"Faith is taking the first step
even when you don't see the whole staircase."
-Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr.
It's always a tough exercise, picking just one thought from Dr. King to put on the Dojo board and invite everyone to consider. The man was a wealth of important ideas and profound perspective as to our the fiber of our individual and national characters, our relationships with others and with ourselves, and the world as it is and how it can be.
I often come back to the quote above because it deals with how we reach the goals that we have for ourselves and for the change that we would like to affect in the world around us. Whatever those visions are--big ones like the dream Dr. King had for our nation, or more personal ones like the goals we set for our own growth and development -- reaching them requires that first step. And it can be terrifying, particularly if we can't see exactly where the staircase leads us or if it's even there at all.
Everything we regularly discuss in the Dojo when it comes to our warriors journeys -- grit, determination, perseverance -- all those important qualities run on Faith. It's Faith that helps us take that scary first step, and Faith that allows us to persevere on down the road in those times when we feel fatigued or knocked around. But the great thing is that Faith is in abundant supply in communities like ours where we regularly get to see the best in each other, and taking the first step is a little less scary, when we know we are never scaling that staircase alone.