It has been about two months since I posted. It is not that I have not had plenty to say in those two months. I have just been incredibly busy. The older my children get, the mor they want to do with sports and other school activities. Then there is church activities, planning church activities, preparing sermons, visiting in the hospital and nursing home, and the hundreds of other things I choose to do. In the midst of all of this we had 29 people at our house on thanksgivng, 16 of those stayed for two nights. Now don't get me wrong this was awesome, but it took a lot of preparation as well. However, I chose to do these things. Notice I said choose, I do not have to do anything. I do have to accept the consequences of what I do not do, but I do not have to do anything. I choose to do all of the things I do. For me this is a freeing thought.
Anyway, the other day I was listening to a Cowboy Storteller. His name is Micheal Johnson. I was give a set of his CDs by one of my parishioners. It has veen fascinating and insightful. In this particular story, he was talking about a school he had visited. They were doing some sort of meeting with all of the teachers and the leader of the meeting had them divide up into groups according to when they graduated from high school. Then he asked them for the groups to come to a consensus about thier generations heroes. Johnson's group graduated in the fifties and they all talked about many heros they had, Roy Rogers, Gene Autry and many others. Men who could fight when needed, but did not always turn to violence. Men who were tough and caring. When it came time to share with the rest of the group, it was difficult for his group to share because they had so many. Then it came time for the group that graduated in the nineties to share. The speaker for this group said that they had come to the consensus that they had no heros for their generation.
What a sad comment. I thought about it for a momenet. I graduated in 1988, so I am a little older than this group, but who are the heroes of today? My first thought was of my dad, for me he is a hero. He worked hard and did a great job of raising us three boys. My mother was there to raise us as well and she is a heroine to me. They provided for me a "Leave it to Beaver" type of home life. That makes them heroes to me. I hope I am doing just as well for my own children. There are others that are heroes as well, but they are not always well known.
Although, there are some sports stars that do not mess up, it seems that the ones who the media like to talk about are always doing stupid things outside of the game. The media does not cover the good Christians that do not cause controversey, this does not make good news. Then there are the movies stars. Again there are a few like Christen Chenoweth, who have kept their Christian faith and do good things, but again the media does not cover them much. Instead we get too much information about those that are into drugs or alternate lifestyles. We hear about the mess ups, but not the true heroes.
So I thought who are my heroes. Certainly I would include Martin Luther King, Jr, Rosa Parks, Diedrich Boenhoefer, Nelson Mandela, and many others who helped to change the world for the better. You see I do not think that it is a lack of heroes that we suffer from, we just have to look harder to find the heroes around us.
There are everyday ordinary hereos, like the single mom struggling to raise her children, the father who never misses a ballgame, the teenager who walks over to the lonely student and invites them to join the crowd, the teacher who takes extra time with his or her students in order to help them, the man or woman who set an example in word and deed for others. These are everyday heroes.
Then there are heroes who do extraordinary things and seem to change the world. They are there, but they are not usually recognized in thier life time. I guess my challenge to all of us is instead of looking for heroes, be a hero. Stand for Christ and his love, reach out to the lost and show them the way. Dare to touch the untouchable and love the unloveable, then we become true hereos. Maybe we will gain world recognition, or maybe we willl just be one person's hero. iether way we change the world,when we are heroes.
Dane
