Sometimes We All Really Need a Real Life Superhero

“…a hero is someone who is concerned about other people's well-being, and will go out of his or her way to help them….That person who helps others simply because it should or must be done, and because it is the right thing to do, is indeed without a doubt, a real superhero.”                   

--Stan Lee, American comic book writer, editor and publisher

Who was your very first hero? The man or the woman who thrilled and inspired you, by the life that they led, by the exploits that, in your childhood eyes, seemed somehow superhuman?  

Mine was Carl Yastrzemski, who played left field for the Boston Red through my childhood and well into my adult years. With one mighty swing of the bat, a swing so hard that it seemed to twist his body into a muscle bound knot, Yaz, as he was known, thrilled me as a new baseball fan. His towering home runs would soar over the hard luck opposing team’s outfielder and seemingly always win the game. I thrilled at Yaz’ diving catches, his whole body outstretched in a perfect pose, the ball dropping into the webbing of his glove just so. I’d always copy Yaz’ famous batting stance as a kid in our whiffle-ball tournaments in the back yard.

But eventually I outgrew my hero worship of Yaz. Moved onto new heroes. 

My next hero, absolutely, became the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King Jr. , who attended the very same School of Theology that I did, at Boston University.  While still studying for the ministry, the brave and trail blazing work he did as a pastor—through non-violence and love—lit the flame of the civil rights revolution in our country.  As the tender age of just twenty-six, King led the Birmingham bus boycott. Oh, if only I as a minister, could even begin to approach the difference for the good that King made with his one amazing life.

And you? Do you still have heroes and heroines in your life?

We humans have always needed our heroes and our heroines, people who by the living of their lives, somehow shine brighter, live larger, have an outsized influence for the good upon the world we all live in.  These women and men, mortal and yet somehow more than this too: they matter, both our fictional heroes in the comics and on the screen, and the real ones too. They embody for us the best of human virtues. Strength. Courage. Fearlessness. Wisdom. Compassion.  Commitment. Love. They inspire us to try and live good lives, lives lived not for self alone but always for others too. 

So, it was with such heroism in mind that I witnessed this past weekend—along with millions of other Americans—the unprecedented outpouring of grief at the death of a woman who was absolutely a hero to so many: Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Especially for women, Ginsburg embodied the struggles and the triumphs of what it means to be a woman in our country. Ginsburg blazed a trail of equality and justice for so many: as first in her class of 1954 at Cornell University. As one of only eight females in a class of 500 men at Harvard Law School and the first female member of the Harvard Law Review. Again, first in her class in the 1959 graduating class at Columbia Law School, she also became that school’s first female tenured law professor. And, of course, Ginsburg was the second women appointed to the United States Supreme Court in 1993, where she served with distinction, until her death just last week.

I think one the reasons that Ginsburg’s death resonated so deeply with so many Americans is that we seem to be living now, in 2020, in a time of anti-heroism if you will.  We are living in strange days of great communal challenges when, even as the nation and world cries out for heroes and heroines to lead the way through to the other side of our upheavals, such folks can be very, very hard to find these days. 

Our shared political life has been stripped of idealism in the name of victory at all costs. So many leaders lead now, not through goodness or moral character, but instead through cynicism and dishonesty and egotism and thus bring out the worst in the citizenry, not the best.  And any hero that might emerge from the scrum of daily life in 2020: give those in the media and social media the chance and they will tear down that hero in a heartbeat. 

But still, I need my heroes. We need our cultural and communal heroines. I need to be able to look to others as role models. I need to aspire to be so much more than I might think I am at any given moment. I need to believe and remember that yes, there are still those among us—like Ginsburg—who put country above self and shared prosperity above personal gain. 

Heroes. Heroines.

Thank you RBG for reminding us that there are still those in this life who shine bright as a beacon for the many. I suppose now many of us will have to find new heroes and heroines to emulate, with your death.

Yes, even in 2020: I still need my heroes. We all do.

 

  

 

 

  

   

 

  

    

 

Even In The Midst of All The Craziness: Seek and Find Serenity

“Everything passes, nothing remains. Understand this, loosen your grip and find serenity.”

--Surya Das, Buddhist poet, activist and author

Serenity. Peace. If I look for it, really look for it, I can find it.

Freshly sliced summer tomatoes and chilled mozzarella cheese, with a vinaigrette drizzle.  Sweet corn, the kind that peaks in flavor and abundance just about now. And a cheese burger, hot off the grill, pink and juicy, medium rare, just how I like it. The company as well, my Mom and brother, the three of us sharing a meal and conversation and connection on the last Thursday night of the last unofficial weekend of summer, a balmy night, peepers still peeping away as background music.

Then on my drive back home, there was a beautiful pink and red sunset too, those colors pushing up against a backdrop of dark clouds, the contrast so stark, the light so soft. It was the kind of dusk that somehow brings a day to a fitting end, with quiet and natural beauty.

And when I got home, Japanese baseball on the TV—that’s brought me joy this summer and so to end a really good day I watched the Orix Buffalos take on the Fukuoka Soft Bank Hawks in the Nippon Professional Baseball League. I only caught the ninth inning but it was a tight game and even though I could not understand the commentary, it was still baseball, baseball with a live crowd in the seats, actually cheering. Something I have so missed in this odd summer, a summer that for the first time in so long, I didn’t attend a game.

That was my serene Thursday evening. A few hours when I found some peace of mind, some peace of heart, the peace of God.

Serenity, peace: times in this life, when this life, just feels good somehow, even perfect in its presentation, there, right there for the taking and the enjoying. Times when my racing mind slows down and my racing heart relaxes.  but…only if I am fully present to whatever graceful moment the universe is giving to me. If I do not pay attention, if I let the weight of my anxieties take me away from whatever is right in front of me, I won’t find that peace of mind. Won’t know serenity.

One of my favorite prayers and one of the most popular of well-known prayers is the Serenity Prayer, attributed to the American theologian Reinhold Niebuhr.  It begins, “God grant me the serenity, to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”  On my really good days, when I actually realize all the simple blessings of this life, even in the midst of all the brokenness, I actually get to that serene place.  A state of mind where I am able to see just what I do have ultimate and final control over—my attitude towards everything—and that which I do not have control over.

Just about everything else.

Acceptance does not mean I capitulate to the sharper edges of life, edges we are all experiencing right now in this year that has been a collective train wreck in so many ways.  COVID. The election. The economy. The struggle for racial justice. How the church I serve will survive in the midst of the pandemic. The winter months looming ahead, long and cold months where I might have to return to inside isolation. 

In the largest sense I do not have control over these happenings. And when I forget this truth: when I brood and am filled with worry and watch the news obsessively and grow dark in my view of the world, and become cynical or even worse, apathetic in the face of life, well…there goes my serenity. Being centered in myself and God. Trusting somehow that this too shall pass  and that 2020 will give way to better days.

Yes, I, all of us: we can and must do our parts in each of these places where we actually do have some personal control. We can be careful about COVID for ourselves and loved ones and neighbors and even strangers. Vote and be active civically. Work for a country where we are reconciled as brothers and sisters, regardless of race. I can do the best I can as a pastor. You can do the best in whatever your work is. We all can start planning now for how we will spiritually and emotionally survive what may be a very long winter.

But finally, I also have to cede ultimate control power these events, over all of life itself, to a power much greater than me, and trust that this power is working through all things for the good. In those rare times when I actually get to such a state of mind and heart and soul: that’s when I find serenity. And perhaps, that’s when you can find serenity too.

Serenity: not just in the more dramatic or obvious moments or of life but even more so in the basic and good gifts of life. Like a backyard barbeque with the people you love on an otherwise non-descript and unremarkable September Thursday evening.

That is good enough for me.  That is where I find some serenity. 

And so, in the days ahead, these crazy and unprecedented and wild days, may you seek, may you find and may you know serenity too.  

      

 

          

           

 

 

Now More Than Ever: Thank You Teachers For All You Do!

“The best teachers are those who show you where to look but don’t tell you what to see.”

--Alexandra K. Trenfor

I am who I am this day because of the teachers God blessed me with in this life.

Teachers: who opened my mind and heart to new knowledge. Teachers: who brought out of me talents that I did not even realize I possessed. Teachers: who saw something in me I could not see myself. Teachers: who with patient love, reminded me that I was so much more than I might I think I was, at any given moment.

I often get this way in late August, wistful and a bit nostalgic, as I remember all those first days of school, from childhood into young adulthood; as I recall the many teachers who taught me. Even though it’s been more than thirty years since I sat in a school classroom or studied for a degree, when early September hits, I long for the heady mix of anticipation and anxiety that always marks the return to education.

I can still smell those pink erasers from elementary school. Can still feel the newness of an  unmarked notebook, all those blank pages just waiting to be filled up. Can still remember the excitement I felt when, on the very first day of class, my new teacher walked in the door.  What would I learn from them? How would the study of this new subject change me? Just what would this new teacher be like?

And this September!?

Man, do I feel for all the teachers in the COVID world we now live in.  For them, the beginning of a new semester or term in the fall of 2020 is filled with so many unknowns and so much at stake and so much worry and so many questions. Can I teach again in a physical classroom and be safe and healthy? Will the young people in my care thrive in virtual learning or will they stumble? Will parents be supportive and encouraging or critical and discouraging? Will the administration have my back or will I be out there, all alone? Am I appreciated?    

Here’s an idea: let’s actually thank the teachers in our lives this day, the brave and dedicated women and men who teach our sons and daughters, who taught us; the ones whom we trust with our nation’s most precious resource: children and youth. Right now, they may have about the toughest job in this world. 

So, thank you Miss Carol, my kindergarten teacher. Even though on graduation day I still could not tell time by the half hour or tie my shoes by myself, your care and patience made my very first days in the classroom fun.

Thank you Miss Richards, my high school French teacher. How did you put up with me!? “Je ne sais pas” (“I do not know”) was the only phrase I seemed to learn in your class, along with “ferme la fenetre” (“close the window”) and “la pomme de terre” (potatoe). I goofed around as a cover for how much the French language perplexed me and yet you never raised your voice, and even helped me squeak by with a “C”. 

Thank you Professor Beck: I didn’t know how much I needed to be an Old Testament major in graduate school until you opened the pages of that ancient text and made it come alive for me, with how much you loved and honored the sacred word. You are still with me in every sermon I preach.

Which teacher do you need to thank this day? Who was the teacher that inspired you? Loved you and believed in you, like no one else? Who is the teacher that helped your child realize their potential? Who was the font of knowledge, the educator, that made you want to learn, sparked in you a passion for a subject or an idea or a career?

Teachers and good teaching matters. Teachers, the best ones, shape souls and minds and hearts. In my faith tradition the one title, the most honored title, reserved for Jesus was “rhabbouni”, which in the ancient Aramaic tongue, simply means “teacher”.

So, to my teacher friends this new school year: to Jill the kindergarten teacher, and Jen the pre-school teacher, and Kelley the pre-school director, and Alison the high school librarian, and Adam, who teaches the blind and Maria, who works with autistic children: I am praying for you and rooting for you and thanking God for you, and for all that you do. For all that teachers do, every single day.

Thank you. Thank you! And Miss Richards? Merci beaucoup!!