Becoming the Hero
Dana Lightsey, Ministerial Intern
October 15 , 2006

Good morning and welcome.  It’s nice to see so many faces I now recognize and I even know a few names.  It’s an honor and a privilege to be doing my internship here at JUC.  I hope you all know, this is a very special church.  It’s filled with dynamic power and a “can do” attitude.  The energy that is created here is truly amazing. 

I have enjoyed conversations with many of you as we speculate on how this unique culture has developed.  No one quite has the answers but it always boils down to the hard work and influential wisdom of key people at just the right time.  Perhaps these individuals are JUC’s very own heroes.  And, I know many of you are among those people that have made it happen!

What motivates a person to become hero?  What is a hero, exactly?  (Just to be clear, I am using the term ‘hero’ in a gender inclusive way; both male and female.)  The legendary scholar of myth and religion, Joseph Campbell defines a hero as:
“Someone who has given his or her life to something bigger than oneself.” 

There are common themes that come up when we examine heroes: 

• Courage to embark on an adventure often for the sake of others;
• They often possess a noble character or ability allowing him or her to perform extraordinary, beneficial deeds;
• They have incredible physical and/or mental strength;
• A hero often goes through a transformation; and
• Often risks or sacrifices their own life for a bigger purpose.

Story of Dave and Ed.
Speaking of heroes, I would like to tell you a story of two friends of mine, Dave and Ed.  Back in the early 80’s we were all undergrads together at the University of Northern Colorado School of Music.  We had a large group of friends that hung out together and played lots of music together.

Well my friend Ed was this amazing, screaming trumpet player that could improvise circles around most everyone.  He was lead trumpet in the top jazz band.  (And, if you know anything about UNC you know it is one of the top 4 jazz schools in the US.)  He could play avant-garde or be-bop and still come up with sweet, inventive, and beautiful lines.

Away from his trumpet however, Ed was an odd person.  He had a very low self-concept and was never satisfied with himself.  He was obsessive-compulsive and had a difficult time fitting into our social world.

Now Dave was this big, sweet guy who was unusually kind to everyone.  He was kind of quiet but we all knew he was a great musician.  He was a composer so the rest of us didn’t get to perform with him as much.

Well I took those friendships for granted and lost touch with both Ed and Dave and most of my other friends from those days.

15 years later, I had a master’s degree in Music Education and 13 years of teaching experience.  I was hired to be the new choral director for the University of Northern Colorado Laboratory School.  A week after I started working, Ed showed up in my room to begin cleaning it.  I found out he had dropped out of school without finishing his degree and he became a janitor for the university.  He had convinced himself he could no longer play and had sold his trumpet.

Well, to make a long story short, we became friends again and I used to take him out for pizza at Old Chicago’s and listen to all of his troubles.  We had fun but he was pretty depressed and often talked about the old days.

Dave had always stayed in contact with Ed.  I didn’t realize they were such close friends.  Dave had become a rather well-known classical and jazz music composer and university professor. 

One spring he contacted Ed and told him that he was going to give this concert at this famous jazz club in New York City called “The Knitting Factory”.  It was going to feature new songs he had just written and the jazz band was going to be all his favorite players from over Dave’s entire career. 

Then Dave dropped a bomb on Ed.  He wanted Ed to play lead trumpet with the group.  When Ed tried to say no because he didn’t have a horn, Dave promised to buy a brand-new, hand-built, $4,000.00, Schilke trumpet.  He was giving Ed 6 months to get his ‘chops’ back together and then he would fly him to the east coast for rehearsals and multiple performances.

After weeks of resistance, Ed finally gave in because Dave wouldn’t take no for an answer.  Never in my life have I ever watched a person freak out with excitement quite like Ed did.  He ordered the trumpet and then called the factory everyday for a status report.  He researched the latest on mouthpieces and worked directly with a maker in London who specially made a mouthpiece for him. 

When Ed finally got his new trumpet, he could hardly stop playing long enough to go to his job!  He would call me up on the phone and say, “Dana, listen to this, I just can’t get my high notes out anymore!”  And then he would rip off this amazing string of stratospheric notes with blazing speed.  I just laughed and said, “Yeah Ed, I wish I couldn’t play high notes like that!”

The transformation that came over Ed was an incredible and inspiring process to watch.  His darkness suddenly changed to pure, creative light.  He was finally, for the first time in many years, maybe decades, finally alive again.

The time to leave for New York finally came and I took Ed to the airport. The concerts all went wonderfully well.  Old friends came out of the woodwork for the show in New York City.  Ed was a star.  Suddenly people wanted him to play other gigs. When he returned from his great adventure, he was a completely new man.  His entire life was turning around.  This all happened one lovely October thanks to Dave.

A few months later in January, just after his 43rd birthday, Ed suddenly dropped dead from a heart attack.  In the midst of my shock and grief, I couldn’t keep from thinking about Dave.  What an amazing impact he had on Ed’s life never knowing that his life was ending.

We had a great celebration of Ed’s life at a large gathering of 85 people at Old Chicago’s.  They came from around the country, and Dave was there.  We shared stories and laughed endlessly about Ed’s crazy, creative escapades.  The knowledge of what Dave did for Ed flew around our worldwide music community very quickly.  Dave became a living hero and we were all amazed, awed and inspired by what he did.  Not only did his actions change Ed’s life but it became a tremendous influence for the rest of us as well.

What we didn’t know was how this experience also transformed Dave.  This brought new meaning and life to him.  He believed in himself in ways he had never experienced before.  But he would always say, he’s just a regular guy.

No superman suits, no guns, no dragons… but an amazing, heroic story.  Isn’t this truly what we think of when we consider heroes?  Ordinary people doing extraordinary things.

Heroes are the main characters of great stories.  These stories point the way for all of us to live our lives in healthy and meaningful ways.  They inspire us and give us hope during our own dark times.  Heroes create an ideal for the rest of us to live up to, if we so choose.  Whether they are jousting with dragons, or feeding starving people, or buying trumpets for friends, heroes reach beyond themselves to serve a larger purpose.

Do you see yourself in this definition?  Do others see you as a hero?  Yes, I know… we are trained and taught to be humble and not think too highly of ourselves.  Thus, considering ourselves as heroes is just not reasonable.  We might think to ourselves, “My life is just kinda ordinary; not particularly adventurous.  I don’t have extraordinary talents or character.  How could I even begin to think that I am a hero?”  Take a moment and think of heroes that you have personally known.  For all of their amazing gifts and achievements, so often they do seem like ordinary people.

What caused Dave to do this for Ed?  Dave was presented with the possibility of a unique way to truly help a friend.  Dave wouldn’t have noticed this possibility if he wasn’t listening to his heart and looking for ways to bring goodness into the world.  Then he had to reconcile himself to the sacrifice; it would be risky, (Ed might not follow through), and costly, (Dave was not rich).  When he was faced with the choice of doing this for Ed or just doing what was reasonable, Dave chose to be unreasonable; he took a huge risk, and made a big sacrifice for the sake of a friend.  Dave was living the Hero’s path.

Now none of us could have helped Ed in the same way that Dave did.  But we can all think of moments when we had an idea that would benefit others; that would require sacrifice and courage; but the opportunity to make a difference could be profound. 

The Hero’s path calls us to step out of our normal world of comfort and into the world of the extraordinary.  We cannot enter this world until we dedicate ourselves to serve a greater purpose than just our own personal needs and wants.  We are required to let go of that which holds us back.

Dedicating ourselves to this path begins a long and arduous process that is never-ending.  This begins the battle when we joust with our personal dragons within.  The dragon of the ego clings so dearly to who we think we are.  This is the entrance to the labyrinth where each turn presents a new, challenging aspect of ourselves.  With each challenge we have the opportunity to let go of one more roadblock holding us back from our true selves.  With one more swipe of the sword we cling a little less to the mundane pleasures and ego strokes that we desperately want.

Many faith traditions teach us about this ongoing inward battle with the self.  For instance, this inward battle is the true meaning of the word Jihad from Islam.  The point behind waging this battle of the hero is to discover true peace, love and harmony.  Understanding this allows us to further see that serving our fellow brothers and sisters of the world is the same as serving ourselves.  The highest meaning of caring for ourselves is really all about caring for each other.  This is the birthing of true courage.  This is where we each discover our noble and extraordinary gifts, because now we are finally ready to serve.

Is this not the true meaning of Christ’s command to “love your neighbor as you love yourself”?  You have to love yourself, but when you love all of your true self you discover you in your neighbor and your neighbor in you.  The division between ‘you’ and ‘I’ is disappearing.

Love truly is the answer here.  We all know this, yet again we are afraid of taking the risk of losing who we think we are.  We begin to see that our difficulties and challenges are our greatest teachers on this path.

Remember when we were kids?  I’m guessing you had many dreams, not just of getting rich and attaining all of the worldly possessions and perks, but of really making a difference in the world.  But these were the scary dreams weren’t they?  These were the one’s that mattered and we knew it, that’s why we wanted them to happen, and this hope came from the deepest part of our hearts.  But these hopes and desires were (and still are) so big and demanding that the temptation to play it safe and just live for comfort often won out.

But we still have those dreams and we don’t need to give up on them.  Joseph Campbell reminds us that the hero is presented with exactly the adventure he or she is ready for.  We have to trust that we are the right person in the right place at the right time with everything we need to change the world one decision, one action at a time.  Being on the Hero’s path is a moment to moment choice.  We must be ready for our own transformation during the process.

Tending to our brothers and sisters and the needs of the world takes being in touch with the deepest places of ourselves, and then serving others from this place.  Reaching deep into ourselves, and then reaching further when we think there is nothing left, this is when we really access the juice of what we have to offer.  This is our own personal magic; the best of what we can serve to others.  Only each of us will know what actions can truly be inspired from this place at the center of ourselves.  And this is what we wished for in our youth.

You might say, “but Dana, I am already doing all that I can”.  If you say so, then I believe you and I applaud you!  I know I am preaching to the choir, and all good choir directors know that choirs are made of heroes who are full of great passion!

This brings me to my last point; you have each chosen at some important time in your life to immerse yourself in this loving, caring community of JUC.  Clearly, you like being around heroes.  As I said in the beginning, this place is full of ordinary people living extraordinary, quietly heroic lives.

There is something really beautiful about bringing a group of people together who are dedicated to heroic thinking, feeling, and actions.  There is a synergy that is created that increases the power and effectiveness of the group far beyond each individual.  JUC is on the verge of becoming a heroic community but now it is time to deepen the commitment and bring this possibility to fruition. 

Our greatest heroes don’t act independently.  They are not like the stereotype of the rugged individual who saves the world.  They work from and with a like-minded community that supports them.
So, my challenge to each of us here at JUC is to decide, how do we each use our unique, noble and extraordinary gifts to contribute to making JUC a heroic force of peace and healing in the world?  How can we support each other as we joust with the latest dragon or get lost in the latest turn in the labyrinth? 

Take time to listen to your heart; do the inner work of letting go. We do not need to shrink away from the place where we feel tears of compassion and joy in each moment; we do not need to shrink away from looking into another’s eyes and know that we are seeing all of humanity.  These are the moments that call us forth. 

Yet, we do not have to invent this path on our own.  It is a well-traveled path paved by heroes from the past and present who cheer us on knowing the difficulties that will come.  But life is difficult whether or not we are living the hero’s path.  We are going to die one way or another so why not really go for it and play the game of “what if”.  What if we make the choice to create the vision that is so clearly in our hearts?  What do we have to lose- ourselves?  Is there anything more important than those deepest dreams that beg to blossom from within?

May we risk living to our fullest by serving all that life is.  May we risk losing who we think we are, as we find ourselves in the precious moments of serving others.  May we each be strengthen by a deep and passionate love for ourselves knowing that this love is just as deep for everyone around us.  From this, may we be inspired to tend to the world in our own special and unique ways.

Amen