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Heroes

Superman As a youth minister, or previous youth leader anyway, you get some requests they never tell you are part of the job.  The one I tend to get the most is "help me with my homework".  Sometimes it's simple like review for the science part of the standard tests (thankfully I was correct more than I was wrong, I guess I'm smarter than an 8th grader).  The more interesting times for me though are when I'm asked my opinions for a paper.  These times tend to spur on some really interesting conversation.

One of the questions was for a paper and it was answering the question, who is your hero.  Oddly I found this to be a really hard question to answer.

God, of course, and Superman (I'm pretty sure Superman isn't Jesus, but they may be close relatives).  But when I really thought about it my heroes were authors, like Orson Scott Card in high school (a meeting that went sour for me changed my view of him and I can't get off of it), Rob, our rector for his spiritual and career guidance, my mom for her openness and some school friends who stuck by me even when I was a jerk to them (thanks Allison, Heidi, Coretta, Melissa, Mandy and Chris).

In the end, the overall picture of a hero for me is this.

Friends who stick with me and will take one-on-one walks to listen without speaking and speak when I want advice, the one or two friends I've had like that have been my heroes.

As I went through all this I really recognized that we have heroes for different things.  People who have taught us different aspects of how to live.  My life has been changed by everyone I've met, but my heroes are those who have so profoundly changed the way I see and live in the world that I'm no longer the same.

How would you define your heroes?

Peace,
+Tom

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