Hero. We hear this word tossed around frequently. We may even use it ourselves. Of course, to wear this label is an honor; is's always better to wear a label to live "up to" than to wear labels to "live down" and which stigmatizes and denigrates us. But have we seriously wondered what a hero is? The US government has their own ideas whose heroism merits the Congressional Medal of Honor, which is usually awarded to veterans. As I understand it, the Congressional Medal of Honor is awarded to someone whose act(s) of heroism 1) extends far beyond the call of duty, 2) entails tremendous personal risk/and or sacrifice on the part of the heroic person, for others, and 3) is an act(s) for which the person would not be criticized if not performed; as by defintion the act is not an obligation but freely chosen without heed of repercussions to one's self.
Today, our military troops and veterans are usually recognized as heroes, often being called "war heroes." Also hailed as heroes are law enforcement officers, firefighters, and emergency medical technicians or paramedics. And deservedly so. All these people perform acts that place their lives on the line and benefit society by securing our freedom and safety. They usually freely choose these walks of life; no one is telling them what to do. And many even donate their time to do these things, as in the case of volunteer firefighters and military troops. Would any of them be criticized for leaving their chosen walks of life? Hardly.
I'm sure most of us TV viewers are aware of the annual "CNN Heroes" program, and there are many other media venues which bestow honors, often cash, on those whom they recognize as heroes. For example, kidnap survivor Elizabeth Smart has been honored formally, at least twice, as a hero. Once, PEOPLE magazine bestowed the honor on her by featuring her as one of the "heroes of the year" and last year, another venue recognized her as a hero, awarding Elizabeth $50,000 to fund her activist work. And many informally call her a hero. True, this young woman has survived horrific circumstances during her nine-month ordeal and has no doubt struggled much in her transition from victim to survivor. She is using her past traumas to benefit others; thus she wears the hero label. Temple Grandin, who has an IQ in the gifted range, has become hugely famous and successful and no doubt is the best-known highest-functioning autistic person who is living today and has risen above low expectations and her own personal challenges and differences. She is considered by many, in and out of the autism community, to be a hero who shows us all the odds that one can overcome to be all one can be. She has received many well-deserved honors and awards; she is using her challenges and her past in advocacy for the equal rights not only of autistic people but also of animals. Janice Smolinski, mother of missing Billy Smolinski, has, for the last seven years of her son's disappearance, been a tireless advocate for missing people and their families. She is frequently called a hero and deservedly so. Amidst her own nightmare, she has used social networking and other means to reach out to and show support to other families of missing people. She has worked endless hours to craft the proposed "Billy's Law" which is designed to put in place laws that would more effectively and efficiently find missing people and match many of them with unidentified people. There are many other high-profile examples of those who have transcended their own adversity for the help of others. But for every high-profile hero, there are many obscure, unsung heroes who are also transcending their adversity and personal odds and challenges or tragedies to help, bless, and advocate for others.
The term "my hero" is often tossed around to refer to anyone a person admires or even likes. Today, it seems that many well-known people, including celebrities, are considered heroes or role models, as athletes and indeed anyone who appears on TV may. That is, unless a famous or successful person who performed acts considered wrong or criminal, they are often up for the hero label because they are "out there" and possess influence that others look up to. And people coming from backgounds of poverty, disability or abuse often are considered heroes and role models, and deservedly so, when they are able to become wealthy, famous and rise to positions of respect and prestige. I don't begrudge anyone who is able to "go from rages to riches" and "turn the scars into stars." This is what makes free countries like the US so unique, that anyone can come to the US and, if possessing dogged drive and determination and given the right set of opportunities and support, can transcend failure into overwhelming success by the world's definition. This is what our current President, Barak Obama, points out in a TV commercial when he was responding to accusations about his "lack of patriotism." For indeed, this is his story.
But how accessible is heroism to the rest of us who may never be in the position to save a life by getting into a dramatic, dangerous situation, may lack the ambition, opportunities or support to achieve the worldly sucess that could inspire others or may not be qualified or be good fits for the positions considered as heroic by definition? If we want a society of courageous people, do we need to rely on people who have lived unually horrific lives, like a Jaycee Dugard or a war hero amputee, like Sen. Max Cleland? Need we rely on those whose walks of life call for dangerous feats to save lives or ensure our freedoms, for our need for a society of courageous people? Is drama required for heroism to come into play? No, I think not, and I don't think a just, fair God will judge us by the lack of opportunities to be heroes, to care enough about people to make great sacrifices for them and to transcend personal adversity through worldly success. In my Bible, I read about people whom Jesus honored but whom I doubt would ever have been considered heroes in their day--a foreign-born, "heathen" woman who prevailed with Him and whom Jesus commended for her faith, a woman who was healed of contant bleeding and whom Jesus also commended for her faith, and a blind man who wanted to see and whom Jesus praised for his faith. Jesus lavished praise on a prostitute who anointed Him with perfume and washed His feet with her tears. He praised her for her faith and love. Rahab, "the harlot" was one of those praised in the Book of Hebrews for her faith in hiding Israelite spies. I can cite many more examples of people praised in Scripture whom God honored but whose courage and faith would not have been noticed by our free culture.
What does this mean for us? It means that, whatever choices are presented to us, we can all make choices, small and insignificant as these may seem to be in the scheme of things, where we transcend personal odds, tragedy or adversity to bless, help, advocate for and/or to inspire or encourage others. We can be involved in the saving of lives, as we seek to do our part in preventing/ending crime, abuse, suicide, bullying, poverty and other social ills. We can do many things beyond the call of duty just because we want to give back, to "pay it forward" and not because anyone is telling us to or expecting us to do these things.
Above all, we can all trust ourselves to the greatest Hero of them all, the Son of God, Jesus Christ, Who did the most heroic thing ever performed in human history when He gave His life on a wooden cross for our sins and was raised for this being being raised to life again.
http://worldvision.org/. You can be a hero to a needy child; check this website out.
http://peace4missing.ning.com/. You can be a hero to families of missing people; join this social networking site.
http://talkaboutit.org.ning.com and https://www.facebook.com/#!/talkaboutitfoundation You can be a hero by educating yourself about the stigmatizing medical condition of epilepsy and helping to end the stigma by speaking out about it.
http://www.persecution.com/ You can be a hero to people of faith worldwide, who often suffer severe persecution for their faith; check out this website.
http://avoiceforneli.com/ You can be a hero to one wrongfully convicted, imprisoned young man with autism by checking out this website, educating yourself about him and seeing how you can help.
http://www.missingkids.com/ and http://www.lostnmissing.com/ You can be a hero to missing children and/or adults and their families; check out these websites.
http://www.stopbullying.gov/ You can be a hero to victims of bullying and even help save lives; check out this website.
http://www.childhelp.com/ You can be a hero to helpless children and help to prevent and end child abuse; check out this website.
https://www.facebook.com/800273TALK and http://www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org/. You can be a hero to those who are in emotional distress and want to end their lives by educating yourself about suicide and through awareness and advocacy.
Thursday, December 8, 2011
Monday, December 5, 2011
Do We Really Believe That Honesty is the Best Policy?
"Honesty is the best policy." How often do we hear this slogan; maybe we have even repeated it ourselves. Yet, in the culture of our free world, you ponder the widespread thefts, ethics violations, many different forms of cheating, deception and lies in all settings--it's clear that many among us don't see this principle as applicable to our own lives. Do we really believe that honesty is the best policy? Dishonesty has become so widespread in much of our free world, especially in the US and no doubt in other countries, that general background checks, including criminal background checks, are becoming more and more firmly entrenched in our culture and are growing more and more thorough. And when we seek volunteer positions with nonprofit organizations or places of worship, which often have not conducted general background checks or criminal background checks, we can expect more screening and more thorough screening. Why? Because our identities and the data we provide in applications and interviews can no longer be taken at face value. Among the honest, true individuals among us, criminals hiding their pasts lurk and to identify them we all must, more and more, pay the price of giving up a measure of our privacy and a zone of our civil rights in order to keep our society safer.
There are countless instances of this massive dishonesty. Employer and executives of nonprofit organizations complain about misrepresentation, lying and even outright fraud on applications, not only about applicants' criminal histories, but also about accomplishments and achievements in education, employment and other areas which are covered on applications. They "cry foul" about ethics violations, fraud, theft or hidden criminal pasts that surface on the job or, increasingly, through background checks. In schools, cheating is alarmingly common among both faculty and students. In the workplace, stealing is common among both management and labor. Embezzlement and other widespread ethics violations prevail in the corporate world, in both for-profit and nonprofit organizations. I don't think I need to go into the countless political scandals that involve fraud, ethics violations and even crime. Need I go into the countless intances where secrets and lies within our families and in our places of worship so often tend to foster sick atmospheres where gossip and lack of trust flourish?
What has made dishonesty so much a part of the free world? One need not be a psychologist to to be able to offer explanations for this, so I'll give it a whirl. Much of this begins right in the home. Many of us grew up in homes where we saw family members, even our parents, bend the truth; we may have even been told: "It's okay to tell a white lie." We may have witnessed family members lie on applications for jobs, benefits, income taxes or more. And so we absorbed the idea that, at least sometimes, it's okay to neglect the truth. Or, we may have grown up in abusive environments where we felt the need to lie, cheat or steal to survive. We may have, at some point in our lives, been in tough, even desperate economic situations where we have felt driven to lie on applications for jobs, benefits, or other services. Some may even resort to identity theft (stealing another's personal information, like a Social Security Number), to obtain those services or goods. And, as I do, I'm sure you may even hear people declare, cynically, "Forget about honesty being the best policy; you have to sometimes cheat, steal or lie to get by in this dog-eat-dog world." We may hear, "That wealthy company won't miss that little bit of money or goods; why not help yourself?"
Because of all of this, we live in a culture where we can no longer trust each other and where our rights to privacy and our civil rights are slowly being eroded. Now, when we want secure employment or even a volunteer position with a nonprofit, we can count on an employer or executive looking up our information on the Internet, doing searches on us to see what we've been up to or what's been said about us. We can count on our profiles being visited for their evaluation purposes and anything we post can be used against us. Offline, we can always assume that anything we do can be caught on surveillance video or other means. It's sad that we have gone from an honor system where we trusted each other to do the right thing because it IS that, the right thing. Instead, we have gone to a system where we can no longer take each other at face value and are guilty until we are proven innocent. Trust, the foundation of all human relationships, is being eroded by all this widespread dishonesty.
I can share many stories from my own life about this matter. I can recall only one intance in my life, as a child, when I was involved in theft, and my motive was to gain attention because I felt ignored. I received that attention for sure, but not the kind I wanted. At age 17, when I was under the influence of inappropriate prescription drugs and another substance, I recall lying to keep my habit going. Aside from this, I created for myself a personal code of ethics where I would commit myself to the truth and never knowingly or willingly lie, cheat, steal or deceive. Being human, I know I have and will no doubt, keep erring in even this area. A trait of autism, including high-functioning autism (HFA) and Asperger's Syndrome (ASD) is the tendency to be honest to a fault because of a rules-orientation (and truth is a rule). As I'm self-diagnosed with this condition, this may explain my devotion to the truth, even as I know that it's a Scriptural principle HOW we tell this truth--always in love. But aside from this point, there are a number of time, even as an adult, when honesty and full disclosure have backfired. Three separate times I have applied for volunteer positions, fully disclosing my medical conditions. In the third cases, as I had agreed to submit to a background check, including a criminal background check, I also disclosed my concerns over possible "red flags" that may show up in this background check. All to no avail. My application was still declined. Even though I realize that this screening is essential to a safer society and success and effectiveness in business, I can't shake the feeling that my integrity and honesty has been called into question and it has also shaken my own trust in people. Very sad.
This gets me to this issue of autism and other neurological conditions or disabilities where people, in general, are marked by lack of guile and unfiltered sincerity and honesty. This is because so many in the disability culture don't have the social skills or the verbal skills or the cognitive capacity to engage in so many forms of the dishonesty which I have been discussing. I have already discussed my own experience with honesty. In the case of my daughter, who is formally disagnosed with autism, high-functioning, mainstreamed and on now on the honor roll, she tends to be very frank. Even when she shares negative information, it's seldom said in anger and never said in malice. I don't know what studies have been done on this, but do you hear of, for instance, many workers with disabilities being accused of or caught lying, stealing or being involved in ethics violations? In my opnion, it seems that
many in this culture have not absorbed the values that fuel so much widespread dishonesty. Maybe different neurological wiring is actually an advantage in some ways; this argues that difference may not be just "as good as" but in some ways "better than"!
Being honest can indeed be risky and can even backfire, but the risks of dishonesty are even greater!
There are countless instances of this massive dishonesty. Employer and executives of nonprofit organizations complain about misrepresentation, lying and even outright fraud on applications, not only about applicants' criminal histories, but also about accomplishments and achievements in education, employment and other areas which are covered on applications. They "cry foul" about ethics violations, fraud, theft or hidden criminal pasts that surface on the job or, increasingly, through background checks. In schools, cheating is alarmingly common among both faculty and students. In the workplace, stealing is common among both management and labor. Embezzlement and other widespread ethics violations prevail in the corporate world, in both for-profit and nonprofit organizations. I don't think I need to go into the countless political scandals that involve fraud, ethics violations and even crime. Need I go into the countless intances where secrets and lies within our families and in our places of worship so often tend to foster sick atmospheres where gossip and lack of trust flourish?
What has made dishonesty so much a part of the free world? One need not be a psychologist to to be able to offer explanations for this, so I'll give it a whirl. Much of this begins right in the home. Many of us grew up in homes where we saw family members, even our parents, bend the truth; we may have even been told: "It's okay to tell a white lie." We may have witnessed family members lie on applications for jobs, benefits, income taxes or more. And so we absorbed the idea that, at least sometimes, it's okay to neglect the truth. Or, we may have grown up in abusive environments where we felt the need to lie, cheat or steal to survive. We may have, at some point in our lives, been in tough, even desperate economic situations where we have felt driven to lie on applications for jobs, benefits, or other services. Some may even resort to identity theft (stealing another's personal information, like a Social Security Number), to obtain those services or goods. And, as I do, I'm sure you may even hear people declare, cynically, "Forget about honesty being the best policy; you have to sometimes cheat, steal or lie to get by in this dog-eat-dog world." We may hear, "That wealthy company won't miss that little bit of money or goods; why not help yourself?"
Because of all of this, we live in a culture where we can no longer trust each other and where our rights to privacy and our civil rights are slowly being eroded. Now, when we want secure employment or even a volunteer position with a nonprofit, we can count on an employer or executive looking up our information on the Internet, doing searches on us to see what we've been up to or what's been said about us. We can count on our profiles being visited for their evaluation purposes and anything we post can be used against us. Offline, we can always assume that anything we do can be caught on surveillance video or other means. It's sad that we have gone from an honor system where we trusted each other to do the right thing because it IS that, the right thing. Instead, we have gone to a system where we can no longer take each other at face value and are guilty until we are proven innocent. Trust, the foundation of all human relationships, is being eroded by all this widespread dishonesty.
I can share many stories from my own life about this matter. I can recall only one intance in my life, as a child, when I was involved in theft, and my motive was to gain attention because I felt ignored. I received that attention for sure, but not the kind I wanted. At age 17, when I was under the influence of inappropriate prescription drugs and another substance, I recall lying to keep my habit going. Aside from this, I created for myself a personal code of ethics where I would commit myself to the truth and never knowingly or willingly lie, cheat, steal or deceive. Being human, I know I have and will no doubt, keep erring in even this area. A trait of autism, including high-functioning autism (HFA) and Asperger's Syndrome (ASD) is the tendency to be honest to a fault because of a rules-orientation (and truth is a rule). As I'm self-diagnosed with this condition, this may explain my devotion to the truth, even as I know that it's a Scriptural principle HOW we tell this truth--always in love. But aside from this point, there are a number of time, even as an adult, when honesty and full disclosure have backfired. Three separate times I have applied for volunteer positions, fully disclosing my medical conditions. In the third cases, as I had agreed to submit to a background check, including a criminal background check, I also disclosed my concerns over possible "red flags" that may show up in this background check. All to no avail. My application was still declined. Even though I realize that this screening is essential to a safer society and success and effectiveness in business, I can't shake the feeling that my integrity and honesty has been called into question and it has also shaken my own trust in people. Very sad.
This gets me to this issue of autism and other neurological conditions or disabilities where people, in general, are marked by lack of guile and unfiltered sincerity and honesty. This is because so many in the disability culture don't have the social skills or the verbal skills or the cognitive capacity to engage in so many forms of the dishonesty which I have been discussing. I have already discussed my own experience with honesty. In the case of my daughter, who is formally disagnosed with autism, high-functioning, mainstreamed and on now on the honor roll, she tends to be very frank. Even when she shares negative information, it's seldom said in anger and never said in malice. I don't know what studies have been done on this, but do you hear of, for instance, many workers with disabilities being accused of or caught lying, stealing or being involved in ethics violations? In my opnion, it seems that
many in this culture have not absorbed the values that fuel so much widespread dishonesty. Maybe different neurological wiring is actually an advantage in some ways; this argues that difference may not be just "as good as" but in some ways "better than"!
Being honest can indeed be risky and can even backfire, but the risks of dishonesty are even greater!
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