The Thirteenth Annual Inspirations List: 2019

What does it mean to be a hero?  "Don't be a hero," you'll hear it said to someone about to embark on a risky endeavor.  What do we  by mean that?  Don't show off, don't do something foolish to make a big impression.  But think about it (that phrase by the way, "Think about it" is one that the youngest hero on this year's list says all the time when he's making a point. It's good advice.  Think about it.  But I digress.)  Have you ever noticed that the people we actually call heroes never do those kinds of things?  Invariably that heroic individual will dismiss their exploits. "I'm no hero", they say. " I was just doing my job."  I'm pretty sure that's what everyone on this year's list would say.  I've come to realize that what defines a hero is not what heroes think of themselves, but how they impact the lives of others. Of course they weren't trying to be heroes. They are simply living their lives and the kind of lives they live touch us and inspire us.  None of the people on this year's list have rushed into a burning building to save anyone (as far as I know).  But here's the thing about each one of them. They are the kind of people who would.

There is an interesting symmetry to this list at end of this decade and the one I posted ten years ago. I ended this last decade with Dr. John Carlos as my hero: his wife bookends this decade.  And in 2009 one hero was barely a year old.  This year he returns to the list, inspiring me still. This year's heroes range in age from 11 years old to north of 80. They are two women and five men (yes, two are arguably boys, but to me they are more men than many with more years).  Two of my heroes are widely known; my accolades are just a drop in the bucket of praise they have received. But none sought the hero's mantle.  All earned my respect by the quiet life choices they made day in and day out.  Choices that changed the world and changed me.

Here are my heroes for the year 2019:

Sam Ulett
Christian Stepney
Roy Rutter
Tara Westover
Grace Carlos
Elijah Maycock
Fred Rogers


Sam Ulett
I am inspired by his messages

His sermons have changed my life. I'd rather see a sermon than hear a sermon any day, or so they say.  And Pastor Ulett does inspire me by the sermons he lives through his humility, gentleness, kindness, and Christ-like spirit.  But it just so happens that his actual sermons have been pretty life-changing as well. I can think of  only three sermons that changed the way I live my life and two of them were preached by Pastor Ulett.  He probably didn't realize the impact his message had on me; I'm sure they were messages he'd delivered before and will surely deliver again.  But I will never forget them. It wasn't the oratorical theatrics, it wasn't the clever assembly of ideas. No, it was simple truth delivered with the gentle power of the Holy Spirit that convicted me to approach life a little differently than I had before.


Christian Stepney
I am inspired by his commitment to growth

Good, better, best. You know the saying.  He never let it rest, until his good was better and his better best. I can honestly say that I have never met a young man so committed to personal improvement as Christian.  At the beginning of his eighth grade school year he purposed in his heart to make a change with God's help.  He'd always been a good kid, but for Christian good wasn't good enough.  He wanted to raise his grades, lead his classmates, set a higher bar for himself. He ran for 8th grade class president and won, leading the class well throughout the year. He earned the best grades of his life, went from a middling academic performer to one of the top students in his class.  He wasn't perfect. He made mistakes.  Like all real growth, there were missteps and setbacks along the way but he never wavered in his commitment to do better.  And from what I hear, as a freshman at Pine Forge Academy this year, he's not finished yet.  He's better than ever by all accounts,  but he is still on a quest for best.



Roy Rutter
I am inspired by his helpfulness

Love thy neighbor is more than a scripture for Roy. It's a way of life.  From virtually the day we moved in, Roy has been the exemplar of what it means to be a good neighbor.  Technically, he's not our neighbor.  He lives several streets over in our neighborhood, but he might as well live next door.  He's always available to lend a ladder, a fertilizer spreader, a helping hand and a word of wise counsel.  His assistance and advice have been invaluable to me as a new homeowner. His years of accumulated knowledge have saved me headaches and money on countless occasions. He is a man who loves the Lord with all his heart and soul and strength and mind, and he shows that love by the way he treats people--with compassion and generosity.  Though our political views and our Christian faith traditions couldn't be more different, Roy has never let that stand in the way of Jesus' simple command to love one another. He sees in me a fellow brother in Christ and he loves me as he loves himself.


Tara Westover
I am inspired by her journey

Hers was the ultimate jailbreak. It was not Tara Westover's escape from years of oppression and abuse at the hands of family members.  It was not her miraculous survival of multiple injuries without the benefit of medical treatment. It was not her entering a classroom for the first time in her life as a seventeen year old college student and ten years later holding a PhD from Cambridge University.  While all of these accomplishments, detailed in her stunning memoir Educated, are amazing in themselves, what truly  inspired me was Westover's mental journey. Dr. Westover's journey to knowing and trusting her own mind; her heart-stopping odyssey to define herself instead of being defined by those she loved; her departure from fear and her journey to "emancipation from mental slavery"--all of this has challenged me to do the same in my own life.  To not only reject the fears I've carried from my earliest years, but to actually put those fears down and live free.


Grace Carlos
I am inspired by her gracious spirit

It seemed a little too on the nose.  But try as I might I couldn't come up with another word to describe Grace Carlos that wasn't her name.  Grace.  I never call her that, of course.  To me she'll always be Mrs. Carlos.  After all she's my best friend's mom and I've known her as long as I've known him--since I was a fifteen year old high school freshman. In all that time I've been impressed by her gracious hospitality, her grace-filled kindness and warmth, and her deep knowledge and reflection of the grace of Jesus.  Mrs. Carlos is a lover of life, a lover of people, and a lover of God. It seems like wherever she and Dr. Carlos go, it isn't long before they are in the very center of their church family, serving others and extending grace to whomever they encounter.  I always feel at home whenever I visit the Carlos's (starting with weekends in high school, and most recently, last year when they hosted our family when we are at Andrews University for alumni weekend).  Her generous laugh, that sparkle in her eye when she smiles, the fervency with which she prays (not to mention those delicious home-cooked meals) have ministered to me for over three decades now.  Thanks, Mrs. Carlos, for living up to your name. You have blessed me, and countless others, immensely and only in eternity will we know the full reach of the grace of your Creator, extended through you.


Elijah Maycock
I am inspired by his courage

Sometimes the bravest thing you can do is to be yourself.  My son has exemplified this bravery time and again over the ll years of his life so far.  Because he is a "brony"--a boy who likes the My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic TV series--he has endured his fair share of teasing through the years from kids (and sometimes even adults). There were times when I quietly wished, for his own sake, he'd hide his fandom from those outside the family  ("Do we really have to get the MLP backpack?").  But Elijah has always been determined to be who he is without apology and let the chips fall where they may.  Eventually he earned the respect of his classmates who, for the most part, now simply accept him as he is. In so many ways both big and small, Elijah has shown the courage of his convictions  and a determination to live a truthful life, even when he feels scared. He inspires me to do the same.

One of the great struggles of sons is to know they have the approval of their fathers, and I know Elijah often wonders how I feel about him when it seems I'm always reprimanding, reminding, pushing, stressed by the demands of parenting.  Elijah, I want you to know I see you, I love you, I like you, I respect you. You are my hero.


Fred Rogers
I am inspired by his example

Take a minute to think of the people who have cared about you along the way.  This was something that Fred Rogers, known the world over as Mr. Rogers host of the children's television show that bears his name, liked to have people do when he gave commencement addresses and other public speeches (here's one example, from his 2002 commencement address at Dartmouth; skip to the 10:50  mark if you like). Mr. Rogers has been a household name for a couple of generations, and though he passed away back in 2003 a recent documentary, a podcast, and a movie just released last month, among other cultural nods, have brought his legacy back to the forefront.  I watched his show occasionally as a child--my favorite part was always the visits to the Land of Make Believe, but his biggest impact on me was as an adult.  I read the powerful Tom Junod Esquire magazine article a few years ago and was inspired by one man's honest quest to speak to children truthfully with love, kindness, and total acceptance. If you haven't read that article, do it. It is worth the time.  This year I've had the opportunity  to reflect once again Rogers' example of what it means to be a true hero--someone who makes a difference through love, respect, acceptance, and honest appreciation of our own feelings and those of others.

 Anyway, at the end of the recent documentary on Mr. Rogers, viewers were invited to do take a minute to think of the people who have cared about us along the way and let me tell you it got real dusty in that theater as I thought of my mother, grandparents, aunts and uncles, teachers, friends, my wife and many others who have blessed my life along the way. (Maybe this annual Heroes blog is my way of annually practicing that minute of appreciation).  And now that I think about it, Fred Rogers is one of those people I'd picture.  Though he never new me personally, he cared about me because he cared about everyone.

On Magic and Miracles

I've just started reading the first book in the Harry Potter series to my oldest son.  I do so with some trepidation. I made an impassioned Christian defense of the series more than a decade ago on my now defunct Faith Journeys blog (You can still read it here. The post even includes an early meditation on magic that I'm fleshing out in this entry).  I knew, even then, that while it would be easy as a childless adult to argue that the Potter stories were not a dangerous slippery slope towards real-life occultism and witchcraft, it would be much harder to put that argument to the test with children of my own.  For quite a few years I was able to dodge the challenge. My son knew about Harry Potter but showed no interest, and despite my personal fandom, I didn't encourage him to take an interest.  But I knew my son--how similar we are in so many ways--and that it would only be a matter of time before he was drawn to the stories.

Sure enough. Here we are.  For a couple of years now, reading together has been a special tradition we've shared.  We went through the entire C.S. Lewis Narnia series--he loved it. It's the gold standard for him in Christian themed literature.  I read him the halfway decent novelized version of Desire of Ages  titled Victory of the Warrior King by the Seventh-day Adventist author Sally Pierson Dillon.  And then came the request:  Can we read Harry Potter next?  I put him off for a bit, explaining the protagonist was older than he was and that he might find it scary.  But now he's eleven, the same age as Harry is in the Sorcerers Stone, and it's time to put my money where my mouth is.

We talk a fair amount as we read. I know there is an interesting, arguably Christian theme that becomes quite clear by the final book of the series, but I haven't mentioned it, not wanting to give it away. But we talk about other things that pop up.

 Interestingly, I'm noting some things that I don't like so much, that I didn't really pay much attention to the first time around.  I should clarify that I began reading the series with the third book, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, read through to the end, and then never went back to read the first two books. So we will be discovering  The Socerer's Stone and The Chamber of Secrets together.  So maybe I didn't notice these things because they are less prominent in the later books?  I don't know.

First, I found I was turned off by the description of the Dursleys, Harry's horrible aunt, uncle and cousin who he is living with under absurdly abusive circumstances at the start of the story.  I find it kind of lazy and offensive that the Durselys' horribleness is not defined only by their character or behavior but also by their appearance.  Cousin Dudley is overweight in the extreme,and Aunt and Uncle are each also physically ugly.  To me this is kind of boring in addition to hurtful to overweight readers or anyone who doesn't measure up to societies standards of attractiveness. To me equating ugly appearance with ugly personality is cheap.  I also found the story gets off to a slow start.  The first few chapters really focus on Harry's life with the Dursleys.  I'm not sure they get this much attention the rest of the series.

But I digress. I'm here to talk about magic and miracles, the last thing my son and I discussed during a recent read.   I've always maintained that the difference between magic and miracles is that magic is something that can be learned and then used to bend the natural world to your will through supernatural means.  The lie of magic is that the power is within yourself and you can make things happen according to your will whenever you like.  Miracles on the other hand are granted at the discretion of God.  The teachings of some television preachers notwithstanding, they cannot be summoned up on demand by the faithful to get whatever we want. There is no formula to follow that will give you a guaranteed outcome with miracles.  The truth of miracles is that the power is within God and He can, when he chooses, make things happen according to His will.

But neither miracles nor miracles accomplish what we think they will.  They do not solve the most pressing problems of the human condition.  We've come to believe that convenience, which is often the province of both magic and miracles--an invisibility cloak, water into wine, flying on a broomstick or walking on water--will make us happy. One of the things I like about Harry Potter is that it makes abundantly clear that there are things magic cannot fix.  Purpose in life, peace of mind, happy relationships, finding and keeping love cannot bye produced with the wave of a wand (or I would argue, a miraculous intervention).  The magical folk that populate the series are no more problem free than the Muggles (non-magical, "regular" people).  Indeed they deal with additional problems that are a direct result of the magical world they inhabit.  I'm reminded of Jesus who had the miraculous powers of divinity at His command, but also had temptations we will never face precisely because of His divine access to miracles.

My son and I observed that if we were to bring people from the Biblical times to our modern age much of what we consider ordinary from our self-powered vehicles to microwave ovens to television to telephones (not to mention the smart variety) would appear either dangerously magical or astonishingly miraculous to them.  We had a lot of fun picturing their reactions to all the modern technological advances that we take for granted.  We live in a world where we are pretty close to the equivalent of waving a wand and almost instantaneously receiving what we want.  Of course there's always more that we can't get instantly and thus remains part of the appeal of the magical or miraculous. I just think maybe we've failed to realize that no matter how much more magic we bring into our lives, it will never be the answer to the most important questions.

Of course the ultimate wish is one that can't be conquered by magic, only by miracle: the defeat of death.  Yet even this victory, which we all yearn for, would only have meaning in a world where the other problems--finding purpose, peace of mind, and happy, loving relationships were resolved.  Our hope as Christians, is not just in resurrection. It's life restored in a world returned to it's sinless state where selfishness, pride, hate, illness and all the rest no longer have a place.  That's the only miracle worth pursuing and no magic trick will get us there.

Year End Reading Round Up

This has been a really great year for reading for me.  After years of only reading in the summer it's nice to have reading be a part of my daily life again.  Right  now my pattern is to alternate between fiction and non-fiction. So this list has four novels and three non-fiction works (I'm currently reading the memoir Unfollow by Megan Phelps-Roper. Review to come!) Here's the books I read this past fall, listed in order of how much I liked them for your convenience!

Must Read

Educated  by Tara Westover
Run, don't walk to your nearest bookstore and get this book.  This powerful memoir of Dr. Westover's early life growing up in a survivalist family that didn't believe in schools or modern medicine will astonish you. Westover taught herself enough math to get an ACT score sufficient to gain entrance into Brigham Young University.  She sat in a classroom for the first time in her life as a seventeen year old college freshman.  She would go on to complete her degree, spend time at Harvard, and eventually earn her graduate degree and PhD from Cambridge University.  Her story of tenderness and abuse, family ties and estrangement is gripping, compelling, unforgettable.  Educated is the story of one woman's journey to knowing her own mind and it resonated deeply with me. Look for another blog soon where I'll be reflecting on the tremendous impact of this book on my life.  And spoiler alert, you'll see her name on my annual list of heroes and inspirations coming out next week!

Recommended

Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty
This novel, which inspired the HBO series of the same name, was such an enjoyable read.  Moriarty's characters are vivid and fully-realized. Her dialogue is witty and sharp. Her pace is engaging.  And the plot (if you haven't seen the show, which I had) keeps you guessing until the end.  The big mystery in this novel is not just whodunnit but also who it got done to! It's not till the end of the book that we find out the identities of both the killer and the victim. The Australian setting is different from the Southern California backdrop of the TV series, but the themes of friendship, secrets, betrayal work in any setting. I'm still tinkering with the draft of my own first novel. If it reads anything like Big Little Lies when I'm done, I'll feel pretty good.

Born a Crime by Trevor Noah
The comedian's memoir of growing up in South Africa at the tail end of apartheid is funny (naturally) but also moving, revealing, and thought-provoking. I like Trevor Noah a lot--I think he's filled John Stewart's shoes well at The Daily Show.  His book showcases the same wit and insight that makes his show such a treat. It's remarkable to learn the extraordinary circumstances of this wildly successful man's childhood.  The title comes from the fact that his birth was literally a crime. Sex between white and non-white people was a crime in South Africa at the time and Noah stood as proof of his parents' lawbreaking. In his earliest days he literally had to be kept in hiding to prevent his parents arrest. More than Trevor Noah's story, it is also a beautiful tribute to the indomitable spirit of his mother.

The Handmaid's Tale by Margret Atwood
I'd seen and liked the Hulu show and finally got around to reading the source material. Atwood did not disappoint.  The show remained surprisingly faithful to the book with a few departures.  Atwood had the Waterfords as older than depicted in the show and she leaves the fate of Luke unknown.  Other than that viewers of the show will find the book very familiar territory. (and vice versa). Atwood imagines a future in which the the United States has been taken over by a radically theocratic government of which the extreme subjection of women is its key feature.  A mysterious inability of most women to conceive provides justification for the Christian radicals in control to designate the few fertile women left as Handmaids. The Handmaids are tasked with producing children on behalf of the barren wives of the leaders of the new order (think of the Biblical story where Rachel provides her handmaid to Jacob when she can't conceive). One really cool addition not included in the show (for obvious reasons when you want to have future seasons) is the "historical note" at the very end.  This sudden pulling back from one woman's dystopian tale to the larger sweep of human history is profound on many levels.

Nine Perfect Strangers by Liane Moriarty 
I picked up Nine Perfect Strangers after reading Big Little Lies.  When I really like a book I'm always interested in what else the author might have produced and this book, Moriarty's most recent, met the expectations set by her previous work.  In this story the aforementioned strangers meet at a retreat center, each with their own reasons for needing a cleanse, detox, or reset.  As they get to know one another they also begin to realize that the owner of the retreat center has some methods that are, to put it mildly, highly  unorthodox.  While not quite as good as  Lies, Nine Perfect Strangers is a solid, entertaining read.

Leave it on the Shelf

Chances Are by Richard Russo
My expectations were high when I began this book.  Russo is a Pulitzer prize winning author and the premise seemed intriguing: three old friends meet up at an old hangout some forty years after the mysterious disappearance of the woman all three of them loved.  What happened to Jayce is the central mystery of the story.  But for some reason I never really connected with Chances Are and I'm not sure why. I wasn't drawn to any of the three main characters--two of whom alternate chapters narrating the story, the third only tells his own story late in the book for what in retrospect are predictable reasons.  Maybe it's because it was a Boomer tale that deals with the 60's, the Vietnam War, and a stage of male life that is still another twenty years off for me.  Maybe it was that I didn't find the portrayal of Jayce and her friendship with the men believable.  She felt less like a real woman and more like a man's idealized fantasy--a manic pixie dream girl. Whatever the reason this book didn't speak to me.  Take your chances with Chances Are if you like. Maybe you'll like it better than I did.

Kingdom of Lies by Kate Fazzini
I selected this book intrigued by the promise of a book that would reveal the secrets of hackers, identity thieves, and other criminals of the digital age told in a face-paced, novelistic style.  It was a letdown.  Much of the book felt like a song building to a crescendo that never comes. There was a tone of urgency in each chapter that consistently failed to pay off with any new revelations or insights.  The pace was quick and jaunty but in the end I didn't feel I'd really gone anywhere.  This collection of disparate hacker types across the world never coalesced into anything meaningful or insightful. I don't know much more about the how and why of hackers and identity thieves than I did at the beginning. Fazzini promises a lot, but like that Nigerian prince who would like to gift you with millions of dollars, she fails to deliver.  At least with Kingdom of Lies the only cost to you is the cover price (or in my case the five minute drive to return it to the library).  Or better yet, like you would the email from the Nigerian prince, ignore it in the first place.