Every Saturday morning when I was a boy, I would wake up, head to the living room, and find the TV channels with my favorite cartoons. Space Ghost, Jonny Quest, Scooby Doo, and especially Looney Toons would occupy those early weekend hours while I ate my peanut butter toast and chocolate milk, made with Quik powdered chocolate, of course!
The one thing that all of these cartoons had in common was the assurance that, in the end, a hero would win the day. Whether it was Scooby and Shaggy bumbling their way into solving a mystery, or Bugs outwitting Elmer Fudd, or the Road Runner, who never spoke a word, getting the best of Wile E. Coyote, every cartoon had a character who I knew would come out on top and, more importantly, stood for “good.”
I suppose you could throw in school readings of The Odyssey, Huckleberry Finn, and To Kill A Mockingbird as other sources that taught me about being a hero. I learned that a hero was a character who was responsible for something good happening, and especially when that “something good” was sparing someone else from a dark fate. I discovered that being a hero was an aspiration of mine, one that involved helping others in difficult circumstances, especially when they were self-made, and that this could be a full-time job where payment wasn't just a paycheck every couple of weeks, but also the gratitude of the people I helped.
I learned, quickly, as a teacher and as a school administrator, that opportunities for seemingly heroic effort abounded. It turned out, conveniently, that these saving actions rarely took great physical strength or enormous intellect. What they did take was a great deal of empathy and a willingness to forgive another person’s human frailty. While I couldn’t lift burning cars off the railroad tracks as a train was barreling toward me, I could appreciate the inane actions of a 15-year-old and realize that I had been in their place myself, not so long ago. I found that teaching, rather than punishing, was frequently the better way forward. It still amazes me how many times, as people violated rules where the only victim was the rule itself, other people would still cry out for “justice” or “fairness,” or simply that punishment demanded to be meted out. In those cases, my heroic instinct was the ultimate form of empathy. When we see others enduring their fate because of their human stupidity, or even unjust or tragic circumstances, the desire we have to alleviate pain, to provide aid and comfort, is the best form of our heroism. It seems that compassion can, at least occasionally, teach wisdom as well as pain can.
Opportunities for heroism often pop up in situations and with people where we feel the least inclined to be heroic. Frequently, I would find myself saving teachers from themselves after they had created issues for themselves by demanding to exert power over a student, rather than influence. I can recall sitting in conferences with parents and teachers where the misbehavior of the student wasn’t in question, but rather the teacher’s elevated zeal for “winning” a perceived dispute with the child.
The first shift in mindset that I asked teachers to make was to accept that we adults never needed to argue or debate with students; by virtue of our age, experience, and presumably, our maturity, we always managed and led our classrooms from a position of relative strength. It turns out that the only time we didn’t have that strength and the authority that came with it was when we gave it away. By simply acting thoughtfully, focusing on helping our students become kinder, smarter, and wiser people, we can claim the hero’s mantle without much effort.
Even when teachers had difficulty doing this–and believe me, there is “that” student in virtually every teacher’s life–I encouraged my colleagues to swallow their pride and see the student for who they could become. I was willing to be the “bad guy, in most cases, so that teachers could go back to students and tell them things like, “You know, Mr. Kline wanted to throw the book at you, but I talked him out of it.” Even if they couldn’t be sincere in their forgiveness in the moment, the teachers who took the opportunity to be seen as an advocate, or even a savior for a student, were able to capitalize in the future by having given the student a second chance.
This same kind of dynamic played out in my family. My wife often interceded for my children or me, depending on who needed forgiveness. None of this, by the way, should be construed as an avoidance of consequences, but rather a balancing of the need for those consequences with the need for continued growth. When it comes to pruning plants, for example, we don’t cut an entire tree down to the ground; we only trim the unruly, unhealthy, or inconveniently placed branches so that the tree can continue to grow fruitfully. Anne is naturally good at this, with a natural sense of the heroic. She has a heart that easily forgives, one that does not thrive on conflict, and that seeks to put others in a position to be their best.
My son and I had a challenging kindergarten year together. Among the challenges: he fell into a toilet after “Mr. Germ” visited his classroom and told the assembled 5-year-olds that toilet flush handles were virtual founts of putrid death. Aaron and a friend huddled around a toilet (there were no urinals available) and decided that the best way to honor Mr. Germ and still do what their parents always told them to do —” Flush the Toilet!!” — was to stand on the toilet seat and flush with their foot. Alas…Aaron’s sense of balance is only as good as his father’s, so he slipped off the toilet seat into the yellowed water. I’ll let you fill in the rest of the story. Mrs. Allen, Aaron’s guardian angel of a teacher, met me in the car rider line, handed me a baggie with two wet socks, and whispered to me as Aaron climbed into the passenger seat, “Just love your son.” That’s pretty heroic.
These kinds of circumstances were more of a norm than I was comfortable with, so Anne spent a good bit of time showing and teaching me how to be a forgiving, compassionate hero. Even in a yhear when it was necessary to come up with a family motto like “We don’t lie, cheat, steal, or hit,” my wife and Mrs. Allen expended a great deal of effort helping me learn the value of grace, compassion, and mercy, and showing me how those qualities could transform me into a hero for Aaron and his sister.
Both of the kids picked up on this dynamic as well. Their extreme empathy for one another was often put on display as the one who wasn’t in trouble would work to distract me from my anger before I began to administer what might have been, if unchecked, an excessive punishment. Sometimes, there were tear-filled faces all around, especially when consequences were justified. Still, the kindness that they would show each other, a genuine sibling camaraderie, would often be enough to assuage my need for punishment, if not justice, and would help me regain perspective. If you get the impression that I was the one who learned the most from these situations, you wouldn’t be far off.
“Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.” This may be my favorite beatitude, primarily because of the mercy I have received from God and my fellows as I have stumbled through life. Offering mercy to others, especially when it isn’t deserved (if mercy is “deserved,” is it really mercy?), is a key to everyday heroism. Being able to abate our personal need for the pounds of flesh we are owed is a superhuman quality, a heroic quality. Indeed, I think we might be able to make the argument that mercy, and the forgiveness that must precede it, are less “superhuman” and more “supernatural.” I will gladly admit that in the moments when I was able to conjure mercy for my children, my students, or my colleagues, it was less my ability to do so and more certainly the Holy Spirit working in me to accomplish it.
In describing why Jesus the Messiah was and is entirely misunderstood by the world, Robert Farrar Capon wrote about “Right-handed power” and “Left-handed power.” Right-handed power is what we might call brute force, the use of physical, financial, or military strength to accomplish our goals. The gospels paint a picture of how the Jews of Jesus’ day were anticipating a messiah who would come from on high and use right-handed power to defeat the Roman occupiers, setting up David’s throne and ruling the world from Jerusalem. The disciples were not immune to this thinking. Peter chastised Jesus for His talk of dying on the cross, and it seems Judas was hoping for a way to translate Christ as the Messiah into wealth and power for himself. They would both be disappointed in their expectations and would have to deal with the consequences of the truth.
Which leaves us with “left-handed” power, the influence that manifests itself in love, compassion, and forgiveness. This kind of power is just as unexpected today as it was 2,000 years ago. It is a rare thing to see it exercised, which is why our search for heroes who use it is so often a futile one. The rarity of these qualities and the people who use them lend a measure of attractiveness and hope to their use. Heroism that depends on grace, mercy, and forgiveness, for all of its uncommonness, is the very kind that we can all aspire to.
Ryne Sandberg, the Hall of Fame second baseman for the Chicago Cubs, recently died of cancer. He played just at the time I was able to appreciate his on-field heroics most as young men do. He exhibited the kind of right-handed power you might expect from a player of his caliber; he moved with grace as a fielder, he hit home runs, and he hit for average. It was poignant, then, to hear from his teammates that what they treasured most was that in Sandberg’s final conversations with them, he expressed his deep love for them. While he was grateful for their camaraderie and work as teammates, he loved them as friends. These men, all of whom knew the light of fame and the wealth and notoriety that come with it, were brought to tears by the long overdue expression of love they shared with a friend. We don’t have to wait to become heroes, even if we never hit a home run. We can forgive a slight, we can wave someone through a door we are holding, and we can tell our friends and family, and students, and colleagues, how much they mean to us. We can speak of the love we have for them. We can be heroes.