Courage Grows Strong at the Wound
By Robert C. Koehler
Award-winning peace journalist Robert C. Koehler provocatively trespasses beyond consensus thinking and settled boundaries of conventional reporting, into the risky realms of secular spirituality and the human heart. In the process, he breaks down walls separating “news” from caring.
In Courage Grows Strong at the Wound, Koehler takes you on a journey that begins with his own grief — losing his wife to cancer in 1998 — through the events that shaped our young tumultuous century, culminating in the experience of an Iraq war veteran speaking at the Winter Soldier hearings in Washington, D.C., describing what it’s like to look through the sights of a rifle at a six-year-old Iraqi boy.
This spellbinding book is a plea for sanity and disarmament, a celebration of the wonder of life and a cry of faith in an empowering love that can save us. Koehler has received thousands of letters over the years from readers who were moved, sometimes to tears, by his piercing, prayerful essays.
“I thank you with all my heart. I lost my 28-year-old son suddenly in an auto accident. It is a day-to-day struggle learning to live as the new person I have been forced to become. Your words touched my heart. I do believe that Love Never Dies . . . NEVER. We keep them with us always.” — Beverley W.
The interwoven pieces that make up this book are fused into a narrative that spans the political and emotional terrain of the early 21st century. They remain, as one reader puts it, “blatantly relevant.”
“What a gift you have to express the human condition. Thank you.” — Barbara C.
Reviews
“Koehler’s mind is amazing and he has the literary skills to match. Simply reading this book, both your mind and your heart will be expanded. You won’t see the world quite the same after reading it, so in a very real way the world won't be the same. Koehler is one of those extraordinary souls who makes you think a bit differently about the world — and thus he changes it, one essay at a time.”
Marianne Williamson, author of The Age of Miracles
“Koehler’s essays are the closest America has come to Michel de Montaigne since Emerson. Reading him doesn’t only inspire and challenge you in empowering ways; he transforms who you are for the better.”
Antony Adolf, author of Peace: A World History
