This has been a good week for heroes. We even know the names of some of them.

            For example, the cop who arrested the driver of the rented van , the man who drove down Yonge Street in the north end of Toronto, knocking over people like bowling pins. The officer was alone. He faced a man who made threatening gestures, as if he were drawing a handgun and pointing it at the officer. He yelled, “Shoot me! Kill me!”

            But the police officer, Constable Ken Lam, didn’t.

            I’ll repeat that, in case you missed it -- he didn’t shoot!

            He didn’t obliterate the suspect in a hail of bullets. He didn’t radio for backup from a SWAT team armed with everything short of nuclear warheads. He went calmly to his police car, turned off the siren to lower the tension, then he walked up to the suspect, who still seemed to be threatening him with something. And arrested him.

            Const. Lam said afterwards that he was just doing his job, the way he had been taught.

            I suppose something similar may happen in the Excited States, sometimes. But I’ve never seen it on TV. Have you?

The root of courage

            There was another hero, in the mass shooting at the Waffle House restaurant in Nashville. James Shaw Jr. wrestled the shooter’s rapid-fire assault weapon away from its owner. (I’m deliberately not naming the perpetrators in these two incidents -- they get too much publicity already.)

            Shaw said, “I was just trying to get myself out. I saw the opportunity and pretty much took it.”

            So what makes a hero?

            I like Nelson Mandela’s definition: “Courage is not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave person is not the one who does not feel afraid, but the one who conquers that fear.”

            I’ve no doubt that Shaw was afraid. Ken Lam was afraid. But they didn’t let their fear stop them.

Look for the helpers

            The Muslims who came out from their nearby mosque to pray on Yonge Street, on the sidewalk where 10 people died, probably felt some fear too. Given the paranoia fostered by media coverage of terrorism, they may well have expected that some people would automatically blame them. But they came anyway.

            A driver who saw the white van rampaging down the sidewalk followed it, blasting his horn to draw people’s attention to the disaster bearing down on them. There’s no way of knowing how many lives he saved.

            When people were hit, bystanders rushed to help. They staunched bleeding wounds, administered CPR, offered support. They helped the paramedics, police, and fire fighters who rushed to the scene.

            In this case, the first responders were actually the second responders.  But they’re still heroes, who rarely get enough credit for their efforts. They arrive in situations that would make most of us either pass out or throw up. They deal with chaos, carnage, people in shock. If anyone is likely to suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, it would be those first responders.

            And yet they keep helping.

            Fred Rogers, the genial host of Mister Rogers’ Neighbourhoodon TV for over 30 years, once said, “When I was a boy and I saw scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, 'Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping’."

Not on TV

            His mother was right. But you’d rarely know it from watching TV.

            Back in the 1970s, Ontario premier Bill Davis appointed former federal cabinet minister Judy Lamarsh to head a Royal Commission on Violence in the Communications Industry.

            Lamarsh came down hard on the media for fostering a mindset of fear. People were increasingly afraid to go out in their own streets at night, she found -- even though crime rates were going down. The violence they saw on TV, heard about on radio, and read about in their newspapers, distorted their view of reality.

            If anything, I would say, that distortion has increased since then. Good news isn’t news.

            It’s not news when a dam doesn’t burst. When a charter flight lands without incident. When black patrons get served courteously in Starbucks. When 10,000 cars roll down Yonge Street without hitting anyone.

            A friend died in a highway accident, a few years ago. His widow told me later about a woman who stopped her car by the scene, to see if she could to help. She couldn’t save his life. But she sat with him in the wreckage of his car. And just held his hand.

            That’s heroic.

            But it doesn’t make the nightly news.

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Copyright © 2017 by Jim Taylor. Non-profit use in congregations and study groups encouraged; links from other blogs welcomed; all other rights reserved.

            To send comments, to subscribe, or to unsubscribe, write jimt@quixotic.ca

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YOUR TURN

Most of last week’s mail was to tell me that I had sent you an empty email. Thirty-five of sent notes to tell me that nothing came through. 

            A few of you saw a deeper meaning in that absence. Warren Harbeck for example, wrote, “When I opened your essay just now, there was nothing there! Was that the point? To celebrate Earth Day with silence -- by not filling cyberspace with digital data?”

            Similarly, Helen Reid asked, “I don't see any text. Is there a message in that?”

            Roger Graf worried, “I always appreciate reading your columns.  They give me something to think about from a perspective that I rarely think about.  [But] today's Sharp Edges column had nothing in it. I hope it does not mean that you have said it all before or that there is nothing more to say.”

            James Russell thanked me for “a remarkably terse column.”

            And Jean McCord wondered, “Were you saving online paper for Earth Day?”

Then, once all those letters had advised me of my mistake, I sent the column out again, this time with the text included. Perhaps by then most of you felt that you had already had your say, because there weren’t many letters of substantive comment. 

July Fili and Caroline Davidson both noted the connection between my message and some similar TV programs. 

            Judy wrote, “I love your description of the earth as holy ground, and our connection to everything in & on it. Native Americans have known this since their beginning. The National Geographic series One Strange Planetsubstantiates your assessments.”

            Caroline added, “Thank you so much for this message. On Knowledge Network there have been a few sessions by Prof. Brian Cox from England. He shows these connections very clearly.”

Tom Watson resonated with the image of my neighbour spraying his fields in a hazmat suit: “During the 1970s we lived in southern Ontario's tobacco country. A farmer friend of mine talked about when they first started using DDT for tobacco worms. At the outset they would put a couple of tablespoons of DDT in a 45-gallon drum sprayer. By the end of 10 years they were using a gallon because the worms had developed an immunity to the poison and grew hardier. Interesting too is the fact that in those days farmers took little heed to what the chemical was doing to their own skin -- not so now as is evidenced by your neighbour being outfitted in protective clothing that closely resembles a space suit. People now realize what toxins do to their own bodies, but we're not nearly so quick to consider what is being done to other things around us.”

Also this from Phyllis Giroux: “Every paragraph in your article articulated what is in my heart about our relationship to the earth. I am so grateful that you took the chance to write this way about what could be a very divisive topic. They say that one sent letter equals ten letters that don’t get written. All eleven of us are very grateful!”

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TECHNICAL STUFF

If you want to comment on something, write me at jimt@quixotic.ca. Or just hit the ‘Reply’ button.

            To subscribe or unsubscribe, send me an e-mail message at the address above. Or subscribe electronically by sending a blank e-mail (no message) to sharpedges-subscribe@lists.quixotic.ca. Similarly, you can un-subscribe at sharpedges-unsubscribe@lists.quixotic.ca.

            My webpage is running again -- thanks to Wayne Irwin and ChurchWeb Canada. You can now access current columns and five years of archives at http://quixotic.ca

            I write a second column each Wednesday, called Soft Edges, which deals somewhat more gently with issues of life and faith. To sign up for Soft Edges, write to me directly at the address above, or send a blank e-mail to softedges-subscribe@lists.quixotic.ca

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PROMOTION STUFF…

To use the links in this section, you’ll have to insert the necessary symbols.

            Ralph Milton ’s latest project is called “Sing Hallelujah” -- the world’s first video hymnal. It consists of 100 popular hymns, both new and old, on five DVDs that can be played using a standard DVD player and TV screen, for use in congregations who lack skilled musicians to play piano or organ. More details at wwwDOTsinghallelujahDOTca

            Ralph’s HymnSight webpage is still up, http://wwwDOThymnsightDOTca, with a vast gallery of photos you can use to enhance the appearance of the visual images you project for liturgical use (prayers, responses, hymn verses, etc.)

            Wayne Irwin's “Churchweb Canada,” an inexpensive service for any congregation wanting to develop a web presence, with free consultation. <http://wwwDOTchurchwebcanadaDOTca>

            I recommend Isabel Gibson’s thoughtful and well-written blog, wwwDOTtraditionaliconoclastDOTcom

            Alva Wood’s satiric stories about incompetent bureaucrats and prejudiced attitudes in a small town -- not particularly religious, but fun; alvawoodATgmailDOTcom to get onto her mailing list.

            Tom Watson writes a weekly blog called “The View from Grandpa Tom’s Balcony” -- ruminations on various subjects, and feedback from Tom’s readers. Write him at tomwatsoATgmailDOTcom or twatsonATsentexDOTnet