On Having Knight Vision

The Holy Grail seems at times a more reasonable quest.

The standard for behavior and rhetoric has become intolerance and abuse. New allegations of harassment and assault are so numbingly common in the continuous news cycle that we can’t remember which actor, which athlete, which politician provided the last denial or tears of reptilian remorse. No one is entitled to their own opinion nor do we “agree to disagree” (whatever that meant anyway). People who see things differently are “idiots” treated with a level of disdain we used to reserve to trot out seasonally for the fans of rival sports teams.

“A man never hurts a woman” my mother scolded after I beaned my big sister in the head with a stone thrown carelessly over my shoulder in her direction. “Walk her to the door!” my dad hissed as I sat passively in the back seat of the station wagon while my date made her way up the sidewalk after a ride home from a high school band party. Offer your seat. Hold the door. Don’t be unkind. Offer it up. Think of others. Do your best.

It seems like a vision from a different world.
But perhaps these days it’s a world worth remembering; one worth fighting for again.

My mother gave me the gift of knight vision.
Not the ability to see in the dark but the desire to push against it.

I was raised on the knee of Hector of Troy, of King Arthur and the knights of the round table; of Richard the Lionheart and Ivanhoe. In first grade she’d put notes in my lunch bag “You are a brave knight” and “Keep your armor bright.” I had lots of toys as a boy but I remember among the balls and Lego a metal castle and knights, a GI Joe-sized knight and horse with silver armor, a plastic helmet, sword and shield of my own. Along with the tales of Troy and of Arthur my mother read me the C.S. Lewis stories of Narnia and Aslan long before they showed up in the Disney movies.

In college I walked into the ROTC building and met men who taught honor; that an officer’s word was his bond. And I stayed. As a physician for the next thirty years I served my patients and the systems that cared for them in an Army uniform; wearing at times real body armor, with real helmet and weapon. This knight vision continues to resonate today. I think it was at the core of our thinking after Army retirement when my wife and I moved into the city; a place of infinite quests.

I realize now that as a boy I was unaware of the brutality and violence of hand-to-hand combat, of the slaughter in the name of faith and the cruelty toward women that was true of too many real knight stories. The knights I imagined were noble, loyal, faithful. They had integrity. They treated women with honor and respect and children with kindness. They listened and acted with compassion; they spoke the truth in love. They were men of faith whose belief and obedience in following God gave them a sense of duty and lead them to action on behalf of others: to seek justice, to love mercy, to walk humbly. They were known for chivalry and civility. As the father of five valiant daughters and the husband of a mighty woman I know that knight vision is not an exclusively male possession.

Our world is a dark place. It abounds with hubris, cruelty, injustice and abuse. There are too few knights in the fight and too few to raise and train a next generation of knights from among our young men and women.

After Army retirement I traveled to Africa to care for patients with Ebola. The night before I left my brother sent me an email with a quote from a children’s book about St. George:

“Somewhere perhaps there is trouble and fear. There may be someplace where little children cannot play in safety, perhaps even dragons to be slain. Tomorrow I will ride away and never stop until I find work which only a knight can do.”

I believe there is no greater work to be done than the work which only a knight can do.

And so I believe that the world still needs knight vision.

Chuck Callahan Henry V 4.3 – Lead from the Front      https://henryv43.wordpress.com/