March 5, 2024
Another in a series of observations of life as I know it.
A hero is an ordinary individual who finds the strength to persevere and endure in spite of overwhelming obstacles.
-Christopher Reeve
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I need a hero. Merriam Webster defines the word as follows: A person who is admired or idealized for courage, outstanding achievements, or noble qualities.
Right now I need someone of impassioned character and measured humility, with leadership acumen as well as discerning ears to hear advice from others. There have been few giants in my lifetime, but history illuminates heroes when they appear. George Washington left home and family to fight for a country that didn’t exist. But whose promise he believed in deeply. He knew how much time to sit on the high dais, and exactly when to exit the stage and its high beam spotlights. He failed on the battlefield until he cracked the code and found the work around. Heroism implies an acceptance of failure. Abraham Lincoln is proximate to secular sainthood. Just shy of beatification. He saved the nation from dissolution. The body count insinuated itself into his dark nights of the soul, the ever present specter of clinical depression. Yet he persevered. The Union was in his hands alone. In lesser ones it would have crashed and burned, an experiment ended. Done and gone.
Are there modern heroes waiting in the wings today? God knows we are in need of them, and of immediate salvation and reclamation. Can we hitch our national dreams to just one person? Honestly, I don’t have a clue. What would MLK look like today? Would his poignant words resonate, or be lost in the constant 24/7 buzz of the news cycle. Could his peccadillos overshadow his mission? Harvey Milk, the man who confounded straight politicos in San Fransisco, was a man of his moment. He read the tea leaves and followed them to their logical conclusion. Milk knew the dangers and still put his life on the line. Fast forward to this 21st century minute. Jaimie Raskin, congressman of Takoma Park, Maryland. A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. But loss has not eclipsed his courage. Nor his outrage. His voice breaks and bellows as he slices through the cycles of media lunacy. Raskin speaks truth and then repeats it, as often as necessary. He is Lincolnesque. Grisled and broken yet full of indisputable bravery, leading the troops forward, one step at a time. His polar opposite, Liz Cheney, risked it all. And lost everything, or did she? Hers was not some Pyrrhic victory, for her goal is to win the war not just one battle. She will not be content until she has met the enemy on an even larger plain. I have no common ground that I share with her. And yet, she is a quintessential hero, or heroine if you must. Speaking what is essential to those who who do not want to listen. Who threaten her. And wish to cause her harm. Danger follows both Jaimie Raskin and Liz Cheney and yet they appear to be unphased by it. The shadows have become part of their essence. As such, I revere them and take strength from their courage.
Heroes come in all shapes and sizes, ages and genders. They don’t aspire to heroism—it chooses them. It is both life threatening and triumphant. There are few if any rewards in it. The accolades may or may not come later long after they are gone from this world. We could use a hero right now more than ever. Someone we can follow without caution or qualm. So it is here that we pause ever so briefly and in so doing become our own heroes.
WWGWD. What would George Washington do?
