courage

We are always afraid to start something that we want to make very good, true, and serious.

You can't expect to win unless you know why you lose

I've also used my imagination to help others heal themselves.  I once went to visit a Hopi rattke maker in Arizona.  It took all of my intuitive powers to find her house up high in the mountains, having to make choices of which way to go every hundred feet or so.  When I arrived, her granddaughter was crying in pain, holding her ears.  She had had a terrible earache for twenty-four hours.  Instinctively, I approached the five-year-old and told her, "I'm going to put my hand on your ear and take away the pain.  I want you to see the pain.  What does it look like?  What shape is it?  What color?  What does it sound like?  Does it smell?  How would you feel if you touched it?  Now I want you to imagine it leaving your ear and entering my hand."  She looked up at me with huge brown eyes full of trust.  I put my hand on her ear, held it there a few minutes, and then ran to the door and blew the pain out of my hand and closed the door.  Within seconds the pain was gone.  Her grandmother, the rattle maker, stood there grinning from ear to ear.  "That's what my grandfather would have done," she said, "He was a shaman."

In a few minutes, the room seemed to fill with people.  Someone placed a chair in the middle of the room and people took turns sitting in it, asking for a healing.  Headaches, sores, back pains, and so on.  In each case I trusted myself to do what came naturally.  It's a day I'll never forget, as I discovered the range of my healing powers as they were drawn out by people for whom healing power was natural medicine.

Imagination is powerful.  Imagination is healing.  All you need is the courage to visualize what should be, and then give yourself to its creation.  The result may not be what you expected, but it will be right.

Courage doesn't always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, "I will try again tomorrow."

"Be careful with your mouth, but primarily with your mind; do not let evil thoughts start talking to you.  Do not let your mouth say words that could perhaps wound your brother.  Let your mouth put forth words which are fragrant: words of consolation, courage and hope.  It is a person's mouth that reveals his interior, inner man."

Elder Ephraim of Philitheou and St. Anthony's Orthodox Monasteries.www.stanthonysmonastery.org/index.php

Leaders come in many forms, with many styles and diverse qualities. There are quiet leaders and leaders one can hear in the next county. Some find strength in eloquence, some in judgment, some in courage.

Do you really think it is weakness that yields to temptation? I tell you that there are terrible temptations which it requires strength, strength and courage to yield to.

To love someone deeply gives you strength. Being loved by someone deeply gives you courage.

A coward is incapable of exhibiting love; it is the prerogative of the brave.

You must have love as the core; it takes courage to be willing to constantly tell the truth to each other and risk letting the relationship go.