Soul Mx - Be A Hero

This is part of a series shared ecumenically with members to whom I was assigned; the goal was to start conversation and deep thought, and many of these messages led to great conversations.

Be A Hero
Original Publication Date: 18 February 2021

Chief Vaden recently said something that really impacted me, he said,

People aren’t inspired by superheroes.

I had to step back and think about that, but I agree wholeheartedly. When I think about people who have inspired me, not a single one of them is a superhero, they are all human beings with less than super strength and super stamina.

But I’d say all of them are heroes in one way or the other. So how do you define a hero? I’ve always latched onto this quote from the movie, The Tale of Despereaux, the narrator says,

If you know anything about fairy tales, you know that a hero doesn’t appear until the world really needs one.

The hero is someone who is there to meet a need, to fill a void, to correct a wrong, to stand in the gap to protect those in danger. This definition of hero doesn’t require you to wear a cape or be allergic to kryptonite or get bit by a spider; it requires you to be willing to act. In a former career I was a “Bystander Intervention Implementer”, which you may remember was also called Green Dot. I loved that we were inspiring Airmen to act when there was a void to fill, a wrong to be corrected, a gap to be stood in, and a need to be met. As I taught those classes I loved seeing people realize that they had power to help within their capacity, and that they didn’t need special martial arts or Psy Ops or hostage negotiation training to save the day. They just needed to be willing to intervene, because often any intervention is better than no intervention.

In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing. ~ Theodore Roosevelt

Case in point, one of my favorite movies is about a man who is a hero in his own mind, but no-one else would declare him a hero in any sense of the word. The movie is The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. There are two versions, one from 1947 and one from 2013. It’s not so much the movie I really like: it’s the idea behind the movie. Walter Mitty’s circumstances change and he’s required to be the hero of the story. I very much enjoy the sentiment behind that movie because I know I am regularly the hero in my mind; when I hear of bad decisions my default thought is, “I could have done that better.” But then I think back to times when I was in similar situations and I didn’t do better. Instead of passing judgment I ought to think, “How can I do that better at Ellsworth? How can I help? What courageous thing do I need to do that if I don’t do it, it’s not going to get done?”

In my faith tradition we like to say, “Do not despise the day of small things.” The culmination of many of my heroes’ lives is what makes them heroes, no grand acts, no date to memorize, just a life of perseverance and an end goal. I recently read the biography of William Wilberforce, he fought from 1785 until 1833 to abolish slavery in the British Empire. Many of those years were very slow going with a great many setbacks and disappointments, but Wilberforce (and many others) pressed on, and the culmination of all of those years was worth all of the effort.

Is there room in your life for you to be the hero? What would that look like? How can you leave this Air Force and this world better than you found it? You can do it better than any superhero, because they’re not here, and they’re too busy worrying about supervillains than the real ills and needs of this world. One of the really simple things it means for me is answering the phone every time it rings. It may be spam or it may be someone who really needs help, I no-longer pause to think about whether I have time to answer or who it might be, it might be my opportunity to be the hero when someone really needs it.

Every person I consider a hero lived a life of steadfastness, of consistently doing the right thing, stepping up and confronting injustice and oppressors and filling needs, not despising the day of small things. While there are certainly flourishes of extraordinary courage, their courage was not in contradiction with their character, those flourishes were a magnification of who they were. I’d like to encourage you to live in such a way that you’re ready for that flourish of courage, but if it’s never needed, you’ll still leave a lifetime of hero-actions in your wake, that when added up will have done more than any superhero, because you will have inspired people.