“Being a Person of Courage”

         Next weekend I moderate a panel of writers for the NM Press Women. It’s the organization’s seventy-fifth anniversary and the focus for this year’s conference is courage in communication. As I prepare for my assignment of interviewing this panel of award winners in the fields of fiction and non-fiction writing, I have been thinking a lot about courage, not just in writing but in all aspects of life.

         We know some of those made famous by their courage. We know names of martyrs and saints, those who made the ultimate sacrifice for what is right and true. We know those who have lost their lives while making brave choices. But it seems to me that courage isn’t always noticeable or extraordinary. Not all acts of bravery include acts like that of Aleksei Navalny, returning to Russia when he knew he would face imprisonment and eventually death. Sometimes the acts of courage are not seen as so grand. Sometimes they aren’t seen at all.

         This week I watched the movie, A Million Miles Away, a film about Mexican-American astronaut Jose Hernandez. He became a crew member on the Space Shuttle mission, Discovery. He was selected to be in the NASA Astronaut program when he was married and the father of five children, chosen for the space program with his twelfth application, his twelfth attempt to get in.

         Who does that? Who refuses to give up after more than ten years of trying? Who keeps learning new skills, developing themselves, working tirelessly to see their dream come to pass?

         A person of courage, that’s who.

         I confess I often give up too quickly. I see obstacles ahead, hear the voices of naysayers rising, watch too many doors closing, and I quit. I pack it all up and say, “time to move on.”

         But this week as I consider courageous women in writing and communication, women who overcame odds to tell truth to power, to share their stories, to use their voices, I think about the courage necessary to stay in the game, to believe in oneself and one’s dreams, to keep fighting. To keep dreaming.

         Life is so short and so messy, it’s easy to give up, to take the path of least resistance, to let someone else have the final say to your story.

         But life is also meant to teach us values, to give us opportunities to grow and be strong and have courage.

         You and I have the last word in our own stories. We get to say when it’s time to stop dreaming or trying or fighting. We get to say when it’s time to let something go.

         Diana Nyad was sixty four when she finally accomplished her goal to swim from Cuba to Florida. Hernandez made it so space after thirty years of dreaming. Dr. Sherri Burr of Albuquerque was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in the field of history after twenty-six books.

      We don’t quit trying because we’re too young or too old or because we’re told what we want to do can’t be done. We don’t quit because someone else says we’re done.

         We keep trying, keep dreaming. And in doing so, we live out what isn’t reserved only for heroes and martyrs. We live out the very essence of courage.



You are the light of the world!

Warmly,

Lynne