The Incredible Hulk

As a young lad growing up the 1970’s and 1980’s I loved the superheroes I used to see on American television programs. We had only three rv channeks to choose from back then, so we all watch the same things and we would act it our at gme and in the playground at school, My favourite was the Incredible Hulk, the version played by Bill Bixby and Lou Faringo. I was the younger brother and often felt physically weak, in a family of giants, so I would dream of being big and strong like the Hulk. My older brother used to call me the Incredible Sulk. He would wind me up until eventually I would explode, but I could not win. I indetified with the gis sdaness, loneliness and frustration.

There were many memorable lines and themes in “The Incredible Hulk”, one of the classics being “Mr McGee don’t make me angry, you wouldn’t like me when I am angry.” It had two memorable theme tunes too, the opening one and the one that closed it each week, a beautiful piano piece titled “The Lonely Man”. A sad and poignant piece of music that would bring a tear to the hardest of hearts.

I was talking with a dear friend the other day, we are the same age, and she mentioned the theme tune. Sge described Dr David Banner, the Hulk in human form, as a lonely wounded man wandering on. Each week he walks away from a situation alone, unsure of how he really feels, alone with no one to share his life with, for who could accept someone with the monster, buried but not so deeply inside of him. So on he wanders, a vagabond, but one who does good deeds though; he cries out against injustice and goes green with anger at bullies and he stands up and defends the weak, but still he is alone in the world, a feral creature.

My friend continued…”Maybe he is ok with that. Being useful and knowing we have helped goes along way but we have our own pots too, we can’t fill them by giving love out all the time, we have to be courageous enough to let it in too.”

She really made me listen. I remember thinking anyone can be a hero and do heroic acts, but courage requires us to live with a vulnerable heart. The wanderer, never stays long enough, in the company of anyone, to live with their hearts cracked open. This maybe ok for superheroes, but we humans need courage, we need heart. Doing good is a wonderful thing, but courage requires letting others love you too.

Dr David Banner set out seeking a cure for what ailed him, carrying his wounds with him, his lost wife who he did not have the strength to save and the monster within him that he cannot control. He wants to be incognito, but that is difficult when he keeps on transforming into a giant green monster who smashes everything up. As I was thinking of this I remembered other similar tv shows I loved as a child, such as the A-Team and The Fugitive. People in exile going about their business, on the run and doing good for others. Such characters brought healing to others, they help solve their troubles, they stand up for injustice, but they do not know healing themselves. They don’t form roots, or community, they journey on alone, vagabonds and fugitives, forever rolling stones.

This is an ancient story, the human cannon is full of such tales. This is the “Wounded Healer” Mythos. A universal tale that runs through human history. Like Chiron, they can bring healing and solve the troubles of others, but they cannot heal themselves and they continue walking on, or in Chiron’s case limping on. They don’t stay anywhere long enough to let healing come to them. so they journet on, forever seeking, all alone.

Heroes are easy, the stories are everywhere and every hero is flawed, cracked and wounded. They can be found in every single human tradition. They have existed ever since we began telling stories around the camp fire. Ancient Greek and Roman mythology spoke of Aneaus, Hercules, Odysseus and Theseus. The Hebrew Scriptures describe the heroic deeds of David, Joseph, Moses and Samson. Similar stories can be found in every culture. They describe heroic figures who stood up for righteousness and made a difference in their time and place. They were journeyers, but how many of them stood still for very long? How many formed roots?

The stories we tell today are full of heroic characters too. We only need look at the recent remaking of the comic strip super heroes such as Spiderman, Batman, The X-Men, The Avengers or Star Wars, Harry Potter, Dr Who, the Lord of the Rings, James Bond, Indiana Jones, Buffy the Vampire Slayer. These are modern day heroes, but they are no different in character to the heroes of ancient times.

The heroes of ancient times were endowed with great strength and were often descendants of the gods; while the modern day heroes tend to be superhuman mutations. Both the ancient and modern seem beyond the reach of mere mortals.

But do we really need heroes? Maybe we should not bemoan the fact, as “The Stranglers” sang, that there are “no more heroes anymore”. I’m not convinced. What we need are people of courage. We need humans, mortal humans who have the courage to live fully alive in life. Ordinary folk like us. Fools like us. People who have the courage to know themselves, to be true to their humanity..

The ancient Greeks believed that the ultimate aim for a person of virtue was to know themselves. “The unexamined life is not worth living.” And other aphorism have been heard throughout time, or to quote Shakespeare “to thine own self be true” Now “Know thyself” has been understood in many ways but ultimately to know oneself is to know that you are mortal and live in such a way, fully a part of mortal life. We are not God’s we are mortals, we bleed, we wound and we can bring healing to one another if we can find the courage to live with one another with hearts cracked open.

Know yourself, know that you are mortal.

I remember sometime back I was visiting “Our Mandy” She was out, so while I waited, I chatted with her husband, my brother in-law and my niece. In the middle of the conversation my niece Aimee asked what the difference between heroism and courage was? Dave struggled to answer and I thought about it for a short while and then said something like “heroism is a single act, a momentary thing that a person does on the spur of the moment without really thinking about the consequences, it is also something that is recognised by others; whereas courage seems a quiet consistent ordinary activity that almost goes unnoticed and is rarely glorified. It's about sticking at something despite the presence of real fear. Courage is something that materialises in the ordinary.”

Courage is about life, the ordinary life, real life, it’s about living fully alive. It has nothing to do with heroism and certainly not super heroes. Courage is the very essence of our mortal being, it is our daily bread. Anais Nin once said “Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.” Courage is about living by heart, fully alive. I’m sure we can all think of moments when our own lives have either expanded or shrunk in proportion to our courage, when we have felt more or less alive. Courage formed from the French “Cuer” meaning heart. To have courage is to have strength of heart. Courage is a consistent and sustaining love, it is a spiritual energy that sustains us in sickness and in health in loss or disappointment. It is this that brings healing not only to ourselves but those we share this life with and ultimately our world, but it is a two way street. Courage is as much about receiving as giving love.

As Howard Thurman said:

“...There is a quiet courage that comes from an inner spring of confidence in the meaning and significance of life. Such courage is an underground river, flowing far beneath the shifting events of one's experience, keeping alive a thousand little springs of action. It has neither trumpets to announce it nor crowds to applaud; it is best seen in the lives of men and women who do their work from day to day without hurry and without fever. It is the patient waiting of the humble person whose integrity keeps his spirit sweet and his heart strong. Wherever one encounters it, a lift is given to life and vast reassurance invades the being. To walk with such a person in the daily round is to keep company with the angels"

Courage is a way of living and breathing it’s about living openly and vulnerably in the world. It’s about walking with and not walking away from. It is this that brings healing not only to others, but also ourselves. It is courage that allows us to stay open to life, to give love, but also to accept it. There is no power relationship in love, something we ministers need to remember. It is courage that is formed in the heart; it is courage that is the ultimate act of faith; it is courage that keeps us open to life so that we can walk on together. As the song goes, “It’s not where you run, but who you run with.”

Yes we can all be heroes, we can perform heroic acts, we can all be heroes even if it is just for one day. Courage though is something more, something deeper, something that comes from the heart, from that place deep within each of us. It’s about walking side by side with others in and through love. It’s about loving and living our mortal lives, with hearts wide open giving and receiving healing love.

It’s not so much about journeying on alone, running from or running to, it’s about walking side by side, it’s about being rooted in reality…You see courage is about sending down roots into reality and being alive to our finite lives, an element of the interconnected whole.

I will end with the following words on courage by J. Ruth Gendler.

“Courage has roots. She sleeps on a futon on the floor and lives close to the ground. Courage looks you straight in the eye. She is not impressed with power trippers, and she knows first aid. Courage is not afraid to weep, and she is not afraid to pray, even when she is not sure who she is praying to. When courage walks, it is clear that she has made the journey from loneliness to solitude. The people who told me she is stern were not lying; they just forgot to mention that she is also kind.”

Courage: We can be heroes every day

One thing about the modern multi-media age is that it throws up instant heroes. People can do a heroic act in some part of the world and if it is caught on film or the person is filmed shortly afterwards within hours it can have gone viral and people all over the world soon get know of their heroic deed. Well such a thing happened last week.

I'm sure you heard about  Charles Ramsey?

He became famous by responding to screams he heard coming from a home in his neighbourhood. He thought it was a domestic dispute and broke into the home to free three women who were held captive there. The three women turned out to be Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight. They had been missing for ten years and were presumed dead. They had in fact been held prisoner in the Cleveland home that Ramsey had rescued them from. Ramsey did not consider himself a hero and said he was only doing what any right minded citizen would do and certainly did not feel he ought to rewarded for his actions and any rewards ought to be given to the three women. Nevertheless he has become a modern day hero and has been held up to acclaim all over the world. He has become a modern day hero, if only for one day.

Heroes can be found in every single human tradition. They have existed ever since we began telling stories around the camp fire. Ancient Greek and Roman mythology spoke of Aneaus, Hercules, Odysseus and Theseus. The Hebrew Scriptures describe the heroic deeds of David, Joseph, Moses and Samson. Similar stories can be found in every culture. They describe heroic figures who stood up for righteousness and made a difference in their time and place.

The stories we tell today are full of heroic characters. We only need look at the recent remaking of the comic strip super heroes such as Spiderman, Batman, The X-Men, or Star Wars, Harry Potter, Dr Who, the Lord of the Rings, James Bond, Indiana Jones, Buffy the Vampire Slayer. These are modern day heroes, but they are no different in character to the heroes of ancient times.

The heroes of ancient times were endowed with great strength and were often descendants of the gods; while the modern day heroes tend to be superhuman mutations. Both the ancient and modern seem beyond the reach of mere mortals. Even momentary acts of heroism seem to be outside the scope of ordinary people. Charles Ramsay has become a modern day hero because he did something outside of the norm and also reacted to what he did in such a humble and almost startled way.

So is the song true, can we all be heroes just for one day?

I was recently chatting with my brother law. In the middle of the conversation my niece Aimee asked what the difference between heroism and courage was? Dave struggled to answer and I thought about it for a short while and then said something like “heroism is a single act a momentary thing that a person does on the spur of the moment without really thinking about the consequences, it is also something that is recognised by others. Where as courage seems a quiet consistent ordinary activity that almost goes unnoticed and is rarely glorified. It's about sticking at something despite the presence of real fear. As I see it courage is something that materialises in the ordinary.”

I recently came across the following, it speaks beautifully and powerfully to me about the everyday characteristics of courage:

 "The Art of facing Things" By Mark Nepo

"What people have forgotten is what every salmon knows.  Salmon have much to teach us about the art of facing things.  In swimming up waterfalls, these remarkable creatures seem to defy gravity.  It is an amazing thing to behold.  A closer look reveals a wisdom for all beings who want to thrive.

What the salmon somehow know, is how to turn their underside—from centre to tail—into the powerful current coming at them, which hits them squarely, and the impact then launches them out and further out and up the waterfall; to which their reaction is, again, to turn their underside back into the powerful current that, of course, again hits them squarely; and this successive impact launches them further out and up the waterfall.  Their leaning into what they face, bounces them further and further along their unlikely journey.

From a distance, it seems magical, as if these mighty fish are flying, conquering their element.  In actuality, they are deeply at one with their element, vibrantly and thoroughly engaged in a compelling dance of turning-toward-and-being-hit-squarely that moves them through water and air to the very source of their nature.

In terms useful to the life of the spirit, the salmon are constantly faithful in exposing their underside to the current coming at them.  Mysteriously, it is the physics of this courage that enables them to move through life, as they know it, so directly.  We can learn from this very active paradox; for we, too, must be as faithful to living in the open if we are to stay real in the face of our daily experience.  In order not to be swept away by what the day brings, we too, must find a way to lean into the forces that hit us so squarely.

The salmon offer us a way to face truth without shutting down.  They show us how leaning into our experience, though we don’t like the hit, moves us on.  Time and again, though we’d rather turn away, it is the impact of being revealed, through our willingness to be vulnerable; that enables us to experience both mystery and grace”

Courage in many ways is the essence of life, maybe it is our daily bread. Anais Nin once said “Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.” I think that there is something very powerful in these nine simple words. I’m sure we can all think of moments when our own lives have either expanded or shrunk in proportion to our courage. Courage itself comes from the French root “Cuer” meaning heart. To have courage is to have strength of heart. Courage is a consistent and sustaining love, it is a spiritual energy that sustains us in sickness and in health in loss or disappointment.

Life shrinks or expands in proportion to the size and inclusiveness of our vision and our heart; life shrinks or expands in service of high and noble ideals that allows life to evolve to a higher plain. It is not just about risking everything and overcoming fear, that may well be bravery or even heroism, but I'm not sure it's courage. Many people risk and sacrifice their lives but not always in the service of love and life, they do so in a destructive way that is against life. Such people are fearless, but I’m not sure that they are courageous.

So how do we know if what we are doing is expanding or shrinking life?

Well during the 3^rd century the theologian Origin came up with a two part test to determine whether a person was interpreting scripture rightly. I think that we can expand this same test and apply it to how we live our lives in 21^st century Britain. Origin’s formula claims that our course of action must always meet two criteria it must be both useful to us and at the same time worthy of God.

This to me seems to be the essence of courage it must be useful to humanity and at the same time worthy of God. To have courage is to have strength of heart and to live from our hearts in our ordinary everyday activities.

Howard Thurman said the following on "Courage"

"There is a quiet courage that comes from an inner spring of confidence in the meaning and significance of life. Such courage is an underground river, flowing far beneath the shifting events of one's experience, keeping alive a thousand little springs of action. It has neither trumpets to announce it nor crowds to applaud; it is best seen in the lives of men and women who do their work from day to day without hurry and without fever. It is the patient waiting of the humble person whose integrity keeps his spirit sweet and his heart strong. Wherever one encounters it, a lift is given to life and vast reassurance invades the being. To walk with such a person in the daily round is to keep company with the angels"

Courage is a way of living and breathing it’s about living openly and vulnerably in the world. It is about bringing this attitude of Origin’s into life itself, it needs to be useful to us and worthy of God. We can bring this attitude into any situation, even the most difficult. It is not just present in the middle of a crisis when all is going wrong it is also there living and breathing as life returns to normal at the end of a crisis as we start to rebuild life when the storms have blown away. Courage comes in those ordinary acts of love as we walk slowly through life. It is courage that allows us to learn that even when life has betrayed us, love is still present. 

It is courage that allows us to stay open to life even when the storms are really blowing. It is courage that is formed in the heart; it is courage that is the ultimate act of faith; it is courage that keeps us open to life so that we can live in ways that are useful to everyone and worthy of God.

Yes we can all be heroes, we can perform heroic acts, we can all be heroes even if it is just for one day. Courage though is something more, something deeper, something that comes from the heart, from that place deep within each of us...it is something that has to be useful to life and worthy of God.

I’d like to end this little chip of a blog with the following words on courage by J. Ruth Gendler.

“Courage has roots. She sleeps on a futon on the floor and lives close to the ground. Courage looks you straight in the eye. She is not impressed with power trippers, and she knows first aid. Courage is not afraid to weep, and she is not afraid to pray, even when she is not sure who she is praying to. When courage walks, it is clear that she has made the journey from loneliness to solitude. The people who told me she is stern were not lying; they just forgot to mention that she is also kind.”

Mothers: The True Olympians

Today is Mothering Sunday or Mother’s day. For most of us it is a day of joy; a day set a-side to celebrate the gift of motherhood. That said this is not the case for everyone. For some it will be a day tinged with sadness as they remember the mum’s they have lost, who are no longer here. For some mothers it is a time to remember lost children, either through un-reconcilable differences or deaths dark shadow. This day I will be remembering those mothers.

I will also be remembering those mothers’s whose children are away at war and who worry daily about them. I will also think of those of us who have never born children who have never experienced that gift, due to a variety of circumstances. I will also remember those, who for whatever reason, find their relationships with their own mothers or their own children difficult, for who today may bring up painful and difficult emotions...I will pause this morning and hold those for whom today will be a difficult and painful day. I will then celebrate motherhood, perhaps life's greatest gift.

A new member of the congregations I serve recently gave me the following piece...It is beautiful...

The young mother set her foot on the path of life. "Is this the long way?" she asked.

The guide said, "Yes, and the way is hard. You will be old before you reach the end of it. But the end will be better than the beginning."


But the young mother was happy, and she could not believe that anything could be better than these years.

So she played with her children, gathered flowers for them along the way, and bathed them in the clear streams. As the sun shone on them, the young mother cried, "Nothing could ever be lovelier than this."


Then the night came ... and the storm ... and the path became dark. The children shook with fear and cold. The mother drew them close to her and covered them with her mantle.


The children said, "Mother, we are not afraid, for you are near. No harm can come to us."

Then morning came. There was a hill ahead, and the mother and her children climbed it and grew weary. She would frequently tell the children, "Keep your patience because we are almost there."


So the children continued to climb. When they reached the top, they said, "Mother, we would not have done it without you."


When the mother laid down at night, she looked up at the stars and thought, "This is a better day than the last, for my children have learned fortitude in the face of hardness. Yesterday I gave them courage. Today I have given them strength."

The next day, strange clouds appeared which darkened the earth ... clouds of war, hate, and evil. As the children groped and stumbled, the mother said, "Look up! Lift your eyes to the light!"

The children looked. They saw above the clouds, an everlasting glory, and it guided them beyond the darkness.

That night, the mother said, " This is the best day of all, for I have shown my children God."

The days went on, and the weeks, and the months, and the years. The mother grew old and she was little and bent over. But her children were tall and strong, and walked with courage.

When the way was rough, they lifted her, for she was as light as a feather. At last they came to the top of a hill. They could see a shining road with a golden gate that opened wide.

The mother said, "I have reached the end of my journey. I now know that the end is better than the beginning, for my children can walk alone, and their children after them."

The children said, "You will always walk with us, Mother, even when you have gone through the gates.

They stood and watched her as she went on alone. The gates closed after her. The children said, "We cannot see her, but she is still with us. A mother like ours is more than a memory. She is a living presence."

Our mother is always with us. She's the whisper of the leaves as we walk down the street. She's the smell of bleach in our freshly laundered socks. She's the cool hand on our brow when we're not feeling well.

Our Mother lives inside our laughter. She's crystallized in every tear drop we shed.

She's the place we came from ... our first home. She's the map we follow with every step we take.

She's our first love and our first heartbreak, and nothing on earth can separate us from her ...Not time ... not space ... not even death!

"A Mother's Walk" by Temple Bailey written for Good Housekeeping Magazine in 1933

2012 is Olympic year. To be an Olympic champion takes courage and discipline and sacrifice. The Olympian gives up so much in order to achieve glory, to become the champion. For this the champion is rewarded, they are given the “Gold Medal”. It is also worth noting that they do all that they do for themselves. They do not sacrifice for another. They do not give for loves sake. Yes we honour them with hero status, but should we?

Do we have heroes or maybe heroines closer to home? Maybe there are true Olympians nearby. Do we really need to seek them out? There are those around us who give and sacrifice in courageous and disciplined ways not for themselves but for others. They give purely in love. They give of themselves for others, in so many unimaginable ways. Do they receive medals for their heroic deeds? No I do not believe that they do.

Anyone who gives of themselves in motherhood, male or female is a true Olympian. Today we celebrate the gift of motherhood in this the middle Sunday of Lent. This seems entirely appropriate to me. Lent is after all about courage, it is about discipline and above all it is about self giving love. Motherhood seems to be the perfect example of this.

So today I am celebrating universal motherhood and the love that it so perfectly embodies. Let’s celebrate the mothers we have known and the love that they have naturally shown.

I will end this blog in celebration of motherhood with this prayer I recently found...

A mother's love

“We feel the happiness of true creation when we give birth to a child. The beat of a mother’s heart is wonderful music: bearing the reassurance of dawn, the warmth of noon, the purple sunset. It is in one word, wholeness.”

We come to give thanks for the mothers who bore us and nurtured us; to celebrate the love and kindness we received from them.

We come to give thanks for the children entrusted to us for a little while.

Holy One, Be with us in both joy and the grief they bring.

We come to give thanks for this wonderful creation, for our mother the Earth, and for the glory of life in which we share.

Amen

by Kinga-Reka Szekely, a Unitarian minister and mother in Transylvania


P.S. Can anyone argue with Mr T?

Whatever happened to the heroes?

Social networking has had a bad press of late, especially in the wake of the recent troubles in our cities. We have heard similar complaints in the past. It always amazes when people blame developments in communication for society’s ills. Yet again we have heard the cries that it is modern media that is corrupting our youth. It would appear that we humans are always looking for scapegoats but I don’t think you can really blame our troubles on tools of communication.

I cannot claim to be the most technically savvy of people, I’m well behind most of my contemporaries to be honest. That said I do make good use of some elements. I am a big fan of Facebook. It has enabled me to make many useful connections. One of  my favourite aspects are the daily updates and series of quotes that different friends of mine post on there, they have helped me on many occasions as I have struggled for themes to explore in worship.

The other day a friend posted this quote:

“Don’t speak to me about your religion; first show it to me in how you treat other people. Don't tell me how much you love your God; show me in how much you love all His children. Don't preach to me your passion for your faith; teach me through your compassion for your neighbors. In the end, I'm not as interested in what you have to tell or sell as I am in how you choose to live and give.” ~ Cory Booker, Mayor of Newark, NJ

“Deed’s not Creed’s” is a central claim of my chosen Unitarian faith. We assert that religion is more about how a person lives their life rather than what they do or do not believe in.

As I have stated previously I have signed up to the “Charter for Compassion” and am attempting to promote Karen Armstrong’s “12 Steps to a Compassionate Life” in my ministry. Step 2 suggests that we look at our own world to discover where we can act and make a difference. She also proposes that when doing so we seek inspiration from the heroes of the past; people who in their day climbed out of their boxes and observed their reality from an entirely different angle. They made a difference to their time and place and acted in the world. She is saying that we too can become heroes of our time and place; that we too can be truly religious people who can influence our world for the better.

She states:

“As we seek to create a more compassionate world, we too must think outside the box, reconsider the major categories of our time, and find new ways of dealing with today’s challenges. But as we approach this task, we need the guidance of such people as the Buddha or Confucius, because they are the experts.” pg 58-59

What is a hero?

Heroes can be found in every single human tradition. They have existed ever since we began telling stories around the camp fire. Ancient Greek and Roman mythology spoke of Aneaus, Hercules, Odysseus and Theseus. The Hebrew Scriptures describe the heroic deeds of David, Joseph, Moses and Samson. Similar stories can be found in every culture. They describe heroic figures who stood up for righteousness and made a difference in their time and place.

The stories we tell today are also full of heroic characters. We only need look at the recent movie remakes of the comic strip super heroes such as Spiderman, Batman, The X-Men, or Star Wars, Harry Potter, Dr Who, the Lord of the Rings, James Bond, Indiana Jones, Buffy the Vampire Slayer. These are modern day heroes, but they are no different in character to the heroes of ancient times. I myself have a love for detective programs like Columbo, Poirot or Monk. I love the slightly quirky and a little bit odd hero. The obvious hero is not really for me.

Joseph Campbell studied the ancient myths and uncovered a pattern that was common to the heroes described within them. He talked of a journey that they all seemed to embark on. It begins with the innocence of childhood and the call to adventure; a call that is initially refused or rejected, but eventually accepted. The hero leaves behind the comforts of family and community. They experience the pain of separation from all that they know and hold dear. They undergo a series of initiation rights and challenges. They do battle with the monsters and demons both within themselves and externally to them until they hit a point of surrender. They hit rock bottom. From this they emerge with a new found humilty. At this point a female character appears, often in the form of the goddess. She leads the hero to a deeper recognition and reconciliation with both his masculine and feminine attributes. The father figure appears and the hero becomes reconciled with his past. The sons power and prowess is finally recognised, the initiation phase comes to an end and the hero becomes fully aware of the newly found gifts within his possession. It is now time for the hero to return with his new found bounty and wisdom. Although he has returned he is not the same person who left and things will never be quite the same again. He can now give all that he has and all that he is to his world.

Karen Armstrong highlights that you can see these heroic characteristics in the great religious sages. They all underwent their own trials before embarking on their missions. The Buddha abandoned his family, shaved his head and donned yellow robes renouncing the ascetic and set off into the world to cure it of suffering. Jesus began his ministry, following his Baptism by John, by stepping out into the wilderness for forty days of temptation. Muhammed, before his revelation, went to Mount Hiren outside of Mecca. Here he fasted and subjected himself to spiritual exercises and gave alms to the poor; here he meditated on the suffering malaise that had overcome his tribesmen and sought out a solution to their problems.

Armstrong suggests that if we wish to live more compassionately and to affect our world for the better that we should follow the example of these ancient sages. That we should search out the heroes of our time and even uncover the heroes within ourselves; to not merely talk about religion, but to live religiously. To live fully engaged and compassionate lives. For her this is essence and purpose of religion and I for one agree with her.

So who are our 21^st century heroes?

I recently came across this quote by Christopher Reeve (1952 – 2004). He said:

“When the first Superman movie came out I was frequently asked, "What is a hero?" My answer was that a hero is someone who commits a courageous action without considering the consequences...

...Now my definition is completely different. I think a hero is an ordinary individual who finds strength to persevere and endure in spite of overwhelming obstacles.”

Well this one time superman certainly exhibited great courage in the last few years of his life, following the accident that left him a paraplegic. I recently learnt that later in life that he, like myself, became a Unitarian.

Anyone can be a hero; we all possess those qualities within us. All we need to do is uncover those virtues within each and every one of us. Now we may not all have the opportunity to be the brave courageous hero of the ancient and modern tales. That said I am certain that every single one of us has at one time or another had to overcome many obstacles of varying shapes and sizes, no life is without problems. Further, we can all do little wonderful and caring things that can change our world a little bit at a time.

The key for me to uncovering and developing the hero inside each and every one of us is to make that decision each day to do what we can. To effect change does not require super powers, lots of money, complicated gadgets; we do not need to wear a special outfit and cape. All we need to do is to make a decision and follow it with appropriate action, each and every day.

The question we may well ask ourselves is can we do it? Well I for one believe that we can.

When I personally doubt my effectiveness, my ability to make a difference I simply return to these words by Edward Everett Hale

 “I am only one

But still I am one.

I cannot do everything

But still I can do something

And because I cannot do everything

I will not refuse to do the something that I can do.”

We do not have to search for our modern day heroes; they are inside every single one of us. All that we need to do is look at the person staring back at us in the mirror and not refuse to do the something that we can do.