The second of Todd Henry’s Everyday Acts of Bravery: Be Fiercely Curious. Curiosity is an aspect of courage I haven’t addressed here before, but it’s critical. Especially if we aspire to create art, seek truth, get people talking. It’s the antithesis of dogma: rather than rejecting anything that doesn’t line up with our preconceived notions […]
Dogma is a coward’s refuge. And it isn’t the same as faith. Faith is a choice to believe in something–a god, a doctrine, a political philosophy, a person’s character–in the face of evidence to the contrary. Dogma is a refusal to believe in something because it differs from what you choose to believe. Faith need […]
The first of Todd Henry’s everyday acts of bravery: Define your battles. When we say choose your battles in the context of life or parenting, we mean we can’t win every time, and trying to is a sure way to accomplish nothing. So we choose which battles to spend our energy on, in the hopes […]
Since I can’t write about courage without occasionally mentioning something I’ve done: I’ve entered my novel, A Square Foot of Calfskin, in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest. It’s a contest for unpublished or self-published books, and it might just help me get some eyes on my work. Judging for the first round just started, […]
Move out or grow in any dimension and pain as well as joy will be your reward. – M. Scott Peck, M.D., from The Road Less Traveled I was listening to this book on the way home from work this evening, and this quote leaped out at me. This line captures the essence of […]
Uganda’s New Anti-Gay Law: Part of a Broader Trend in Africa. We are so afraid of those who are different from ourselves that we feel the need to outlaw their behavior. A useful stance if we’re protecting children from molestation, or keeping intoxicants out of the hands of people who might hurt others under their […]
Todd Henry is a self-professed “arms dealer for the creative revolution.” The author of two books and a nationally-known speaker and consultant, Todd is enabling thousands of people to claim the lives they want by embracing their creative efforts. In the information age, creativity, whether it’s art or young minds or computer code or delicious […]
To be completely honest, I’m a lousy swimmer. I’ve never swam a mile. Not half a mile. Not even a quarter. Diana Nyad swam a hundred miles in September, give or take a few miles. She did it across open ocean from Cuba to Florida, through waters infested with sharks and jellyfish. It wasn’t her […]
Most folks don’t normally think of the Pope as a hero. To Catholics, he’s a leader, spiritual guide, giver of laws. To non-Catholics, he’s a role model, maybe. In some unfortunate cases, he’s a misguided–or even malicious–purveyor of hatred and intolerance. To many, he’s irrelevant, just an old guy in a funny hat. But a […]
These two women aren’t celebrities. Most of us didn’t know about them before last year. They aren’t heroes for seeking our attention, or seeking thrills, or seeking danger–they’re heroes because when their lives called for them to do something extraordinary, they didn’t shrink from it. Ordinary people who did something extraordinary, then went back to […]