“…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.
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