Thursday of the First Week of Lent
Today, I’m thinking about courage.
Not the courage of heroes, but the courage to just live each day with a modicum of kindness.
When I speak about kindness, I mean kindness to myself by not whining as well as kindness to others. My husband and my son, the two alpha males whom I love in this house, have both had bronchitis, one following the other, and I’ve been kind. And cooking chicken soup (literally) and making sure they take appropriate meds. They don’t like medications. And doing, at various times since they’ve both spent time in bed, the various chores that three people in a house usually do. I’m whining.
The Lenten reflections are a way to connect on a conscious level with my God-self. And of course the message is that this simple, repetitive and disciplined act of looking at the readings and writing about them teaches me the importance of the connection to that deeper place of spirit. Sometimes I struggle against the discipline and sometimes I don’t. Sometimes the courage to keep writing comes from knowing you are reading. You comment. You say the Lenten reflections are important for you. Thank you.
Courage to just keep going, whatever it is we’re doing or faced with, is worth having.
Be mindful of us, Holy One. Manifest yourself in the time of our distress and give me courage…. Esther 12
Queen Esther asked to keep going in order to save her people, and she was putting herself in a dangerous situation to do so. Rarely does our need for courage ask us to put ourselves in harm’s way.
Ask for the courage to keep going in these days of stress. It’s just stress – just keep going. To continue with what we have set in motion – because we all have things we’ve set in motion. Sometimes what we’ve set in motion is negativity. And we know we need courage to change that! And sometimes we need courage to accept and recognize what we have set in motion, through our thoughts, words, and deeds.
The courage to keep going is the same courage of daily practice is the same courage to look at our darknesses and, day after day, lift them from our minds.
I love the word courage. It always makes me think of the cowardly lion, holding his tail tightly, and saying to Dorothy, the Tin Man, and Scarecrow – “Courage!”
Courage. What gives you courage?
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