Who are your heroes?
This is such a distressing
time. Let’s take a break for a
minute. Let’s think about something
really good right here on earth, people who are good and meaningful in our
lives.
So again, who are your
heroes? Can you even answer that
question?
I remember reading a book about
transitions in life many years ago. The
author made the point that most people know themselves so little they can’t
even identify their favorite food.
Well, who are your heroes?
When I was a young teenager
Mickey Mantle was my hero. I loved
baseball then and the Yankees even though I did not live in New York City. And he was just a spectacular player. Years later I actually met him for a
moment. Even though I was much older
then and hopefully more mature, and even though I had long realized there was
more to being a hero than just playing a sport well, he still was an
overwhelming presence to me. I managed
to get out the sentence – “I saw you play a lot of games.” And he replied a wonderful reply: “It was a
lot of fun.” I can’t imagine a better
reply. My hero Mickey Mantle thought
playing baseball for the Yankees all those years was a lot of fun. That was what I always thought it would be.
But back to the subject. Who are your heroes?
Let’s right away rule out Jesus
here. He is obviously a hero, but he is
also obviously far more than just a hero.
So let’s talk about other people than Jesus.
Do you have one? A hero?
Perhaps your father, or your mother.
My dad is a hero to me now. He and Mom had just been married a few years
when WWII began. He was a partner with
two cousins in a new hardware/building supply company. They were older. My Dad made the decision to enlist in the
Navy, and he did so at age 26 or so. My
mom followed him around as possible – in Newport Rhode Island and then in
Washington when he worked in the Pentagon.
But eventually Dad was off in the Pacific. About a month or two before he left, his younger
brother died from a brain injury and my mother’s sister died in
childbirth. But my dad had to go, so he
did. By the way, my mom was pregnant
with me then.
I was born while Dad was in the
Pacific theater. He didn’t see me until
I was a year and a half old. I have
letters from him to Mom while he was in Guam.
Even after the war ended he was stationed there for a while. And then he came home.
He always wanted to be an
architect, but seemed to think that going to college then would just take too
much time. It was as if they had lost
years of their lives due to the war. So
he went back to that hardware/building supply company where he still was a
partner, and worked there his entire life, steady, hard-working, devoted. My mother did have several serious medical
problems over the years, and Dad was just there, steady, strong. He is long gone now. I found a thick book he put together while in
high school. It was all about his
becoming an architect. Never happened.
So Dad is a hero. He was steady and steadfast. He loved me and was the strong silent type of
that generation. When he did say
something I listened and learned.
Of course, if you read this, you
will think why wasn’t my mom a hero too. She was left alone with a new baby coming,
just after her sister and her brother in law had died. And she did persevere
despite her medical issues, persevere for another thirty years after caring for
my dad as he suffered from emphysema.
They are real heroes to me.
Also my Uncle June, who enlisted
in WWII when he was 17 and then fought in the Korean War. My mother tried to write about his exploits,
and so I heard him describe things most veterans of those wars never spoke of. One time all the tires of his jeep were shot
out but he made it. One time he was up a
telephone pole when the enemy came over the hill. He became a machinist expert and worked on
all sorts of engines. He loved fishing
and always was warm and kind. I still
have a knife he brought me from the Korean war.
Well, another hero in my life.
More?
From the spiritual side, how
about Oral Roberts. Healed by God
miraculously when he was 17. Taking the
truths of the power of the Lord into all sorts of places in a country where the
people just did not (and today mostly do not) know what Jesus made available
for them. The Holy Spirit operated
mightily through him. And in the late
years of his life, God brought me into his contact. I ministered to a man whose father had worked
with Oral in building the university.
The man wanted me to send Oral a note.
When I did, Oral immediately wrote back.
The man’s father had in fact put the university together, including the
academic side. But Oral took the time to
tell me what he thought God was doing in my life. And he wrote how he thought divine healing
works. Later on, after I had written him
again, he sent his thoughts on another subject and then noted he would see me
in heaven. Lots of people in the world
thought he was nuts, or strange, or a kook.
But he kept his eyes on the Lord.
Others out there like that? Oh sure, locally and nationally. People who change the entire world and those
who change lives for a few. Most don’t
ever make the headlines or news stories.
Here are a couple you’d never
think of. I recently saw the accounts of
some terrible crime/terror attacks in the US before this age of modern
terrorism. One had to do with the
Unabomber, who lived in a cabin somewhere in the west and mailed letter bombs
to what seemed to be random victims.
Three were killed and many, many horribly injured. One victim recounted how his life was changed
forever, how there is no such thing as closure for such an attack. Eventually the bomber was caught, I think by
help from his brother who evidently realized this was the bomber. The brother was given the million dollar
reward that had been offered. The
brother proceeded to pay off the legal bills associated with his brother’s
trial, and then he gave the entire rest to the victims of the bomber. How could such a person have been reared in
the same family with the bomber?
Another similar account. I saw the story of the shooters who randomly
shot people in the Washington DC area at service stations and schools and
elsewhere about 2002. You may remember. The area was in turmoil. One woman recounted standing at a station
filling her car with gas. She looked at
a taxi driver who was doing the same.
The next moment, there was a sound, and she saw him moving toward
her. He had been shot. The emergency people recounted when they arrived
at the station, they found her giving mouth to mouth resuscitation to a dead
man. She just wouldn’t stop trying.
And then there was that airplane
flight Cathy and I were on several years ago.
We sat in the midst of several of our young soldiers. They were beside us and in front of us, all
around. They were young, so young, so
bright and pleasant, full of energy.
They talked about various things.
One I remember. They were so
focused on their boots and on finding and buying better boots. It seems the US issued boots just were not
good, not nearly good enough. The
soldiers all knew that. And so they were
looking for and hoping for better boots
that they had to buy. They were on their
way to Iraq, or maybe it was Afghanistan.
They were so young. My God, how
is it possible to thank people like that enough, how is it? The answer – it isn’t possible. You can’t.
They were willingly on their way to a place of horror, where some of
them might stay and never return, where some of them might end their lives or
be horribly injured. Just so people like
us can stay here and live our lives. So
we can go on. Heroes? That is not a good enough word for them. I’ll never forget looking at them, just
looking. Looking at their faces. It is almost too much to think about even
today.
Maybe a last one. About a Frenchman who worked for me back in
my business days, who was head of our subsidiary in Ethiopia. That is and was a world almost no one in the
West knows about. I was there several
times. One time I remember getting out
of a car in downtown Addis Ababa, and in the words of a lawyer with me, all the
wretches of the world descended on us.
He wasn’t being unkind. That was
how so many of the hundreds looked, with their arms bent at ninety degree angles
or nubs where their legs or arms ended, hobbling on poor crutches, all eager
for something, for help. That Frenchman
lived there, and he enjoyed life there.
He always had that ability to enjoy life anywhere. Out near his house we rode through a soccer
field, all set up with posts and goals and such. He had built that for the kids that had
nothing. And in his house I met all
sorts of interesting people. He had an
African son he had adopted when he was in another African country. But the most
important thing was how he sheltered and hid people from the communists that
ran the country at the time. The Soviets
were advisers to the communist government, the Cubans were the military, and
the East Germans provided the security.
All communists. But of course not
everyone wanted that. And this Frenchman
hid people in his basement and moved them on, obviously at risk to
himself. And he just enjoyed life, he
and his wife. And it was my joy to know
them.
Thank you for allowing me to
reflect on some of the wonderful people God has brought around me. There are great people out there in this
terrible world. Wonderful people. I could keep writing and giving
examples. Keep your eyes on Jesus and
always be alert to see the treasures he puts in your path. And while always being alert and discerning,
don’t be so quick to judge everyone you meet.
We just don’t know most of what other people are really doing or what is
going on in anyone else’s life.
Keep Your Eyes on Jesus!
(March
2016)
Copyright © 2016 by John
Newlin
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