Finding Courage

What is courage? What does it take? Where does it come from?

Honestly, I had not thought much about it until I decided I wanted to create a study of the virtues. I am interested in the things that help a human become: more themselves, more deliberate about the life they are making.

Not knowing where to begin, I recalled a large paperback book that once sat beside our dining table. A few nights a week, I read about a virtue with my family. Admittedly, we were late to the party. The book was written for younger children, and my boys were 12 and 16. Still, they humored me. We had some interesting talks about honesty, responsibility, and compassion, and fleeting moments of self-awareness. My love language is quality time, and I was happy they stayed at the dinner table even a few minutes longer.

I wished we had started the book when they were younger. I also wished there were a way to invite the practice of a virtue, rather than read about it and forget it. The Virtue Post was born, though for a long time it existed only in my imagination. I didn’t know whether I had the skills, tools, or know-how to make it. I thought about it often but kept it to myself. Only my husband knew what I was up to, barely. This year, I began, just to see where it would lead.

I wanted to create symbols for the virtues, mostly because that was the fun part. The first image I made was a lion, an ancient symbol of courage. Until then, courage had brought up images of Braveheart and Gladiator for me. It seemed to belong to warriors and heroes. I had not thought much about where it might live in my own experience. Does courage mean being fearless? Fear seems entangled with it, or perhaps fear is what draws it out. Courage seems to show up near something important that needs to be protected, overcome, or fought for.

As I was studying courage, I didn’t realize that this project of mine was calling for it.

I had built what felt like a sturdy framework and a solid plan, but I had written about only three virtues. I would have preferred to write about all of them and take as long as it took. Yet it seemed out of touch to continue without knowing how the work would be received.

I wanted children to be called upon to find the virtues already alive in them. A personal letter seemed the way to do that. I didn’t want to make videos, and I knew many of us were looking for things to do offline. I wished for an experience that would keep families engaged with virtue and becoming, and remind them that there was another human being on the other side of the post, genuinely wanting a conversation about things that matter.

But to make that possible, I had to let other people see what I was making.

I am a bit of a hermit. I like being at home, reading and studying things. I feared people would judge the work, or judge me for making it. Who am I to write about virtue? I have spent years homemaking and raising children. I haven’t embodied all the virtues myself, and I am far from scholarly. Showing this work meant showing something of my inner life.

I scheduled when I would share it. I wasn’t ready. I’m still not ready. But I shared.

My friends were kind and generous. And now, as I write about the fear and the courage it took to share The Virtue Post, I see that I am being called to engage in the way I hope others will: to notice a virtue in my own life and practice it there.