On Heroes

My first post to Vir Ex Anthropos: Hero From Humanity

It would behoove me to first describe my goals for this project:

1) To explore the idea of what it means to become a hero.
2) To act as a development journal to my 'hero indexing' application that will be discussed shortly.

Due to the two-fold nature of the project, discussion will most likely alter between technical exposition and prose, between right-brain poetry and left-brain poetry.

Were I an ancient Greek, I would now invoke a muse. As I am a modern Christian, I will invoke a modern translation of an ancient passage: Humanists and Atheists, vouchsafe I have left my soapbox in my other, more private journal.

Hebrews 11:32And what more shall I say? I do not have time to tell about Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel and the prophets, 33who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, and gained what was promised; who shut the mouths of lions, 34quenched the fury of the flames, and escaped the edge of the sword; whose weakness was turned to strength; and who became powerful in battle and routed foreign armies. 35Women received back their dead, raised to life again. Others were tortured and refused to be released, so that they might gain a better resurrection. 36Some faced jeers and flogging, while still others were chained and put in prison. 37They were stoned; they were sawed in two; they were put to death by the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated— 38the world was not worthy of them.

What then of heroes? Those who by faith, in God and in His promises, stood as on rocks in the desert, who both turned aside the blades of swords and were slain, who both died and lived... The author of Hebrews has not time to tell of their stories, and now do I. But the incredible thing about this passage, in context, is that the author insists that all can aspire to these qualities. All can grasp hold of his immortality, all can put aside the temporal and the failing to put on eternity, and walk in victory. And, though I have not the time nor the diction nor the meter to describe their exploits, the watching world does.

And has.

And, should my project have it's way, the watching world will: and as Hebrews 13 goes on to preach didactically: it will not forget those who were imprisoned, or jailed, or persecuted for their stand on faith and on heroism and on courage. Their humility and their sacrifice.

My project will be a collaborative effort by any who have the time to take fingers to keys and spill their hearts on behalf of those too noble to aggrandize self by spilling their own. The world will tell tales of the exploits of heroes, mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, firemen and doctors. They will tell stories of heroes. And the world will listen.

And my part will be to develop a system to process these stories, to collect them and to index them, to link them, to show that we all tell of a story of, to borrow from Campbell, a Hero with a Thousand Faces - and perhaps, with luck, and dedication, we will all see the development of a new sort of hero, not one born of ancient myth and bards, but of modern day Man and Woman.

We will see a hero in the very face of mankind.