5/12/57

I guess that most of us admire a hero. And in the minds of most of us, when we think of heroism, we think of a spectacular display of courage. If we hear of a fireman who goes up a brick wall on a scaling ladder to get a child out of a window just before the flames reach it, caries the child down to safety only a few minutes before the wall collapses -- we think that is a heroic act -- and it is! Or we think of the life guard who swims out through choppy waves to rescue somebody from drowning. When a man in a shipwreck stayed aboard the ship so that his seat in the last life boat could be given to a woman with a baby, people who heard about it later said, “That man was a hero” --- and I guess he was!

On a field of battle a soldier stayed in his place fighting to keep the enemy from overcoming a position until his fellow soldiers could retreat a little and get set in a place they could really defend. He lost his life doing it, but his bravery saved the other soldiers of his unit. They all though he was a hero. And he surely was.

But a lot of heroism goes into ordinary-sounding experience that is not spectacular. There is heroism in the decision and acts of doctors and nurses, of teachers, of clerks and delivery men, of housewives and policemen. And very often of the children of the house (Lois Hamilton.)

I know a doctor who several years ago was doing everything he could to help save the life of a man who had suddenly taken very sick. The doctor had had a hard day with several operations on sick people. This man was brought to his office in the evening. He had the family take the man to a hospital and he went over there to treat him. The doctor had worked fast, and skillfully, and desperately to help save the life of the man. First he ordered medicine; then he got a technician to help. Nurses actually ran down the corridor to get things the doctor needed to use. The doctor decided that a quick operation was needed, and so he performed it without being able to wait for the usual careful preparation in the surgery. He worked for hours through that night when he needed sleep to be a good doctor to other people the next day. I think he was a hero. And the people who worked with him were heroic too, even though almost nobody (except a couple of folk from the sick man’s family) ever heard of that night’s good work.

In the school where you go to classes five days a week, there are men and women teaching who are known to a few friends, and of course to a room full of students, but who are not what you would can famous in the world. Maybe one of those men teachers thought, when he studied to be a teacher, that he’d like to become US Commissioner of Education some day. But so far, he is still just a teacher in one school -- and nobody in Minnesota or Illinois, maybe nobody even in Stevens Point, ever heard of him so far. Still the faithful work he does in his teaching may be as heroic as if he were known all over the nation as US Commissioner of Education. And the woman teacher may be doing just as heroic a job as if she had become President of Vassar College.

Maybe some of the boys here would like one day to become President of the United States. And if that is a boy’s ambition it is fine to make that, or any other worthy ambition, a reality. But there is a lot of heroism in being an honest citizen, too, even though few people should ever hear about it. Whatever takes courage, faithfulness and self-sacrifice becomes heroic, whether one gets into the newspaper headlines with it or not.

A lot of us live with heroes that we don’t stop to recognize. We pass them on the street; we meet them in the church or school; probably they are even in our homes. Maybe it is your dad or mother who is an unsung hero in courage, faithfulness and self-giving. Usually there is something heroic about a lot of lives.

Mother’s Day is a good time to remind ourselves that most of our mothers go far beyond the call of duty to help us safely on our way. If you get kind of “beat down” and discouraged, it is often your mother who goes out of her way to encourage you, and make you feel like whistling again. If you get sick, you know who is the first nurse you have; it’s mother who sees that you are as comfortable as possible and decides whether the doctor should be called. If you win a game at school, or come home with a fine report card, it is Mother and Dad who are so happy that it makes you happy too.

Probably it is the heroes right at home that -- because we have known them -- make it easier to know and admire the heroes who are more famous. Look for them! And live so that, maybe, somebody else may find a little of the heroic in you.

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Delivered in the Wisconsin Rapids Church School, May 12, 1957.