Role Models

Role Models

Recently, I've been thinking about role models.  We seem to be intent on looking for them in the wrong places.  Whenever we look to those who are rich, powerful, popular, or any combination of the three we are making a fundamental error.  If you are an inhabitant of the mundane world in which the overwhelming majority of us are born, die and struggle to do the best we can in between, I suggest you may want to look elsewhere.  Whether it be an athlete, politician, wealthy business person, actor, rock star or any other celebrity for that matter we best be careful when we elevate them to the level of role model because chances are that ultimately they will fail us, and then what do we do with them?

I do have a few suggestions as to the type of people we might look to as role models for the lives we are living.

There's the man who works two jobs every day just to make ends meet and support his family. But when his brother-in-law takes off leaving behind our man's sister and his nephew he always manages to have time to be a father to that nephew so the child will grow up knowing he was loved.

There's the clergyman who in the 1960's had the courage to stand before conservative, southern congregations and suggest to them that maybe African-Americans should have the same rights and privileges in this country as do their white neighbors, and today he makes the same case for LGBT persons, immigrants and the other disinherited ones among us.

And there's the man who gets out of bed at first light, puts on his work clothes, fetches his chainsaw from the barn and heads next door to remove the tree that last night's tornado deposited across the home of his elderly neighbors.

There's the priest who shows up at the hospital at 7:00 a.m. because one of her parishioners is having surgery this morning. She offers prayers, touch and perhaps most important of all a comforting presence, an incarnation of God's presence there in that hospital room.

There's the woman who comes home worn out from working all night but rather than go to the bed she so desperately longs for she makes breakfast for her children and sees to it they are dressed and off to school.

There is the woman who takes time to sit with her neighbor who yesterday had to have a beloved cat whom she had adopted many years ago put to sleep and now must experience the grief accompanying such a loss.

There is the small group of people who gather outside the gates of Central Prison at 2:00 a.m. on a cold, rainy February morning. They are there to protest and hold vigil as the State of North Carolina executes a condemned man.

There is the couple in their late 60's who every year return, at their own expense, to Malawi where they met many years ago while working as Peace Corps volunteers.  They go there to work with the Malawi Childrens' Village, a group of people who are doing their best to take care of hundreds of orphans most of whom have lost their  parents to  AIDS.

And there is the woman who, when she learns of the death of the cancer patient she was hired to care for during the day while the patient's family was away at work, calls and says she will be over this morning to clean house for the family and, no, she will not under any circumstances let the family pay her for the work.

These are a few examples from the world in which I live. Be careful how you choose your role models; they inform the way you order your life. And your children and grandchildren are watching!