A friend of mine was writing an essay about the ancient English poem Beowulf, and asked me to look it over before he submitted it. The main point was that Beowulf the hero, who dies in protecting his people from a raging dragon, demonstrates a life of moral courage- to which even defeat is no refutation. The poem in its beginning makes a contrast between two opposing attitudes. When the young Beowulf makes his boast to the effect that he has the balls to succeed in killing Grendel, a man named Unferth speaks against him. Unferth is the cynical voice of resignation to injustice, who claims the impossibility of killing Grendel, and also tries to cast doubt on the truth of Beowulf’s past achievements. Beowulf nonetheless proves the cynic wrong when he hangs the dismembered arm of Grendel in the hall.
To what point is all this? Especially on the anniversary of 9/11? This poem, written in the ‘Dark Ages’ is an ideal starting point for meditation on the anniversary of this day of infamy. We mark 9/11 in our calendars not only to mourn the victims, but also (I hope) to celebrate those who demonstrated heroism on that day, and on the days following. From the volunteers and paramedics and firefighters searching through the rubble to the passengers of the Pentagon-bound flight, each demonstrated moral courage, to which death itself was no refutation. This is a day properly spent mourning; but we should also remember that on this day in 2001 there were those who showed the infidel that the West is far from being the ‘paper tiger’ of bin Laden’s brag.

It’s entirely possible that the so-called ‘West’- that civilization descended from Christian Europe- is on its last legs. With a decadent culture and falling birthrates on both sides of the Atlantic, there is seemingly little evidence of moral courage. But for some odd and perverse reason, days like this give me hope- for here on this day was boldly demonstrated evidence to the contrary- that heroes walked among us. And still do, for all we know.

Helmet

Bobby Breen's. His Boston fireman's gift
With BREEN in scarlet letters on its spread
Fantailing brim,

Tinctures of sweat and hair oil
In the withered sponge and shock-absorbing webs
Beneath the crown—

Or better say the crest, for crest it is—
Leather-trimmed, steel-ridged, hand-tooled, hand-sewn,
Tipped with a little bud of beaten copper . . .

Bobby Breen's badged helmet's on my shelf
These twenty years, "the headgear
Of the tribe," as O'Grady called it

In right heroic mood that afternoon
When the fireman-poet presented it to me
As "the visiting fireman"—

As if I were up to it, as if I had
Served time under it, his fire-thane's shield,
His shoulder-awning, while shattering glass

And rubble-bolts out of a burning roof
Hailed down on every hatchet man and hose man there
Till the hard-reared shield-wall broke
-Seamus Heaney