In the changing mood of general society, modern stories of bravery, heroism, cowardice, and decline are increasing in numbers. In the rash of shootings taking many lives in schools, restaurants, business and churches, public places there is emerging the ordinary person doing the extraordinary thing in what may be a positive or a negative context. Persons are looking for fresh definitions of some honored words like hero. Is a person losing his or her life in an attack on New York that collapses two great skyscraper buildings, and takes 3,000 lives a recognized hero in another country than mine? That may be heroic for some but may be criminal for someone else – and vice versa. Are heroes only found on our side? Christian martyrs died heroically. Many authorities who condemned lives believed Christians to be fools, dying for a minority belief unproved in substantive earth terms. Were Japanese pilots volunteering for suicide flights in World War II heroic in their acts, or is heroism only in the eye of the beholder? Was Lindberg a hero, as he was declared to be, for flying over the Atlantic Ocean, or was his foray a stunt? There is a serious analytical disagreement on his motivation. I read a story some time ago about a study that concluded persons would be more prepared to die for their country than for their religious convictions. I understand the study included Christians in adequate representation. Does that mean there are more persons who love their country, in a life-threatening situation, than there are those who would die for God?
It has been discovered that courage to go into danger, even to risking life requires some preparation for persons entering into sacrificial situations. It has been learned that they have a code, sometimes seen as moral they are willing to stand for, perhaps die for. They are persons who have been trained to take action in varied contexts, so to take action seems natural to them, rather than to flee for their lives. They have a kind of passion for the right so to identify to the point of risk for those who are in danger. They are consistent so they perform random acts of kindness. They may not know anyone in the scene of their involvement, but there is something higher, likely evasive to description or explanation, that they feel is related to the compulsion they feel for others. There is an implication of disdain, or disdain itself, for persons who, in the presence of mortal danger to others, do nothing. They walk to their own interests.
There is a factor of the heroic in all persons, moderated by a factor of cowardice. For most persons neither of these factors follows or plays out to their ends. They tend to balance each other so we avoid in our own choices and circumstances that challenge either the most admired or the most condemned factors for life. Seldom are persons called to the heroic, and often what is seen as heroic is prideful, and accomplishes little or nothing for us or society. A married couple challenged management’s request that persons should not parachute from the top of El Capitan in Yosemite. The husband jumped and floated down to a soft landing to the pleasure of onlookers. His wife followed, but her chute did not deploy and he saw her fall to her death. There was no applause for her jump. For what cause did she die? Does her family feel the sacrifice was worth it? We now have persons jumping from great heights with nothing but balloon like uniforms by which they sail forward toward the valley below. When challenged by a reporter on safety, the demonstrator told the story of his friend who recently died in a fall when all did not go as planned.
Our mortal lives have meaning. We deserve to be treated as God-created objects of meaning, beginning with our own evaluation. God is so taken with that meaning (which he installed) that he made way to redeem mankind by taking on the risks, and those to death in Jesus Christ. It contributes to our understanding of the heroic in us that relates to the good of others. When we endanger our lives without meaning we have violated the purpose of mankind under God. We risk purpose to fulfill the love of God and his plan for us when we endanger ourselves and others. We were made for life, peace, love, creativity, and fulfillment to become the immortal children of God so to serve a primary pleasure of God’s creativity. When we cultivate life balance between extremes but move in the direction of the affirmations we become persons of heroic faith. Heroism is the choice of the hero to risk self for life purpose. *Mark W. Lee, Sr. — 2016, 2020