C is for Courage

Born to be… by artmajor24, on Flickr. Creative Commons license.

ADF Druidry espouses a system of nine virtues: wisdom, piety, vision, courage, integrity, perseverance, hospitality, moderation and fertility.  Part of the work for the Dedicant's Path is to write an essay about each of these virtues. and since week is the letter 'C', I decided to write about Courage.  Now, all the writing for the DP can get a little long for the reviewers to read, so we're asked to keep our word counts reasonable; I could write a whole essay just on courage in my life!  But here it is in around 200 words.

Courage is defined by Google as "the ability to do something that frightens one" or "strength in the face of pain or grief".  In my life, I've found my own definition of courage to be most in line with the first.  I grew up in a very critical environment, and unfortunately I often find myself afraid to try something because I know I can't do it perfectly, or I don't know exactly how it will turn out.  Often I have to make myself do things that I know objectively would benefit me or others that I care about, but that I am afraid to do.  A group I am part of locally puts on a Winter Solstice service for the UU church every year, and this year they asked me to play guitar for a song.  I'm a decent, though not particularly good player, but performing in front of others honestly terrifies me.  It took a great deal of courage to even play in front of others at our practices, but after several times I began to feel more comfortable.  In the end I summoned the courage to sit before 100 or so UUs and perform, and the added atmosphere garnered many compliments and has helped to grow the local community.