Terry Fox: Invictus
“I remember promising myself that, should I live, I would rise up to meet this new challenge face to face and prove myself worthy of life…”~Terry Fox
It’s fashionable in our droll world so infatuated with egalitarianism to smirk at the aristocratic ideals of duty, honor and self-control. But every few generations a person is born who smashes our odd combination of hubris and cynicism. A person whom, it seems to me, is specially crafted by God to show the world just how much we can bear and still move forward, still remain good, and how much we can still care about other people. When we see these people, we feel ashamed for our own weakness, our own bitterness, our complaints about the trifles we face.
Terry Fox was such a person.
It is also fashionable in our egalitarian world to believe that we deserve everything merely because we breathe air. Being alive proves our value, and yet life, our society cannot be expected to require something from us. No, Terry Fox did not initiate a scientific breakthrough, he did not lead a mass movement that changed society and he was never interviewed by Oprah Winfrey. He was diagnosed with bone cancer at 18 years old. Eventually, doctors had to remove his right leg. Terry Fox, in an effort to raise money for cancer research, decided he would run from eastern Canada to ewestern Canada, a marathon every day for over 140 days, only resting 4 days in that period. He made it 3339 miles on one human leg before stopping, the cancer having crawled into his lungs by that time. Speaking with his mother afterwards, he said to her: “Mom, I gave it everything I had.” The Terry Fox Foundation has now raised over $500 million for cancer research.
I think we should pause and ask ourselves: Are we giving it all we have? Are we honest with ourselves? Am I even worthy of this life? The excuses can only go so far, and they do virtually nothing to better the world or our immediate situation.
In ending let’s look at a poem written by William Ernest Henley, a man confined to a wheelchair. His poem, Invictus, expresses the same spirit as did Terry Fox and St Paul: I have run the good race…..
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
Rolling Hot 
February 16, 2014 at 11:31 pm
Thanks for sharing this on Terry Fox – what an awesome young man!
So many people get wrapped in doing “something great” for society, and that is fine. But often there is lots of disappointment in trying to do something great. Not all of us can be the greatest ball player, the greatest athlete, the greatest soldier, etc. It would be nice to be Teacher of the Year or a great American artist, but I am usually slightly above average at things, but never great. Well, I may be below average at golf. Anyway, I sometimes think that soldiers who have put their lives on the line everyday and lived with danger come home to a life that is not exciting, not great, etc, and they think that their life is useless now – no one understands how great their life was and now it is not. And they want to do something amazing. Some of those soldiers commit suicide. But there is true greatness in everyday life – overcoming obstacles in work and home, raising your children, loving your wife/husband, providing for them, doing good rather than evil, standing up and choosing to live for God, etc. I loved teaching, but it was very frustrating. I often wondered if I were making a difference at all. Aiee, the things I saw! But now and then, a student came and said, “I get it.” It was good. Then I poured my life into raising my own children who are now both godly adults living good lives. Well, I still have not married off my daughter, but I can’t do everything. Anyway, I guess my point is that sometimes greatness is doing what you are suppose to do and doing it as best you can. As a kid I remember learning the Dutch proverb: If every man would sweep his own door-step, the city would soon be clean.
It would be nice if we could all be heroes, but it is still good when we all step up and do our part.
February 19, 2014 at 10:26 pm
Don’t Forget: “Free” Will Is Noble Lie, Basis Of Guilt, Means Of Manipulation Of Society
“I remember promising myself that, should I live, I would rise up to meet this new challenge face to face and prove myself worthy of life…”~Terry Fox
* * * * * * * * * *
So did Terry REALLY have to “prove [he was] worthy of life”?–I submit answer is NO. For life is DETERMINED according to absolute cause-effect–there is no perfectly “free” will. The ONLY will that obtains and prevails is God’s will, period.
Terry was “worthy” of whatever life he had, regardless what he did or didn’t do.
Terry had his fun–I guess–and this is what everyone can do–or not–it doesn’t matter that much.
“I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.”
-And this (lines fm poem by Henley) is just wishful thinking. Reality happens to us, and we react best we can under circumstances.
So Magus, thing I’d pt. out to u is that DETERMINISM is what most logically follows fm the objective nature of reality–there couldn’t be an absolutely perfect “free” will–this, don’t forget, is the SIN of HUBRIS, fm the Greeks, pretending to being God.
And note this hubris is manifested in the Pharisaism (self-righteousness) of those who murdered TRUTH itself (in symbolic form of Christ).
So regardless of Terry Fox, I must most URGENTLY caution u, magus–perfectly “free” will is nothing but hubris, conceit, and wishful thinking, NOT founded in reality and observation thereof.
Psychologically, this “free” will is the necessary premise for GUILT, aside fm Pharisaism and hubris. Thus the present social engineers most certainly want to induce this “free” will fallacy/delusion/heresy (Pelagianism), using this as basis of guilt-complex by which to manipulate the people–as we see has been done soooooooooo successfully, the white people of USA having given-up ownership of their country.
March 3, 2014 at 4:08 am
A bit off topic, but also not…Have you ever heard the story of Valery Sablin? A solid communist who started a vety short lived mutiny that was the inspiration for The Hunt for Red October. There’s a three part You Tube video, first part is :
I could go many ways with his story.