Strictly Personal

One of my favorite quotes are the lines from Arthur Penn’s Little Big Man.

Old Lodge Skins, the wise Indian who wants to die looks up into the clouds and says:

Come out and fight! It is a good day to die! Thank You for making me a Human Being! Thank You for helpin’ me to become a warrior! Thank You for my victories, and for my defeats! Thank You for my vision, and the blindness in which I saw further! You make all things and direct them in their ways, O Grandfather. And now You have decided the Human Beings will soon walk a road that leads nowhere. I am gonna die now, unless death wants to fight. And I ask You for the last time to grant me my old power to make things happen.

The video.

Especially resonant is the thanks for becoming a warrior. This has something I have learned slowly and steadily. It doesn’t necessarily mean that I have learned to fight but that I have learned to be courageous to do what I want to do.