the silence makes me feel inadequate

how can i live up to your heroism?

my life is not in the center of the hurricane, the volcano i stay far away from and the zone of near disaster i avoid.... these places where heroes are made make me nauseous, dizzy and afraid.

can't there be another kind of heroism?

one less daunting physically but as challenging emotionally and psychologically? can't it be that wherever we are there is opportunity for heroism? can't little acts of courage count? does everyone have to be a warrior and if they were what kind of world would that be - one of constant warfare and disaster. was that the kind of world that faced our ancestors? was that from whence our philosophy and politics flows?

and yet there must also have been some peace, splendor, love. there were mothers who loved their children, children who were safe in the arms of their fathers, there were warm sun showers and moments of being right with the world.

Was there not always the confrontation between self and other in which the temper of character is formed?

and was not this also an arena for courage, heroism and potential disaster?

i am not entirely sure that i believe we can live w/o physical courage and therefore we need our old-fashioned heroes but i am entirely sure that we cannot live w/o the smaller kind of courage, the kind that makes life livable, meaningful, joyful, relational and just plain bearable - the heroes of this life-in-the-making would have their songs sung too.