I don’t think we’ll ever get to a stage where heroes are out of vogue.
Overtly or subconsciously there’s an encouragement to look up to folks. Perhaps it starts as a child and your first role models are the folks you look at who define and exemplify what life is like. You see them and they influence and shape your life and in that way for however brief the season, they are your heroes.
One of the tough seasons to go through in life, then, is that phase where you get to ask questions for yourself however subtle. Questions like: what happens when you see flaws and failings in those heroes you had dedicated so much of your life to pursue?
For some there is a sense in which if someone has been presented as worthy of following and then they show some serious flaws, there’s a tendency to completely reject them. Indeed such a realisation can cause something like a trauma. It’s like discovering that the entire thing you had been following was a myth or worse still a deliberate deception that suckered you into something harmful.
That can leave you feeling exposed and exploited. In that state of being vulnerable and bereft feelings of despair and hopelessness. That can lead to a resolute commitment to never being held in anyone’s sway like that again. You view it as a sign of maturity on your part to remain sceptical of charismatic personalities. You see it as being wiser to remain guarded from any and every effort made to captivate you. You even take the safer option of checking out things, taking out the things that you like and not taking everything and adding it to the collection you’re building even if all the pieces don’t fit and some are contradictory.
Whether that’s as good a way to approach things as it appears is worth exploring in itself.
The hero thing, though, isn’t something worth throwing away and there’s a reason for its enduring appeal. There is a way to live and that way is seen in the examples put before us. From the Christian perspective, that’s the whole point of discipleship – the Way, the Truth and the Life is modelled in Jesus. He is our hero – we look at His example in those moment preserved in record and we endeavour to follow it. There’s recognition that this in itself is a tall order, but those that did follow Him acknowledged their responsibility in setting an example that point people to the Example – mini-heroes as indicators to the real hero.
When there is a role model worth following it makes the exercise worthwhile and it has the factors in-built to help avoid the traps of devoting ourselves to personalities and routes that will lead to betrayal, disappointment and disillusionment. That takes time to develop and there are myths that desperately need debunking, but the exercise is certainly worthwhile for the life that emerges as result.
(Photo by Jelleke Vanooteghem on Unsplash)
For His Name’s Sake
Shalom
C. L. J. Dryden
Life With CD 