{"id":29203,"date":"2022-10-21T15:35:01","date_gmt":"2022-10-21T22:35:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/?p=29203"},"modified":"2022-10-21T15:35:01","modified_gmt":"2022-10-21T22:35:01","slug":"am-i-a-hero","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/am-i-a-hero\/","title":{"rendered":"Am I A Hero?"},"content":{"rendered":"

What is a hero? In his book, The Hero with a Thousand Faces<\/em>, Joseph Campbell writes, \u201cThe hero, therefore, is the man or woman who has been able to battle past his personal and local historical limitations to the generally valid, normally human forms.\u201d[1]<\/a> The hero is one who faces challenges and transforms in the trials.<\/p>\n

When my daughter was in middle school, she participated in a \u201cSuperheroes\u201d dress up day at school. Unexpectedly, she chose to dress up as me. As I am writing this blogpost, my husband just made the comment, \u201cYou really are my hero.\u201d He has no idea what I am writing about right now. He has been out of town for work and was expressing gratitude for the way I take care of our home. He called me heroic for going grocery shopping. I am not sure that story would make a blockbuster hit movie or that I often feel heroic. I have not delivered the One Ring to the fires of Mordor like Frodo. I have not saved the world like the Avengers.<\/p>\n

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Yet when I look back on my life, on the trials I have endured, maybe there is something of the hero in an ordinary human life. In his TEDEd video about Campbell\u2019s book, Matthew Winkler says, “What do you have in common with Harry Potter, Katniss Everdeen, and Frodo? Well, you\u2019re human just like them\u2026 You leave your comfort zone, have an experience that transforms you, and then you recover and do it again. You don\u2019t literally slay dragons or fight Voldemort, but you face problems just as scary.”[2] <\/a>What I have I faced that might fill this requirement? What is it that might cause my daughter or my husband to call me a hero? Winkler relates the hero\u2019s journey as a cycle from the Call to Adventure through to the Resolution. Each stage represents a part of the hero\u2019s journey.<\/p>\n

I faced this cycle in 2005 when I had brain surgery for a rare neurological condition. I was diagnosed with Intracranial Hypertension (Call to Adventure, Departure) after a routine eye exam revealed papilledema of the optic nerve. When medication did not help my condition, my neurologist referred me to a neurosurgeon (Assistance, Trials). I met with a neurosurgeon to determine my options. (Approach). I had my first surgery, to have a lumboperitoneal shunt (LP Shunt) placed. A month later, I was back in the hospital with a raging staph infection. Instead of the LP Shunt, my neurosurgeon suggested a ventriculoperitoneal shunt \u2013 brain surgery \u2013 to avoid another life-threatening infection. This was exactly what I wanted to avoid, but my choices were limited. (Crisis) God gave me the peace I needed to face brain surgery and this surgery was a success. (Treasure \/ Result) I recovered from my surgery and returned home to get back to the task of raising my children who were five and three at the time. (Return) While my shunt regulated my intracranial pressure, it did not eliminate the migraines. I was no longer a young, healthy mother. I was a disabled mother. (New Life). I made the decision to not let my disability limit me. Despite chronic migraines and not knowing if or when my shunt would fail and I would again face brain surgery, I stayed active and involved in my children\u2019s lives and went to graduate school to earn my Master of Divinity. (Resolution) Life is full of ups and downs, good days and bad days, but I lean on the words of Paul in 2 Corinthians 12:9, \u201cBut he said to me, \u2018My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.\u2019\u00a0Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that\u00a0the power of Christ may rest upon me.\u201d (Status Quo) [3]<\/a><\/p>\n

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I think this is the challenge I have faced and continue to face that makes my daughter and my husband call me their hero. It is not just being a mother or going to the grocery store. It is doing those things and facing every day despite what I have endured, what I continue to endure. It is choosing to live my life, to get out of bed in the morning. Campbell writes, \u201cThe agony of breaking through personal limitations is the agony of spiritual growth.\u201d[4]<\/a> Every day that I chose to battle my personal limitations I am the hero that my husband and daughter see in me. We all face our own struggles in life and we are all heroes when we choose to face our challenges and rise above them.<\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> Joseph Campbell,\u00a0The Hero with a Thousand Faces<\/em>\u00a0(Novato, CA, New World Library, 2008), pg. 14<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> \u201cWhat Makes A Hero? \u2013 Matthew Winkler,\u201d TEDEd, https:\/\/ed.ted.com\/lessons\/what-makes-a-hero-matthew-winkler<\/a>, 3:14<\/p>\n

[3]<\/a>\u00a0Winkler, 1:01<\/p>\n

[4]<\/a> Campbell, pg. 163<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What is a hero? In his book, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Joseph Campbell writes, \u201cThe hero, therefore, is the man or woman who has been able to battle past his personal and local historical limitations to the generally valid, normally human forms.\u201d[1] The hero is one who faces challenges and transforms in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":155,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[789],"class_list":["post-29203","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-campbell","cohort-dlgp01"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29203","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/155"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29203"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29203\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29206,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29203\/revisions\/29206"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29203"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29203"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29203"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}