One Apple A Day 524 - courage and love
Courage: c. 1300, corage, "heart (as the seat of emotions)," hence "spirit, temperament, state or frame of mind,"from Old French corage "heart, innermost feelings; temper" (12c., Modern French courage), from Vulgar Latin *coraticum (source of Italian coraggio, Spanish coraje), from Latin cor "heart" [source]
If I ask you to place courage or love somewhere in the body, I believe that most of you would associate both of them with the heart. An organ that we don't control and that relentlessly pumps life in our body.
There is a powerful connection between courage and love. They are both about surrendering to something bigger than ourselves.
I'm not sure where I'm going with this morning reflections. It all started with my morning Be The Change card that has the word "Courageousness" on it. The drawing that accompanies the word is a human being with a stream of energy flowing through his core. And I thought that love is the same; a stream of energy flowing through all of us, connecting people.
So, maybe to be courageous is just to open up my heart so love can freely flow through.
"The opposite of love is not, as we many times or almost always think, hatred, but the fear to love, and fear to love is the fear of being free." — Paulo Freire