know Wicked is popular, but for me, there’s nothing like the old school, like original nineteen thirties Wizard of Oz. And if you remember, Dorothy has three companions. There is the Scarecrow, the Tin Man, and the Cowardly Lion. And they bond together and go on a journey, of course, to seek The Wizard of Oz, right? They were they were off to see the Wizard, the wonderful Wizard of Oz. And each of the four in the Wizard of Oz has something that they want This is the classic journey of pilgrimage, of traveling together to seek and receive something that is missing And of course, the scarecrow was looking for brains, right? Looking for wisdom. The Tin Man wanted a heart. Dorothy wanted to get back home. And the lion, which is supposed to be, you know, the king of the jungle, the king of The wood. The lion is supposed to be the strong one, the powerful one. But in the Wizard of Voz This lion is cowardly and what he wants is courage. And if you remember, there’s there’s a song. in in the movie and uh in the song The Cowardly Lion Sings But I could show my prowess, be a lion not a mouse, if I only had the nerve I’m afraid there’s no denying I’m just a dandelion, a fate I don’t deserve. If I only had the nerve, this was the way that the lion was saying, if I had courage to face all my fears. Because if you remember in the Wizard of Oz, the lion was afraid of everything. And so what he wanted was courage. And you know, in our modern times, we celebrate courage, particularly around those Who demonstrate courage on the battlefield, or we often see, at least in films these days, courage displayed by our superheroes. I mean, Marvel has constructed an entire cinematic universe around superheroes who accomplish daring feats in the face of overwhelming odds. Now, can I be honest with you for just a moment? You know that I am a Star Wars nerd. Like I love the Star Wars universe. Even though I don’t always like the direction Disney took it in, I I’m I will always be a Star Wars fan. And I do deep dives into the Star Wars cinematic universe. But here’s my honest confession to you. I have never watched a single Marvel movie from beginning to end. At least I don’t think I have. I try to watch the very first Iron Man and I think I fell asleep. And this is my own Efficiency by the way. I I hear all sorts of great things about the Marvel films. I say go check ‘em out I have been reading a lot more fiction this year, and I’m always recommending that people read good books. But I recognize that we are a screen-dominated culture. And I think that uh goodness and truth and beauty, I think virtue, I think those things that are most noble about us. can be depicted in films. So I’m not an anti-movie guy, and I’m not really an anti-Marvel guy. I just haven’t dip my toe into that world. But for those of you who have, which is everyone besides me, you will have seen. courage on display by all these great superheroes. But what about the courage of ordinary people? Right. We like to read books or we go to movies where there are these fantastic people doing these fantastic things, but I think there’s people around us who display courage all the time. I’m thinking about teachers walking into classrooms Where often they face hostility, stress, and just a mounting workload. I think of teachers all the time. I think about teachers I’ve had in the past. I think about the teachers who have shaped me and influenced me. And we’re coming to the end of the summer months, which means school is right around the corner. And I think teachers need our love and our respect and they need our prayers. Because I think it’s tough to be a teacher these days. I think it takes a lot of courage. Or what about what about nurses and doctors and all sorts of technicians that work in the hospital? I mean, these people are often working 12-hour shifts on their feet, caring for and advocating for patience. And I wonder man, there there has to be times that they just want to walk off the job. I know I would. I mean, most people have an aversion to the hospital. I mean, they don’t want to visit people in the hospital. They don’t like the the sounds and the smells of the hospital. People get very triggered by that. And as a pastor, I spend a good amount of time with people in the hospital. And when I when I watch these nurses in particular at work, I think there has to be a lot of just internal fear and exhaustion. It takes a lot of courage to be a nurse And but I think these people that that care for those in the hospital, uh, these are some of our our great neighbors around us. And of course, and think about just ordinary people who demonstrate courage, what about first responders and police officers and Firefighters who are rushing into dangerous situations when most of us are running away I think courage is all around us. I think we have enough examples around us where we can see courageous people doing courageous things that hopefully it inspires us to be people of courage. I read a story about a young man who demonstrated courage in Virginia. This happened last summer, June 2025. And the story is about a young man named Ramir Parker. And here’s what happened Ramir and his grandma were chatting upstairs in their home. They they were in Petersburg, Virginia. Then Ramir hears a strange and crackling kind of rattling sound and At first he thought it might just be his little brothers playing downstairs, but as he went down the hall to check to figure out what the sound was, he was met with the sight of thick black smoke pouring through the house from below. Now, most adults would have panicked or become indecisive i in the face of this kind of fear, the twelve year old Ramir didn’t He realized the house was on fire, and he shouted a warning at his grandmother, and then he rushed downstairs and he scooped up his little brothers, one of ‘em was two years old and the other one even younger than that. He he scooped them up and fit them in his arms and then rushed them out to safety And as soon as Ramir got outside with his brothers, he realized his grandmother was still inside. And again, he didn’t hesitate He turned back and ran into the burning house. He navigated through all the smoke, and there he found his grandmother, and he helped to lead her outside to safety with his brothers. And Ramir had everyone out of the house before the firefighters even arrived. When they showed up, the house was ablaze, but everyone was safe. They later commended Ramir for his quick thinking and his selflessness. and the city of Petersburg officially recognized his bravery later on, presenting him with a proclamation from the city, declaring him a hero City leaders praised his courage, and in the proclamation it said, among other things, The deepest gratitude and admiration for his bravery and selfless actions in the face of danger What a great story. I mean, without warning, a twelve-year-old boy Came face to face with real fear. I mean, not just the the flames, but the smoke. A lot of people who die in house fires, it’s because of the smoke I mean, he had the fear of of losing his brothers and his grandma, but on that morning That summer morning in Petersburg, Ramir Parker demonstrated a level of courage that most adults, like me and you, will never have the opportunity to show. I mean think about it. He he risked his own life to save his little brothers, to save his grandma They are alive today because a young man with a heart full of courage did not allow fear to prevent him from doing what needed to be done. What a great story. I love hearing stories like that. I mean to me, those stand right alongside all the superhero stories. Because here was a 12-year-old superhero living right next door. Now I want to talk about courage. Not just because I want you to be enabled to rush into burning buildings, but I want to talk about courage because courage is one of the classic virtues I have been for the last two years or so focused on understanding the ancient virtue tradition because There was a time when virtue mattered, character and integrity mattered, and I just don’t see it as a value anymore, and I’m deeply grieved by that. I think our lack of awareness of virtue is what has caused the moral decline in our society which shows up to me most evidently in politics, though a lack of virtue and character shows up in every sector, including the church. I think our lack of virtue has allowed religious hypocrisy to thrive, the ongoing accounts of moral failures among those in Christian leadership. And so for the last couple years, I have just been spending my time trying to understand and communicate. What this ancient virtue tradition is about. And so for the ancient Greeks and for Christians, going back to Jerome and Augustine. Courage is one of the classic or cardinal virtues. Now remember, virtue Is is a is like a character trait, right? Virtue is a settled quality of our heart and mind That instinctively leads us to live the good life Jesus calls us to live. That’s a long definition, but that’s my definition of virtue. Virtue is a stable disposition. It is a it’s the content of our character That instinctively causes us to act in a good way. And for Christians, that good way or that good life is defined by Jesus And so there were four and it still is around, by the way, in Catholic moral theology, but there are these four classic or these four cardinal virtues, and they are wisdom, also known as prudence, Justice, courage, also known as fortitude, and moderation, also known as temperance These are the four cardinal virtues. These are the virtues in which all other virtues swing. C. S. Lewis highlights the importance of courage in the screw tape letters. Are you familiar with this little book from C. S. Lewis? I read it in high school. I have recently reread parts of it, but The Screwtape Letters is a novel. It’s this witty and imaginative collection of letters. written from ScrewTape, who’s an old, kind of retiring demon, written to his nephew Wormwood, who is a younger, inexperienced demon And in this collection of letters, ScrewTape is giving his young nephew advice. This is how you fight the enemy. And of course, because these are demons talking, the enemy is God, the enemy is Jesus, the enemy is the Father, Son, Holy Spirit, however you want to look at it. In the screw tape letters, enemy is usually capitalized with a capital. E, so these demons are talking about God or Jesus or the Trinity. So screw tape is writing these letters And showing his younger nephew, this is the way to sidetrack humans. to cause them to forget and ultimately disobey who uh s ScrewTape calls the enemy Hey friends, I want to pause this episode for just a moment to let you know that Resurrection, eight lessons on how God restores us, the third and final book in the God in the Neighborhood Bible study. study series is out now. Go to the show notes for ordering information In one of the letters, it’s letter 29, because the screw tape letters are not divided by chapters, but by letters. So in letter number 29, ScrewTape is talking about courage and how it is effective for demons to stir up fear because fear produces cowardice, right? That that again courage requires us to face our fears, but if demons are rightly going to tempt us humans, they need to stir up fear. I mean at one point Screw tape writes in the letter, The more he fears, the more he will hate. Now I’m going to get to courage in just a minute, but that line in the screw tape letters sums up the modern political campaigning machine. Now this is a total aside. None of this is in the notes. I was not prepared to talk about any of this, but because I was rereading the screw tape letters this morning, I need to get this off my chest. I just we just had an election in the early part of August and I saw campaign ads And they were not promoting anything. They were stirring up fear that if you don’t vote a certain way, dun dun dun, bad stuff gonna happen And that kind of fear-mongering, I just don’t have the stomach for it anymore. Blame Accusation based in fear. This is the scheme of the devil from the beginning And C. S. Lewis knows that, which is why he has Wormwood writing, again, to quote from Lewis, or screw tape, the more he fears, the more he will hate. Modern politicians understand that. That if we can make people, if we can make voters afraid of the other. Then they’ll vote for us. And this, by the way, is absolutely anthetical to the ways of Jesus Jesus taught us not to fear our neighbors, not to hate our neighbors, but to love our neighbors. Okay, with that set aside, let’s look at this letter and see what screw tape and what CS Lewis is telling us about courage. So from the screw tape letters, letter 29, screw tape writes, courage is not simply one of the virtues. but the form of every virtue at the testing point, which means at the point of highest reality A chastity or honesty or mercy which yields to danger will be chase or honest or merciful only on conditions Pilot was merciful till it became risky. Oh man, what a great quote. That is so good. I mean, all of the teachers of virtue, both the ancient Greek and Christian teachers, have all said that the virtues work together. courage is necessary for us to practice other virtues like love and self-control and honesty and peacemaking and mercy giving, all of these other Christian virtues require courage because all of the virtues work together. And so Lewis is saying that courage is necessary for things like purity and truth-telling and compassion. It’s necessary for these things to flourish. Because everyone, even Pontius Pilate, can be merciful. And in the Gospels, he was ready just to let Jesus go. But Pilate’s mercy only lasted so long until it became risky to be merciful because the crowds crying out, crucify him, crucify him. Created an environment that if Pilate didn’t do what the crowds wanted, they may be calling for Pilate’s crucifixion It was going to be too risky to let Jesus go. And so Pilate succumbed to that pressure and probably some fear for his own life and then sentenced Jesus to crucifixion. So I think Lewis is right. Courage is not simply one of the virtues But it’s an important virtue at the testing point. That is when we face external or internal pressures And so it’s helpful to see that courage isn’t the absence of fear. Courage is not fearlessness. Courage is the inner drive to do what is right in the face of fear. I mean, sometimes we think of courage in terms of warriors on the battlefield, rushing into battle with one sword and no shield and no help. to go fight a thousand enemy fighters, but that’s not courage. That’s recklessness. Right? That’s why courage, the virtue of courage, needs the virtue of wisdom, right? The virtues work together. So that’s not courage or bravery or fortitude, as the ancients would call it. That’s recklessness. When Aristotle taught on the virtues, he talked about finding the middle ground between deficiency and excess. He called this the golden mean. You know, the mean, like the middle in between two polarities. So without Any courage, we fall into the ditch of cowardice, right? The deficiency of courage is cowardice. So if we lack courage, we’re cowards, right? And that is no virtue at all. We end up like that fearful lion from the Wizard of Oz. With too much courage, we fall into the ditch of recklessness, like the warrior fighting a thousand fighters on his own. Both deficiency and excess destroy virtue, which is why Aristotle said true virtue is found in the middle of deficiency and excess So in terms of courage, it is not cowardice or recklessness. Courage is found somewhere in the middle. And courage is not just for the battlefield. In fact, as we think about virtue in terms of who we are becoming as followers of Jesus, I think it is better to think about courage in a different context. So, St. Thomas Aquinas, the medieval Catholic theologian. Was the Christian who brought the virtue tradition into Christian understanding? of ethics or morality. Now he wasn’t the first. Augustine and Jerome and Ambrose all before Aquinas also talked about virtue, but I think that virtue got lost And I think for the first thousand years, a lot of early church fathers relied on Plato. And I think the tools, the philosophical categories from Aristotle were just lost in the annals of time. So it was Aquinas who brought attention. Back to the virtue tradition. Now, Aquinas did say that courage is a virtue to face the fear of death in battle I mean, he he specifically noted that courage is something we see on the battlefield and is necessary for soldiers. But he also talked about virtue in a different context, particularly the virtue of courage. He described courage really as endurance. And in the Summa Theologiae, Aquinas writes this: the principal act of fortitude, that is courage, is endurance. That is to stand immovable in the midst of dangers rather than to attack them. Aquinas was shaped, of course, by the teachings of Jesus and the apostles. It was Aquinas who gave us an understanding of the theological virtues of faith, hope, and love that were more foundational than the classic virtues or the cardinal virtues And I think this little line from Aquinas shows his Christian understanding of virtue. The virtue of courage is not just about the ability to attack. But it is endurance, the willingness to stand fast and not run away in the face of danger So, courage from a Christian point of view is about endurance. That is the ability to endure both emotional turmoil that comes from within. and outside pressure, often peer pressure or social pressure. And both of these kind of work together to encourage us to quit when we are faced with a hard task. The virtue of courage is the ability to stand and endure all that pressure and still do hard things. So, courage, again, is not fearlessness, but the impulse to do what is right in the face of fear. And this begs an important question. What are you afraid of? This is, I think, where this podcast episode is really going to move from the Theoretical, the philosophical, the theological into the personal. And so I want you to be honest with yourself and ask yourself: what am I afraid of? Now, there are external fears and internal fears, right? There’s external fears, we call them phobias, like the fear of heights or the fear of snakes, the fear of spiders. But I’m not so much concerned about those external fears. When I ask you what you are afraid of, I want you to think about more of those internal fears We often call them insecurities, but I think that they’re more powerful than that. So when you look inside, when you look deep within your heart What are you most deeply afraid of? Now I know this is challenging. I’ve seen guys who are on the outside, like just super brave. You know, the kind of like machisimo that’s like, don’t you ever think about coming and attacking my family because I’ll stand up for my family and dun dun dun. So on the outside, and it could be very genuine, you know, when it comes to external fears, they’re afraid of nothing. But I’ve known some men that never want to peek on the inside. and deal with the deep fears they have within. And I think we all have them. And I think if we are going to grow in the image of Jesus, we need to face our internal fears. One of the problems I continue to see is the rampant hypocrisy in the church. If we’re going to recover from hypocrisy. And we all know there’s hypocrites in the church. If we’re going to recover from hypocrisy and if we’re going to grow in maturity to be more like Jesus, we have no choice. But to deal with our deepest fears. So what are you afraid of? Maybe you’re afraid of answering this question. But let me encourage you. God is with you. You can do this. You can do hard things. Remember what God said to Joshua? after the death of Moses, this is Joshua one nine. This is my command be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or discouraged, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go. I know it is challenging to look at our internal fears, but you can do it. God is with you And this is work that you have to do on your own. I can’t do it for you. Only you can answer the question for yourself: what am I most deeply afraid of Now, I have found some tools that I think are very helpful. The Enneagram in particular is a very helpful tool for exploring our inner fears. If you don’t know about the Enneagram, it’s a personality profile that is built around nine different personality types. And each type has a core desire and a core fear. And I have found the Enneagram as a tool to be extremely helpful in my own spiritual formation. It’s helped me and my wife and how we communicate. It’s helped how we communicate with our kids and other people. So if you’re brand new to the Enneagram, Let me give you a few resources. One would be the Enneagram Institute, their website, particularly the different descriptions of the different nine types. is a resource I use again and again. I’ll put a link in the show notes. If you want to read, uh maybe start with Crohn and Stabil’s book, The Road Back to You, a 2016, I think IVP book. uh very very helpful as an introduction to the Enneagram and if you want to see a Christian connection How to use the Enneagram as a tool for your own spiritual formation. Check out AJ Sherrill’s The Ennegram for Spiritual Formation. I think that came out in 2020. Great, great book, The Enneagram for Spiritual Formation. So let me take the nine core fears. That are associated with the nine types in the Enneagram and form them into nine questions to help you explore your inward fears. Because again, I don’t think you can grow in courage until you have first identified your fears So let me ask you these nine questions. And by the way, I’ll put these in the show notes so that you have them. So are you afraid of being defective? Or fundamentally wrong? Are you afraid of being unwanted or unloved? Are you afraid of being worthless or a failure? Side note, this is my core fear. This is what I I still struggle with today. I recognize that. Are you afraid of having no identity or personal significance? Are you afraid of being incapable or incompetent? That’s a fear I’ve struggled with in the past, for sure Are you afraid of being without support or emotional security? Are you afraid of being deprived of something important or Emotional distress. And I think we all have a fear of emotion emotional distress or emotional pain. But is that pronounced for you Are you afraid of being harmed or controlled by others? And again, I think that’s a very common fear. Nobody wants to be harmed. But again, is this pronounced for you? Are you afraid of being separated or disconnected from others? So what is it for you? What are you afraid of And it may not be just one of these, it may be a collection of these. Maybe at one point in your life, one of these internal fears dominated you, but you have overcome it. And maybe today it’s a different kind of fear. I think it’s very possible at different stages of our life we struggle with different internal fears. The important thing is that we are able to identify it That we are able to communicate it. Because again, courage in the way of Jesus, courage as a virtue, is the capacity To face one or more of these fears so that you can become the kind of person God has created you to be, as long as we allow fear to hold us back. We will never experience the good life. The good news is that in God’s house, fear is not allowed to dominate. We see this in 1 John 4, 17 and 18. And as we live in God, our love grows more perfect, so we will not be afraid on the day of judgment But we can face him with confidence because we live like Jesus here in this world Such love has no fear because perfect love expels all fear Now, once you determine your key fear, the thing, the internal fear that you are afraid of right now. You do need a strategy to endure and ultimately overcome it I mean part of that is recognizing God is with you and God’s perfect love can drive out that fear, but it’s not magical. There is a process. And that process is becoming a courageous person. So to overcome these fears, Let me give you here’s here’s five suggestions. Number one, don’t be ashamed of your fear. Remember that your fear doesn’t define you Don’t be ashamed of your fear. We all have fears. We every single one of us. They may not be the same fears, but we all have them. So don’t don’t be ashamed. Just recognize that this is a part of the human experience. It is not your identity. It is not who you are. You are who God says that you are. Not defined by your fear. So let the shame and guilt go Don’t be ashamed of your fear. Number two, bring your fear into the presence of God. Make it a matter of prayer. I’ve done that. I dealt a couple of years ago with an acute phobia. That’s what my doctor called it. I had a panic attack on the interstate. and then sub subsequently began to really, really struggle with overwhelming fear when I tried to drive on the interstate. I could drive on the state highway, I could drive anywhere else, but on the interstate this overwhelming fear. And so I talked to my doctor about it and I also talked to God about it. I prayed about it. Now that’s an external fear, and I’m really thinking about internal fears. So go through that list of nine questions Identify your fear, let go of the shame, and then bring that into the presence of God. Talk to God about it. Number three, in addition to talking to God about it, talk to people you trust about your fear. It seems like as long as we keep fear hidden within our hearts, It has power to control us. But when we open up and we talk about our fear with other people, it does take away some of its power, some of its sting. So talk to God about it, talk to people you trust about your fear, and then number four, establish a relationship with a spiritual director or therapist. Right? Talk to God about it. Talk to your friends, people you trust, but then seek out professionals. That’s what my doctor told me to do with my my fear of driving on the interstate after this panic attack. He said, I really would like you to consider um cognitive behavioral therapy with a therapist. And I had recommended therapy for years, but I had never connected with one. And so two years ago, found a therapist, met with him weekly for six months. It was the best thing I ever did. By the way, I was able to overcome uh my my phobia, that external fear, and the therapist was important in that. But in our in our six months of meeting weekly Uh, we talked about all sorts of things. And so whether it’s a pastor, a spiritual director, or a therapist, find someone who is a professional, like a therapist. Now I said Or spiritual director or pastor. I’m a pastor and I recognize that I cannot provide for people what a therapist can. So find yourself a therapist. Five, last thing I would suggest is develop habits of courage that build the virtue of courage. Virtue grows as we practice it. So if you want to be a patient person, do patient things. If you want to be a compassionate person, do compassionate things. If you want to be a courageous person, do courageous things. And maybe the first courageous thing you need to do is identify what that key fear is. Identifying it is the road to recovery. It is the road of Becoming the kind of person God has created you to be. Well, that’s all that we have for this episode. Thank you for joining me. Go in peace and be kind.
This transcript was generated with AI and may contain errors.