The Real Deal

Your Mercy is limitless.

Your Encouragement for my soul is beyond expression.

Your Righteousness is our only desire.

Your Reality is the basis of all human understanding.

Your Years are infinitely uncountable.

 

Your Courage smothers the fear that emanates from Hades.

Your Heart holds the love of the universe; yet there is still room for more.

Your Remembrance of my sin is no more, as if it never was.

Your Instincts create reality.

Your Strength covers all of my weakness.

Your Timing is exact and perfectly planned.

Your Motives are pure.

Your Authority is permanent and eternal.

Your Son is our road to salvation.

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Heroes

Heroes

“Dudley Do-Right, you are my hero!” was the all-encompassing praise of Nell, the ever so sweet girlfriend want-to-be of the good mannered, yet bumbling Canadian Mountie.  Dudley’s goal in life, at least on the 1970’s cartoon, was to be Nell’s hero. Not a bad goal.  We humans have, since the beginning of recorded history, searched for, and identified with a hero figure; someone that we want to emulate.  Heroes are larger than life, they overcome great obstacles; heroes are fast, smart, typically good looking, wise, caring, brutal when dealing with a bad guy; yet humble, and kind to birds, kittens and bunny rabbits.  Everyone wants to be a hero (at least secretly), and identifies with someone living, or from the past, that they call hero.  Warriors have typically made good heroes for little boys, pitting good versus evil at terrible odds; but somehow good always triumphs.  To be a hero it is important to win big and often.  Explorers also commonly fall into the hero category, especially those who travel in either a wooden ship with many large sails, or a spacecraft with a single large engine; these explorers set out for places where “no one has gone before.”  It is also important for a hero not to go to the same place over and over again, but to seek out exciting and dangerous new places.  It is easier to be a hero if you are the creation in a book or movie, where life has a script to follow, and the writer can make certain that immoral choices are never made; where compromise is unknown and everyone (except for the bad guys) follows the rules.  Life is much harder for the hero who lives, breathes, and makes decisions for themselves.  We cannot just erase a bad drawing and start anew; real heroes, and their worshipers, must live with the consequences of a corrupt page.

We also like to expand the life of a hero into that of a role model.  Not only will we praise the hero, and dream of them, but we will try to live just like our hero.  “I want to be just like (fill in the blank) when I grow up.”  John F Kennedy was a charismatic leader with true vision, and a great love for his country.  Martin Luther King envisioned a better way to find the promise land, here at home.  Neil Armstrong walked on the moon – we all saw it on TV.  My list of heroes and role models included these people, and many more – sports figures, local celebrities, and of course, my Mother and Father.  My parents were not always the hero in the moment, it was as I grew older, and had children of my own that their heroism became apparent. 

Also, as I have aged, the reality that a hero / role model was imperfect has become abundantly clear.  Heroes are people, and people are flawed; that was not a fact when I was ten, but it is now.  Still, a person became my hero because of something specific that they were, or did:  best batting average, first on the moon, amazing speech, or the finest example of character I have ever seen.  Being human does not remove the heroic achievement, it gives it perspective.  So, to cope with the reality of human heroes, we filter out the corrupt pages and only view the ones that fit the profile of our hero: kind, strong, wise, caring, decisive, moral, and fearless – a perfect role model as defined within our very human mind.  The other pages: immoral, thief, liar, cheat, adulterer – they are torn out and cast aside, because they do not fit a hero’s mold.  It is a very natural compromise, arising from the need to have a hero in our life, and the realization that a hero cannot be perfect in all things. I still keep heroes, who are human and very flawed; because I need them, and I think they need me.  But, I realize, as I hope they do, that we are all a part of humanity, so perfection never enters into the conversation. 

When I have a need for a flawless hero, I get on my knees and look up.  I do this daily to remind myself, and Him, that perfection found its way to earth just once, and left an everlasting impression on all of us.

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The View From My Car Window

I spent much of this week in Canada, near Toronto.  It is an absolutely beautiful area: rolling green hills, with strands of purple and yellow wildflowers winding between the small lakes and tall trees.  Autumn is gently taking stride; the trees wore bright yellow leaves, and every so often a deep red would highlight the season.  Rounded stone walls surrounded the pitched steeples of old, yet still vibrant churches at many of the four way stop signs as we drove through the countryside.  The square stone construction and arched stain glass windows of the churches reminded me of a time when days were filled with hard work on the family farm, and the nights with a fire, blanket, and a good book to end the day.  Nostalgic memories of what were, or of what I envisioned it to be, filled my mind; and I freely let it pour in, drenching my subconscious with thoughts of all that was good, and filtering out anything that wasn’t.

Our car sped down the two lane Canadian road in metric time; the signs telling me in kilometers how much further until we reached the reality of the city, where grey concrete obscured the yellow of the trees, and red was the color of the light at intersections.   The transition from the tranquility of the country, to the attempted beauty of the city was slow, like a small leak deflating a bicycle tire. Make no mistake, Toronto is an amazing city, with more to offer than most, but it cannot compare to the land that surrounds it.

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