I think we latch onto these stories in pop culture as a way of encouraging one another. We hold up heroes and explore them as people to remind each other that we're all capable of great things. I'm not sure that practice is doing us any good - in fact, it might be doing us harm.
Oh, I think it's wonderful to explore and highlight the humanity of our heroes, but it shouldn't be to challenge us to greatness, it should be to challenge us to ordinariness. People who set out for greatness rarely achieve it, but those content to humbly focus on the life in front of them with full hearts often find themselves in the midst of great things.
Now, of course, talent will rise to the top - talented people, coupled with determination, emerge as people who get recognized, but it doesn't make them less human. They aren't superheros.
Perhaps there is a part of us that latches on to such people (or fictionalized superheroes) because we recognize a lack in us - talent, drive, determination that will likely keep us from being "top in our field." If so, then heroes become nothing but an escape, further removing us from the lives we actually lead.
I think there is some underlying drive in each of us to be superheros - we want to be separated from the rest and bathed in applause. Who wouldn't? It gets compounded by millenia of societal reinforcement, celebrating the best and brightest, smartest and strongest - we've come to just accept that some people, fitting particular categories, are just better than everyone else. They're heroes and we should aspire to be them or something like them. In reality, though, this only reinforces the position of power those labeled the heroes enjoy.
I'm not saying, "don't do great things," what I am questioning is how we define greatness. We tend to use exceptional categories, highlighting people who look least like everyone else. There is some merit there, I suppose, but it's easy to fall into the superhero trap working that way. I wonder if perhaps, as we measure greatness, the greatest thing we can do is to simply be present in your own life - and the greatness of this can only really be measured by the people around you (and can't be compared with much of anything).
Using this measure, it's easy to be exceptional, but very difficult to actually be excepted - to be singled out for larger fame. After all, they sell "World's Greatest Dad" mugs at every souvenir stand.*
How many lives get derailed by trying to be "something" - the best lawyer, the best athlete, the smartest guy in the room? When we make those things the focus of our lives, we miss out on our lives. This notion that fulfillment and satisfaction exist somewhere out there rather than right where you are is the key to doom. Peter Rollins often says, "I hope you achieve your dreams... so you can recognize they're not the answer to your problems."
This is seen no more truthfully than in the superhero myth - the notion that some people can do more and be more. It's the justification for a comparison society.* And while it seems like this only works out for those people who fare well in the comparison, we have to recognize it doesn't work so well for them either. We exalt people we admire to superhero status and in the process dehumanize them. They're no different than our super-villains - isn't that the point of these new Batman movies? No one wants to be the Joker, but we don't really want to be Batman either.
The solution is not to ignore great things; we need to see examples of real love, sacrifice, and commitment in our world. The solution is to celebrate greatness for its mundanity. Mother Theresa is all set to be St. Theresa of Calcutta here in a few months. She is a hero of mine. Her life accomplishments seem super-human, in all honesty - but if we look at her that way, we miss out on the real testimony she provides - "not great things, but small things with great love." You can be as successful in life as Mother Theresa and never get one column inch of press - you may not even be fully recognized by the members of your own family.
That's the rub, really. There are no superheroes. There are only humans. We should work to be good ones.
*There's a whole separate conversation here about comparison and how that works - clearly some people are better father's than others, but we really get into trouble when we try to rank everyone. Yes, it's easy to pick out the drunk who skips Christmas to gamble, but it's more difficult to parse rankings of greatness absent these obvious flaws. It's better to judge individuals by the needs of the relationship their in, rather than in comparison to others. Even if he's the only Dad on the planet, a drunk gambler is not going to do well on a performance review.
We took a bit of a leap - stepping out from our known structure to one less known. What's it's done for me, is force me to spend most of my time actively imagining and learning about what comes next. Not to dash your hopes completely, but I haven't found much. That is to say the process thus far has been more about unlearning things than learning.
When it comes to ministry, we're generally trained to be active, engaged, focused, goal-oriented, and pushing forward. As one who grew up in a pastor's home, I've never (until now) lived some place I didn't expect to leave. Delaware is my 10th state in 30 years of life. But even when I was just a kid and not a "minister," this reality still led to forced relationships. I had to make friends, find common interests, use the time wisely because there was no telling how much time existed.
This is even more pronounced as a pastor. You enter into a new environment, a family, essentially, where everyone knows each other, shares a history and deep relationships with everyone, but you. On top of that, you're the one they look to for guidance and wisdom. You have to work hard to fully immerse yourself in relationship; you have to push. There is no other option. It's sink or swim.
Well, I've been unlearning that lifelong training.
Patience has been the most important skill thus far. I don't have to rush any relationships because I don't expect to be going anywhere. If I meet a neighbor and then don't see them again for two weeks I have to tell myself, "don't worry, going out of your way to see people you just met three times a week pegs you as a wierdo." It's only in the Church that people feel obligated to be best friends immediately. Maybe we're afraid they'll never come back? I don't know, but most of my neighbors aren't moving anywhere in the near future.
The other lesson, really the larger lesson encompassing patience, is, as the title indicates, Don't Think Big. In ministerial training, probably any sort of management or life training, you're taught to set goals and work to strategically meet those goal, early if possible. Everything you do should be geared towards making progress on your goals.
My father-in-law passed along a biography of Mother Teresa a few years ago. I knew Mother Teresa as an old nun who battled poverty in India. I knew her as a famous person who death I may or may not be responsible for.* She was an archetype of a famous saint, but I knew nothing of her life.
That biography floored me. I expected to hear about cutting edge medical clinics and unique fundraising plans. That's the sort of thing we'd call a success in our culture (both American and Evangelical). The reality is, to the end of her life, Mother Teresa just wanted to provide a place for poor people to die in peace, with loving caregivers. The Sisters of Charity wash dirty bodies, provide cold water, pray, and love. There are more things they do in other places around the world, but they are similarly linked to small things in context.
In fact, Mother Teresa's most famous quote is that she did "small things, with great love." She didn't say, "we're going to end poverty in India by 2050," or "we're going to provide access to medicine for the poor of Calcutta." She simply went out her front door, found people literally dying in the street, and brought them home.
I've become more and more convinced that our focus should not be on the future of what could be, but on the present reality of what is. We can be intimidated by big goals, paralyzed even - or we can be so consumed by the goal that we miss the people right in front of us. It's not that we don't live unintentionally (yes, it's a triple negative, but I couldn't figure out how to word it differently and mean the same thing) or that we're not purposeful. It's not even that we avoid setting goals. We just have to make sure our goals are focused on being in the moment, living each day with love, and worrying more about the people we meet face to face than the potential future multitudes that may or may not exist.
I'm not sure how this jibes with the reality of an interconnected, global world. I certainly don't want to take away from our unique and important ability to make a difference around the globe. I do think, however, that if our primary focus is not immediately in front of us, we're missing out on something important.
We claim that God is bigger and more capable than anything we could ever dream. It's often used as motivation to dream big; I wonder if it shouldn't be the reason we do small things with great love.
*If you recall, she died shortly after Princess Diana was killed. We were driving in a van on the way to a Cross-Country meet and I was complaining about how much attention Diana was receiving, mostly for being famous (in retrospect, given the low bar for celebrity these days, that seems like a silly arguments, but context is everything - who could have predicted the Real Housewives of Buttfart, Wisconsin anyway?). My next line was, "Now, if Mother Theresa died..." but before I could even finish the sentence the radio broke in with news of her death. It became deadly quiet in the van and I've felt somehow guilty ever since.
So I ask again, where are the truly great people in our world? I've heard it said that the constant media attention keeps anyone from appearing as saintly as Dr. King. Had he lived today, his faults and failings would have be exposed; we would not have seen him in the same light. I don't think that's true. We've recently learned some sad, yet incredible truths about the life of Mother Theresa that could potentially tarnish her legacy. I don't find this all that likely either. The sheer truth of the impact made upon this planet by those select individuals known, both formally and informally, as saints will outweigh any detractions we could ever discover. That is not to say that the ends justify the means in every instance, but that we will never cease to be amazed at the righteousness that can be wrought through the life of one committed, if flawed, individual.
But the question still remains, where are the truly great people in our world? In this age of increased globalization, in an era where the round world has suddenly become flat, in a time where people anywhere can communicate and collaborate with anyone on the planet, we may need to look at the work of great people in a different way. Perhaps the very scrutiny of society will force us to realize just how inadequate individuals are in the grand scheme of things. We are always amazed at the likes of Dr. King because we see ourselves as unprepared and unqualified to do anything of significance in this world of ours.
So to answer the question, the truly great people in our world are those around us. The age of great men (and women) is giving way to the age of great people. The time of one man making a difference has moved to a time where all of us must band together and take control of our world. It is no longer enough for us to sit back and support those natural leaders and innovators, leaving them to make all the difference. As this world becomes more and more a gigantic community, we must understand the increasing role we all play in the success of that community. We will continue to raise up those of us most able to articulate the message, but we must rely less on the profundity of their speech and more on the power of our reality. It takes not saints nor great men to make a difference; it takes those of us who care, united under the banner of peace and justice for all.
