Courage

Courage is an interesting word. Brave is another. These words are used a lot to describe another persons actions or choices. What i have found it that it also places a person on a pedestal far removed from mortals. Then they become bigger than life and when they show human foibles, shot down in a heartbeat.
Posted on another site was this amazingly accurate piece about courage... along with a short poem a commenter gave which i SO resonate with:

The Chrystos Poem:
“If you ever
again tell me
how strong I am
I’ll lay down on the ground and moan so you’ll see
at last my human weakness like your own”


( This poem is for all those people who lessened my value as a person by saying How BRAVE I am for just living my life)


The blog: Laurelin in the Rain

and a small excerpt:
Being known as a strong or courageous person (are those words synonyms? They are in my head, I think) can be very difficult- it can mean (although does not always mean) that people expect you to be strong, and that you execrate yourself when you do not reach the overly-high expectations you (or others) have of yourself.

No-one should have to be strong/ courageous all the time.

But then again, courage doesn’t mean what people often think it means.

Courage is that strand of steel that holds you together. It is the inner voice that sees truth when others around you insist you are a liar. It is the refusal to compromise integrity, the demand to be considered as a human being, the acceptance of fear rather than the denial of it.

Unafraid people cannot be courageous. There is no courage without fear.

Courage is not aggression. It is not the condition of speaking deliberately to hurt, of trying to damage another human being. It may well involve speaking and knowing that what you are saying may hurt another’s feelings, but if that is the only aim of your speech, your speech does not come from courage. Sometimes the conscience will say You must speak. It will hurt some others, but it will be more damaging if you do not speak now. You must speak................



Rock On and A High Five for a great post!!!


PS and another link to read about courage