"On Being True To Yourself"

By Francis W. Porretto at Eternity Road:

.... Courage occupies the top spot in the pantheon of virtues. For as C. S. Lewis has told us, every virtue takes the form of courage when it's put to its severest test. That being the case, let it be said plainly and at once: We humans are not a notably courageous lot.

That stands to reason, doesn't it? We wouldn't consider courage a great virtue if it were the rule rather than the exception. We wouldn't celebrate courageous men and their deeds if they were many and not few. All the same, it's rather a shame. Courage is so central to the attainment of a good and worthy life, so irreplaceable as the fuel for worthy deeds, that a shortfall of it cannot be made up by an oversupply of any other asset.

It's appropriate that one of the most common metonymies for courage is "backbone." Our backbones keep us upright and straight despite gravity's relentless efforts to flatten us. Our courage keeps us upright, straight, and true to ourselves when all the rest of the world is bellowing demands for our surrender.

The "upright" and "straight" parts are fairly easy to understand. What I'd like to talk about this morning is the importance of being true to oneself....

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Sun. 03/05/06 10:11:28 PM
Categorized as More Than Blogworthy.