SMS Chapel

Upper School

Bridge of Caring: Honesty/Courage

1 John 3:18 “18 Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.”

Mrs. Rainey Segars

Mr. Albert thockmorton

Being honest with your self and Others

Naomi Osaka: story of resilience and honesty.

Importance of Mental health and knowing when you need a break.

2021 Naomi Osaka is the number one ranked tennis player in the world. She has won titles, and was the most sought after athlete in the world. She could do nothing wrong. . . except . . . prioritizing her mental health.

She made a hard decision to not do interviews after matches; she felt the questions were loaded with negative components to pin players against each other. And she just did not want to do it. She faced criticism and backlash further proving her point about how certain media and news outlets viewed the players as talented objects and not for their humanity.

She prioritized her mental health regardless of fines and hate coming her way. Her bravery led way to the world considering the impact and the importance of mental health.

How could she do this? She read about SMS’s bridge to caring and saw honesty and courage on the bridge. Or maybe she tapped into something Eleanor Roosevelt said about it. Roosevelt said this:

“you gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop and look fear in the face.”

It is so important to balance the concepts of Honesty and Courage in our daily lives.

Honesty- is not just speaking and acting truthfully; its showing respect towards others, having integrity and self awareness.

Courage-the strength to face adversity or what you are afraid of.

Osaka- honesty shown in her self awareness and need to take care of herself. Courage shown in standing her ground and taking on opposition to her decision.

If we are going to be well balanced individuals we need to embody these in some ways.

courage and honesty is critical if you are going to be a good friend. Having the courage to inform a friend they are heading in the wrong direction or making bad choices; that’s a huge task. Being Honest can put you in uncomfortable situations.

but if we are going to care well for our friends and ourselves we need to put these into practice.

So, I think I’m a musician and great singer. I am neither but in my mind, I’m the best air guitar player in the whole world. It is normal for me to sing around the house. I feel like life is a musical, so just bursting out with singing what i do.

My daughter Evie, a 1st grader at SMS is actually good at singing and she gets frustrated with me because i’m always singing incorrect notes and wrong words. I will mix the song “let it go” from frozen with “Apart of that world “from little mermaid. She hates it!

So the movie wicked comes out and myself and the boys were not interested in seeing it but my wife and Evie had to see it. The song defying gravity is on constant repeat and so at first i did not care for the song and it grew on me.

And that’s when Evie had to act. I didn’t have the words right and melody all wrong. . and we are about to hit the car pool line and she said Enough! “This is wrong you singing this wrong and i can’t enjoy listening to my favorite song because your are ruining it. It breaks my heart!’

I didn’t realize how much this affected her and her courage and honesty allowed us to have a great conversation about it and i understood that i should learn the song correctly.

There are much more serious matters that you face in the balance of your week. Academics and social life, life with friends and family. A lot of pressure to try things and do things that may or may not be good for you. And you have to make it a choice to have courage to be honest with yourself and others.

How can we be better in this?

Let’s show honesty in relationships: build trust and communicate well with those close to us. Honesty allows us to be authentically who we were created to be. Honest communication leads to understanding and resolution

Lets have courage to face challenges- this grows resilience and perseverance in our lives.

moral courage to do whats right even when its hard

speaking the truth in love despite consequences- when we are honest we develop a great reputation. People will love you for loving speaking the truth even if they don’t agree with your position.

My Hope is that we will be walking demonstrations of what it looks like to live with Courage and honesty. With honest and courageous people, our world will be a better place