marilynne does it again

A dear friend recently sent me an email that included a spectacular Marilynne Robinson quote:

I recently read a thought provoking essay in Marilynne Robinson's The Death of Adam. In "The Tyranny of Petty Coercion" Robinson talks a lot about bravery. She says that society has all sorts of ways to enable physical bravely, but very few ways to help people be brave intellectually and morally and emotionally. Perhaps there must also be a prevenient courage to nerve one to be brave, she writes. It is we human beings who give one another permission to show courage . . . .

I've been thinking a lot about courage lately, especially moral and emotional courage. It is something that I want in my own life because when I see it or use it in my life, I am a better person. I think that moral and emotional courage is something that rightly couples itself with integrity--which is a word that contains within it many other words: consistency, steadfastness, soundness. Courage comes from the Latin "cor," or heart--one's core, from which inner strength, steadfastness, and soundness begins and radiates. I love all of your unique examples of integrity and courage because they help me to be brave, to do things I would never expect of myself, to want to do more than I think I am able to do. So thank you, dear ones, a lot.