Will Smith is my courage cheerleader.  Watch this 10 minute video and I believe he may become yours as well.

Will says that “Your words and thoughts have power.”  I wholeheartedly agree.  He says he wants the world to be a better place because he was here.  He has done that.  He also says “If you are not making someone else’s life better, then you are wasting your time.  Your life will become better by making other lives better.” Wise words from a very wise soul who speaks with conviction and honesty.  This is a great video to watch if you feel you need some encouragement to overcome life’s biggest challenges.

This is a list of topics he covers in these interviews:

Shares his wisdom on life

Greatness exists in all of us

There is no shortcut to success

Lay one brick at a time

Focus on making a difference

Represent an idea

You have to believe in your plan

Nothing is realistic

Our thoughts are physical in the Universe

Attack you fears

Be willing to die for the truth

Protect your dream

A dear friend, Caroline Reynolds recently passed away.  Caroline lived in courage, and was a special light to many people around the world.  One of her longtime friends Michele Knight wrote the words below on Caroline’s website.  I could not have said it better, so I am sharing Michele’s words with you. Michele  is creating a foundation, and plans to continue Caroline’s work – Spiritual Fitness.  I love you Caroline, and know your work is just beginning.  I am grateful to have met you, as well as many of your wonderful friends – you were and are, a blessing in my life.

Michele’s Message

After a long dance with her health our darling Caroline passed away on Tuesday, 23rd March 2010.

She was one of those very rare, dazzling spirits who knew the value of each and every second.  Having been told that she was dying some months ago, Caroline declared that she wanted to drink the juice of the last drops of life and to be in joy and give joy in those final days.  When anyone expressed shock or sympathy when they found out her condition, she always gently reminded them, “But we are all dying and the importance is to live with love and be love.”

True to her word, Caroline lived those last few months as she always had. She had the word ‘Joy’ emblazoned on her hospital door.  She radiated love, smiles and was a phenomenal inspiration to all those around her. Her unconditional love touched every soul that crossed her path.

In her book, Spiritual Fitness, she wrote, ‘Ask not what life can do for you but what you can do for life. Enjoy your life and you may be blessed on every step of your sacred and eternal journey.’ She embodied this sentence right until the end. When a doctor said to her, “I am so sorry you have been this unlucky”, she replied, “Doctor can’t you see how lucky I am? Look at the love around me. Make sure you tell people how lucky I am if they ask!”

Two days before she died she was recognized for the special, spiritual soul she is and was ordained as a Buddhist nun. Life was still giving wonderful surprises and she was fully present and delighted by the miracle of it all. She glowed with joy and peace. Caroline died as she lived; beautifully and elegantly, sharing her expansive love. She slipped away peacefully, surrounded by those who loved her.

She was a profound blessing in all our lives. I know that the next part of her journey will be done with her usual enthusiasm and relish. She saw death not as an ending, but the next part of an exciting adventure and she leaves behind an incredible legacy of love and wisdom for the art of living.

All of us who met her will remember her in a thousand fond and wonderful ways. She was an amazing influence on us all. And fortunately for us all, Caroline’s voice will remain – not just in memory, but also with fresh inspiration. During her final months, she was writing a book, intent on sharing some of the miracles of her journey with her.  This is not a goodbye.  This is a joyful, excited message to watch this space.

Link to Caroline’s blog – http://www.carolinereynolds.com/

Jamie Oliver’s TED prize talk, makes the case for an all-out assault on our ignorance of food. Jamie spoke at TED2010 this February in Long Beach, CA for 22 minutes, about the state of world health, or rather the lack of it. Jamie is reaching out globally, with courage and passion.

Remember the shaggy-haired “Naked Chef” of late-’90s? One of my favorite cooking shows back then.  Jamie was courageous, raw, and was passionate about food. I became a fan. He has built a worldwide media conglomerate of TV shows, books, cookware and magazines. His idea of sharing unpretentious food with friends and family, was refreshing to me. Everyone gets to play in the kitchen.

Jamie now has Fifteen Foundation’s. He has trained young chefs from challenged backgrounds to run four of his restaurants.  He visits schools to teach children to grow organic gardens of their own, and for their school time meals. Jamie’s School Dinner, Ministry of Food and Food Revolution USA combine Oliver’s culinary tools, cookbooks and television, with serious activism and community organizing — to create change on both the individual and governmental level.

“Our real enemies are not those living in a distant land whose names or policies we don’t understand; The real enemy is a system that wages war when it’s profitable, the CEOs who lay us off our jobs when it’s profitable, the Insurance Companies who deny us Health care when it’s profitable, the Banks who take away our homes when it’s profitable. Our enemies are not several hundred thousands away. They are right here in front of us.”
- Mike Prysner

Debra Oakland @ Living in Courage Online

Each and every person is connected by a common bond.  We are ONE.  Everyone matters. This video aired during NBC’s coverage of the Opening Ceremony of the Vancouver Winter Olympics on Friday, February 12th 2010. The recording took place on February 1st, 2010, in the same studio as the original 25 years earlier. “We Are The World 25 For Haiti“, in which Jones and Richie serve as executive producers and producers with many other collaborators, to benefit the Haitian earthquake relief efforts and the rebuilding of Haiti.
The 25th Anniversary recording features over 80 artists and performers.

Many acts of courage have occurred since the earthquake in Haiti, and great generosity has been extended to the people there.  The contributions have come in many forms.  Like the song says, let’s make a better day, just you and me.  Every day citizens – everybody pitching in.  Now that is Living in Courage!

Debra Oakland @ Living in Courage Online

I am a member of Spiritual Cinema Circle.  This review by Stephen Simon says it all.   This is a move that will inspire people to live in courage and to be a beacon to encourage others.

The Blind Side

Remember what it was like to go to a movie and cry and laugh and applaud and feel great about just being alive when you walked out of the theater?

I do. And you will, too, when you run as fast as you can to a neighborhood theater to see The Blind Side, one of the most touching, wondrous, uplifting, and miraculous movies of the last several years. And, what makes the experience even more delicious is that the film is based on a true story.

Michael Oher was a homeless teenager in Memphis, Tennessee. His father had disappeared when he was a small child, and his mother was such a hopeless drug addict that the state had removed Michael from her custody. He ran away from several foster homes and simply disappeared off the state radar.

Michael was, even as a young teenager, huge and athletic. Through a distant relative, Michael was admitted to a small private high school because the football coach saw Michael’s potential as a football player. The coach persuaded the school administration to admit Michael even though his test scores were well below admission standards. Struggling to understand his new environment, Michael was a gentle soul lost in a new world, with no family and nowhere to call home.

Enter Leigh Anne Tuohy, a fiercely independent and outspoken mother and wife, who not only marched to her own drummer, but who heard the music of a completely different band. A chance encounter with Michael on one cold night convinced Leigh Anne to take the shy teenager under her wing, and into her home and family.

A shy, homeless, and frightened African-American teenager moves into the home of a white, wealthy Southern family, changing all of their lives forever.
The film is absolutely hilarious, touching, engrossing, and brilliant as it follows Michael through his experiences in high school. (The Blind Side refers to the position that Michael learns to play in football. The offensive tackle protects the blind side of the quarterback.) The family’s relentless love and belief in Michael helps him overcome his learning challenges. He also becomes such an incredible athlete that several major universities recruit him.

SPOILER ALERT (This paragraph only): if you don’t want to know more of the story before you see the film, please don’t read this paragraph. The story does indeed have a fairy tale ending. Michael becomes an All-American at Ole Miss and a first round draft choice of the Baltimore Ravens. Today, he is the starting blind side tackle for the NFL Ravens. Over the closing credits, we see photos of the actual Michael and the Tuohys.

Sandra Bullock was BORN to play Leigh Anne and she is sensational in the role, as is Tim McGraw as her husband, and newcomer Quinton Aaron as Michael. The entire cast is brilliant as is the script, the direction, the photography, and everything else!

The Blind Side is quite simply my favorite movie of 2009 and the kind of film “they” used to make. It makes me absolutely crazy when I see the lamestream critics laud dark, cynical movies and turn up their noses at positive, inspired films about the loving, kind, gentle, and compassionate aspects of our humanity. If that’s now considered “sappy”, then I am a human maple tree and proud of it!

The Blind Side is a throwback to a time when movies illuminated the beauty of life, rather than glorifying its ugliness. It should be an Oscar contender for Best Picture and I will certainly use my vote in the Academy to nominate it as such.

Please see it right away. Tell your friends and family, too. I absolutely guarantee you that you will laugh, cry, and feel goose bumps for 2 hours. And you just may love being human a little bit more when you walk out of the theater. What a gift. What a movie.

Karen Armstrong’s book “The Case For God” is a tour de force.  A brilliantly written and passionate book about God.  Karen is one of the most interesting religion writers of her day.  We all have many names for God, to fit our comfort levels.  Karen Armstrong explores those names, and our deep inner beliefs about God, in a way that opens up our minds to expand, not contract.

I view Karen Armstrong as a most courageous woman, who explores a very sensitive subject with great sensitivity.

Here are some editorial reviews from Amazon:

“Karen Armstrong’s book is simply superb. Wide-ranging, detailed, well researched meticulously argued and beautifully written, it is a definitive analysis of the role of religious belief and transcendence in our history and our life.”
—Dr Robert Buckman, author of Can We Be Good without God?

“Karen Armstrong, in writing The Case for God, provides the reader with one of the very best theological works of our time. It brings a new understanding to the complex relationship between human existence and the transcendent nature of God. This is a book that is so well researched and so deep with insight and soaring scholarship that only Karen Armstrong could have written it. The Case for God should be required reading for anyone who claims to be a believer, an agnostic or an atheist.”
—The Right Reverend John Bryson Chane, D.D., Episcopal Bishop of the Diocese of Washington, D.C.

“No one is better qualified or more needed than Karen Armstrong to enter the hot public debate between believers and non–believers over the existence of God.  Her latest book, eagerly awaited and received, rings out with the qualities she brings to all of her work—The Case for God is lucid, learned, provocative, and illuminating.  Indeed, Armstrong once again does what she always does best by shining a clear light on the deepest mysteries of the religious imagination.”
—Jonathan Kirsch, author of The Harlot by the Side of the Road

Debra Oakland @ Living in Courage Online

A Global Climate Wake Up Call went out on Monday, Sept 21 2009.  Members of Avaaz and TckTckTck Campaign sent out a wake-up call to world leaders.  Courageous people gathered together in 134 countries.  There were over 2,600 events from Australia to Europe which reached heads of state and cabinet ministers.  The amount of phone calls to government officials, crashed many phone lines.  For photos and maps of the event, go to the Avaaz link above, and view “The World in Action.”