Courage of Conviction

I’ve been hearing about the stories surrounding Sen. Craig over these last few days, as I’m sure everyone else has.  I’ve even read a bunch of stories from today’s Washington Post.  There is one story on what the typical signals are for men looking for sex with other men.  Who knew there were all these complex codes and signals?  

On a side note, all I can think about with all this talk about public restrooms is Dane Cook’s skit on public restrooms.  So funny, and oh so true. 

At any rate, the main reason I am writing about this is to highlight the reactions to Sen. Craig.  I’m not really looking to make a point here either - whether Sen. Craig is a bad person or not is not the topic of this posting - it’s more to write about what’s going on in my mind right now.  Look, I don’t know if Sen. Craig did or didn’t do what he was arrested for.  He plead guilty to a lesser charge - maybe to get rid of the story, or maybe for some other reason - who knows.  Either way, he’s done a poor job of message and media management, but that’s for another posting. 

The reaction to Sen. Craig’s press conference has fascinated me.  Lots of people are writing about the GOP’s willingness, in fact eagerness, to throw him under the bus and force him out of office.  The reaction from people in Idaho has been pretty decisive as well - the consensus I’ve read can be summarized as this - the people of Idaho have been lied to and embarrassed. 

People are making judgments based on what they know, or what they think they know, or most likely, what they want to believe.  Judgement will happen - it’s part of our nature.  It’s pretty much impossible to not judge for the simple fact that any adult has had numerous experiences in their life that make up what they believe and value.  We go through life judging new experiences through the lense of how we judged past experiences.  It’s how we know not to run out in traffic when a car is coming.  You don’t have to think about not running out in traffic, you just know it’s not the right thing to do. 

The same thing is happening here in this instance as it does with every other moment of our life.  What would be interesting to me would be to hear someone who is supportive of Sen. Craig.  How did they come to that conclusion?  What experiences in their past led them to judge the current situation in such a way that offering support to Sen. Craig appears to be the right thing to do.  The process of how we come to a conclusion is interesting.  What’s more interesting is that once a person makes a conclusion, they associate that conclusion with their identity.  What do I mean?  Ever try to tell someone they were wrong?  What kind of reaction did you get - a defensive one right?  Why?  Because people equate beliefs with identity.  That’s why it is so difficult to have a true discussion about religion or politics.  People emotionalize these subjects so much that to question a policy or belief is interpreted as a criticism of the person holding the belief.  But are the beliefs really who that person is?  What happens when you lay your beliefs aside - who are you really?  All interesting points to ponder.  Your thoughts are welcome.

As regular readers will notice, I’ve been a courage kick lately - writing about it, doing light research on it, etc.  Today will be no different.  This post is about a different type of courage that I’ve experienced jsut recently.  At the end of July I went down to Baltimore with my neighbor for a 14-mile training run.  It was a hot day and I struggled through the second half of the run.  At one point I stepped on a rock and twisted my ankle.  It didn’t bother me immediately.  In fact I didn’t feel it until a week later on another long run.  That’s when my problems started.  Since then I have only been able to run about two miles before experiencing pain. 

I’m in the process of getting it taken care of, I’ve gone to my chiropractor and to my message therapist who have both been working to heal the injury.  It is progressing, but I’ve experienced a great deal of frustration with not being able to do something that I love for a few weeks now - run distance. 

All this leads me to the topic for today - practical courage.  I’ve learned that it takes alot of courage to be patient.  I must be patient if I am to have a full recovery.  I must be patient to wait to run again the way I want to run.  Patience, in this essense will get me through this time, by helping me remember the big picture.  The big picture isn’t the half marathon I’m scheduled to run in Sept that I probably won’t be able to run.  It isn’t the Baltimore marathon scheduled for Oct. 13th either - I’m not sure if I’ll be able to run that.  The big picture is being able to enjoy running distances again. 

It takes courage to be patient.  It takes courage to see past the short term and focus on the long term. 

I’ve been doing a great deal of inner searching these last few weeks.  I’ve come to know several things - some of which I’ll share here.  (Here’s your editorial warning - some of this gets pretty spiritual, so if that’s not your cup of tea, that’s ok, but you probably won’t enjoy this posting.)

One of the things that I have a new knowing about is courage.  Courage has always been a topic I have loved.  In the past, my understanding of courage was only from a more warrior standpoint - the William Wallace-type of character - someone who stands up to great odds and moves forward anyway looking fear in the eye and facing it - that is courage.

What I’ve also come to know about courage is this - It takes great courage to allow yourself to be.  Most of the time we want to fight and resist our nature. 

There is a formula for success that I’ve heard many times, but I feel that I now have an new understanding of it - Be. Do. Have.  So many times in our society we turn that formula around - Have. Do. Be.  If only we have this or that, then we can start to do this or that, and finally we will be successful, or happy, or whatever.  When we start to search, we recognize how foolish it is to switch the formula, but we only move to Do.  We start believing that we have to do all sorts of things - that there are certain things that we have to do in order to change who we are - our being. 

At some point some people experience a change in how they know who they are - their being.  They understand the real formula - Be first, then do, then have.  All of this requires courage though - the courage to not do, the courage to be, the courage to allow, the courage to face the fear of life, the courage to embrace, the courage to let go of control - of who’s in charge. 

Courage in this sense becomes a means to an end.  It’s not meant as something that we need to get an understanding of, just something that happens.  But it only happens after we recognize who we are - our being. 

I recently looked up courage on Wikipedia.  Here’s the entry. 

There is plenty of information about courage.  All sorts of links to items that are courage related.  You’ll find information about Aristotle’s thoughts about courage and the Catholic Church’s teachings about courage and other virtues, all the way to social and moral courage, to Tarot cards. 

Here’s a great picture of fortitude as depicted by Sandro Botticelli.  Enjoy.

My most recent podcast is now up for your listening pleasure.  I had an opportunity to interview Gene Barr of the Pennsylvania Chamber on the upcoming special session. 

More specifically, we discussed the issues surrounding the topics of energy and transportation, which will be discussed during the special session. 

I asked Gene about alternative energy, the Governor’s Energy Independence Strategy, and the gasoline tax, among other things. 

We also discussed transportation issues such as the proposed leasing of the PA Turnpike.

Courage sometimes doesn’t look like the typical type of courage that everyone thinks about - the warrior type - like the William Wallace character in Braveheart. 

Sometimes courage looks like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1k08yxu57NA

Enjoy!

Did you know that if you do a Yahoo search for courage you come up with over 55 million hits.  Do a Google search and you end up with over 62 million hits.  That’s alot of information about courage.  It’s also encouraging to see so much interest about courage. 

I’m thrilled to announce the launch of Link to Politics.  Linked to Politics is a variety of things.  It’s an online community, an opportunity for networking and connecting in the political community, an online forum, and so much more. 

I’m going to share about this site in two ways - a “what’s the big picture” way and a more specific way.

First the big picture.  What’s Link to Politics all about?  Great question.  Want to connect with other politically-minded people?  Want to share in a discussion on policies or campaigns?  Want to post video?  Want to take a pulse of the other members?  Want to create your own group within the site?  Want to do all that at one site?  Link to Politics allows you to do that and more.  The easiest way to really see what it’s all about is to go and try it out.  The registration is free, so you’ve got nothing to lose. 

Now for the more detailed answer of what Link to Politics is all about?  Be sure to read the the “about us” section of the website to really get a good understanding. 

Beyond that, here are some of the features that you can utilize:

• Post news releases
• Read news feeds from across the country
• Contribute your thoughts and ideas to online discussions
• Create groups
• Create subgroups
• Post video
• Create/participate in polling
• Post an event
• See who you should connect with
• Create a space for your campaign supporters to discuss the campaign
• Create ways to promote your campaign
• Create ways for volunteers to get involved

That’s just a small listing. 

Enjoy!

The next edition of The Keystone Report is now up and available.  This week I took a step back and did an introduction of The Keystone Report - what it’s all about, what I’ll be focusing on, etc. 

I also talk about some of the interviews that are coming up over the next few weeks.

I also took the opportunity to give an update the Courage of Conviction blog and introduced a brand new website - Link to Politics.  I’ll share more about the website in my next posting. 

Enjoy!

Tuesday night was National Night Out.  I was asked a few weeks ago if I would sit in the dunk tank as a local celebrity guest.  It did it and it was great fun.  (It helped that it was really hot out too.)

Here are the pictures from the event.