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DAVID BENTLEY'S WEEKLY COLUMN

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Cheerful Fortitude

For years I've celebrated my best friend's January 1st birthday with what we called "a winter picnic." We'd drive to her favorite park overlooking Haro Strait, drink hot chocolate, eat cinnamon rolls, and write in our journals about how lucky we were to live on this island. She died in 2000, but I still go to the park for a winter picnic on New Year's Day.

This year, cold winds kept me inside my truck where I wrote in my journal and listened to the radio. Futurist Bruce Sterling said that everywhere we turn we find our world in crisis. We are led to believe that the crisis will last forever, but that is not true. Crisis exists for a relatively short time and forces us to change.

Based on history, Sterling predicts that in five to seven years we will look back with gratitude for the crisis that moved us on to something far better than we can imagine now. Rather than being overwhelmed by fear and trepidation, Sterling suggests that we go forward with cheerful fortitude. There will be much difficulty in the coming years, but if we persist with courage and boldness, he feels the final outcome will be rewarding.

As we make choices about facing the crisis we are in today, perhaps it would behoove us to remember some words written during another time of crisis. Martin Luther King, Jr., in his 1963 collection of sermons called Strength to Love, said:

"Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction... The chain reaction of evil -- hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars -- must be broken, or we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation."

  • When has crisis led to gratitude in your lifetime?

  • How can you maintain cheerful fortitude today?

  • Are you driving out darkness with light and hate with love?

  • What can you do to help end the current descending spiral of destruction?

© 2003 David Bentley

David Bentley, M.Ed. & Personal Coach, coaches clients through the game of life, helping them find balance, clarity of direction, and purpose in an ever-changing world.

You may contact him at 360.378.8436

by e-mail at david@coachbentley.com

or visit his Web site: www.coachbentley.com

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