Hunting for heroes...

Last year, when Glenn Beck announced the Restoring Honor rally, I spent months contemplating what Honor meant. I finally realized I hadn't a clue what it actually was, beyond the very vaguest sense. It wasn't something with which I was raised. I reached the point where I decided to spend an entire month studying Honor, what it meant not only as a definition but what it looked like in action. I've endeavored to incorporate it into my own life. I know I'm not very good at it, but I'm working on it.

Then I began a new search, for heroes. I hadn't had many of those either. And now there's the upcoming Restoring Courage rally in Jerusalem. I can't afford to go, but it ties in neatly with my own current focus. Too often the "world" looks to stars and the ultra rich in adoration and awe. They've confused being a hero with being famous. Or perhaps they haven't. Perhaps the difference is in what they value. Do they truly value the superstars themselves and their beliefs, or do they value the wealth and power? And simply pick and choose between the many pretty packaging options? Either way, it isn't about heroism.

Over the years, I've gradually developed a working concept of what a hero is or ought to be, but I didn't have many concrete examples that I looked to for inspiration. No, now that I've written it that isn't strictly true. I have several friends that I look to for inspiration, people who continue moving forward, no matter what. I wrote of one, yesterday. But I realize now that I wanted more. I've learned to recognize it in my friends, over time, but I feel like I need to learn to recognize it when I see it. I need to be able to recognize it, for myself, without having it pointed out to me by someone else. So, I started My Saturday Heroes.

In the interest of privacy, my close friends won't be featured, except vaguely, as I did yesterday. However, so much of my life I've heard this person or that being praised and lauded, only to find myself feeling like I've been blown about by the prevailing winds of change, forced to go with the flavor of the month. One day, this person or that is hailed as a wonderful human being, and thrown into the dirt the next, depending on the changing tide.

Much of my life has been spent endeavoring to maintain a smooth and easy facade. What a joke, on me. Will some of my choices "let me down?" More than likely. People aren't perfect. That being said, there are a lot of really amazing, incredible, wonderful people out there. I've been blessed to meet quite a few of them.

I was raised in fear by fear. How do you change a life-time habit? A little at a time. In any search, it helps to have an idea of what "it" is supposed to look like, and so I've started my hunt for heroes. One of my first lessons has been that it isn't that heroes don't feel fear, it is that the fear isn't the deciding factor. What must that be like?