Chaplain’s Column
Are We Ready?
A Memphis high school football team chanted in their locker room: “We ready, we ready, we ready for y’all.”
The video went viral, and eventually became part of an NFL commercial. Its catchy crescendo makes for good football hype, but it also prompts the pressing and ever-present question for our nation’s military: What must we do to be ready for whatever challenges and threats come our way?
This mindset is at the core of NAS Corpus Christi’s existence. In the late 1930s, it was clear that we were not ready for the threatening war. We needed trained pilots, and this base would answer that call in stunning fashion.
With every conflict since, early control of the skies has required aircraft like those delivered by CCAD, and pilots like those trained aboard NASCC. Our whole mission centers on readiness.
We should be alert, then, when the Secretary of the Navy recently released guidance to the force about spiritual readiness, which he called “the wellspring of toughness, stability and resiliency.” At both an individual and command level, he urged us to cultivate spiritual readiness to foster self-awareness, ethical voice, grit, and inspiration. Those four outcomes, he said, are each critical to developing Sailors and Marines – and whole commands – ready to fight effectively. They are equally critical for every person, fighting the everyday battles of life.
Cultivating spiritual readiness requires two key choices: priority and patterns. By priority, I mean each person’s decision to give attention to his or her spiritual health. Likewise, each leader chooses whether to put effort into cultivating the spiritual health of a team – whether that team is a large command or a small family or peer group. Returning to our history: not coincidentally, the chapel was among the first buildings erected on NASCC in 1941.
Leaders knew that spiritual readiness mattered. Today, the SECNAV can instruct us to care about the spiritual life; the chaplain can urge us to do so; research can tell us that it is important to effectiveness, retention, satisfaction, suicide prevention and more; but other priorities will always compete. Each of us chooses the priority of spiritual readiness.
If we are to give it priority, we follow up by our choice of patterns. Just as physical readiness is only maintained through ongoing habits of diet, exercise and rest, so also spiritual readiness demands an investment of time and attention.
Regardless of your religious tradition, spiritual “sets and reps” come only in the consistent habits that give meaning and purpose. Those may be traditional religious practices, or you may have alternative ways of connecting with what motivates you and makes sense of the world; but we cannot expect to neglect our faith, and still have it ready when crisis demands it.
Similarly, we cannot expect our character to stand firm in the most challenging moments, if we have not made it ready. The small daily decisions we make, rooted in our foundational values, create “muscle memory” for the times when it is difficult to do the right thing.
We are honest when it is costly, if we have practiced daily honesty in little things. We are kind when it is tough, if we have practiced daily kindness. We are courageous when it is terrifying, if we have practiced daily courage.
I can confidently predict: the battles are coming. Our spiritual life will be challenged. Our personal faith will come under attack. Our foundational values will be questioned.
Our desire for moral living will face temptation and trial. The threats are coming: can we chant?
“We ready, we ready, we ready for y’all.”
WORSHIP SERVICES
ABOARD NASCC:
Protestant Worship Service
Base Protestant Chapel
Sunday Service: 10 a.m.