My Heroes: 

As a little boy I had a few heroes I can vividly remember. They consisted mostly of Family; My parents, John and Gina Dubinsky, and my family in general (siblings, grandparents, aunts, uncles, etc…). These people were and are hero’s to me. I can still recall the feelings I had watching my uncles serve missions, my leaders teaching us to camp (white water raft, canoe, and hike), my parents teaching me what was right and what was wrong. Then I also had sports heroes; Clint Dempsey, Dave Niehaus, Bob Rondeau, and teams like the University of Washington, the United States Men’s soccer teams. Dave Niehaus made a terrible Mariners baseball team excite me afternoon after afternoon. I remember Bob Rondeau when Isaiah Thomas won the Pac-12 tournament for the University of Washington and Rondeau again calling Mason Fosters interception that BOUNCED off of someone else’s foot. I remember sitting in our basement with my brothers when Clint Dempsey scored in the World Cup for the USA. I also read about Book of Mormon heroes like Nephi, Captain Moroni and the 2000 stripling warriors. I imagined fighting alongside Aslan, Gimlee, and Legolas, and many many other heroes. I could continue to provide you with an exhaustive list of people who have influenced my life but this is sufficient for my purpose. I want to show that there are heroic influences all around us. These are heroes who provided me with lessons and experiences that have shaped who I am in big and little ways. Who are some of your heroes?

Importance of Heroes: 

I generally believe that the world is an amazing place. I think that life is an incredible blessing and one that I am genuinely grateful for everyday. I believe that people are good and capable of doing whatever they set their minds to. I think that so many of these things are easily believed by children but they are too easily lost as we grow up. What is it about children that allows them to be so quick to forget frustrations and so eager to embrace every little opportunity as an adventure? What is it generally about adults that makes us so quick to dwell on frustrations and so slow to embrace challenges? I would say that it is clear that information and experience cause those things… frustrations increase in frequency and we know too much to believe it will all work out in the end. We struggle to experience and learn without replacing these childlike virtues with practicality and realism. It is hard as an adult to believe that you can succeed when most people fail. That is where heroes come into the picture for me. Heroes have the ability to ignite genuine interest in the world, to fortify and institute ideals and beliefs, and to develop self belief. Heroes help us believe that we can succeed where others may have failed. They have the ability to reach deeply into our human natures and change them. We need heroes because they encourage us to be honorable, charitable, and courageous. They encourage us to hold on to our beliefs and dreams in the face of adversity. Heroes create resilient and confident children… Those are children that become resilient and confident parents, spouses, and neighbors.

Types of Heroes:

For the purposes of this essay I want to explain two types of heroes that have done different things for me in my life. First, fictional or fantastical heroes. These are heroes outside of real physical interaction. Sports figures, characters from books or films, and larger than life people fall into this category. Then second, there are those we interact with; parents, family, youth leaders, teachers, friends, and all those we know and grow up with. 

First, fictional characters that are heroes. Again, here are some examples (or suggestions): Frodo, Hercules, Odysseus, Lincoln, Churchill, Messi, Zlatan, C.S. Lewis, Tolkien, etc.. etc.. The benefit of these heroes is that they are larger than life. For the most part we know their stories, faults, and the outcomes of their adventures. They give us the big picture understanding that we can be courageous through everything. We don’t know them and talk to them so we don’t experience their stories in the same way. We can’t pause reading to ask Frodo how it felt to carry the ring and we can’t ask Sam why he stayed with Frodo. Therein lies the key to these heroes… There is so much to be assumed and gained from them. We have to fill in the blanks ourselves at times. We have to assume that what made Hercules great was his courage and Lincoln great was his commitment to emancipation… but we weren’t there for either of those things. We see Lincoln as staunchly against slavery braving the resistance of all others. We aggrandize these stories, and they grow in our imagination. When we do this, we amplify great character traits and by doing so raise our standards for courage, for commitment to good… etc. etc. These heroes set lofty and at times unreachable and unrealistic goals… but they do indeed influence us to set them. They are especially influential when we are children.

The second type of hero is the hero in our homes and communities. Parents are head and shoulders above everyone else in this category but it can include family, siblings, church leaders, friends, and so many more. The key is that these people live with or around us. We interact with them and their stories are continually changing. We have insight into their thoughts and see the more intimate details of their stories. We learn of their faults, the challenges they face, and can see more clearly the attributes that allowed them to thrive or overcome. In contrast with the heroes above, these heroes combine aggrandized virtues with the necessary realism and practicality of our daily lives. Fantasy heroes are important but family heroes are crucial. They are crucial because they allow us to maintain ideals and lofty ambitions while appreciating the realities of life. They teach us to harmonize our childlike adventurism and positivity with our adult knowledge and comprehension of the world. They make day to day life heroic. They show us the joys of sacrifice with the struggles of it too. There is no replacement for the heroic influence of a father and mother in the home. They sacrifice day-by-day for our well-being. I am sure many of you have heroic parents and I hope many of you, with me, will aspire to be heroic parents. 

Becoming Heroes Ourselves/What makes a hero:

    So let us talk for a second about what makes a hero… or better yet, you… pause and think of one of your heroes. What makes them a hero? (comment below?). This looks different for all of us. There is so much individualized affinity for different types of heroes in the world. For me the root of it is hope. I have an affinity for people and situations that give me hope. Heroes give me hope for change, a better world, and a better life. They feel larger than life to me because they have overcome and endured in places others don’t. The message here is that heroes are everywhere in every shape and size. They ride dragons and drive minivans, they sometimes make inedible dinners and sometimes they have incredible feasts, they are everywhere. Whatever you find as heroic, the greatest heroes inspire the perception of morales. The greater or common good, the difference between right and wrong, heroes can inspire all sorts of behavior but the greatest heroes foster intuitive righteousness. I believe the presence of morally strong and resilient heroes in the lives of children allows them to safely develop and better equips them to handle the world they will live in.

 As cheesy as it may sound, children need to aspire to become heroes. It allows them to dream and to keep dreaming as they grow up. My life has in part been made easier because I have aspired to be my wifes hero since I was a little boy…. A hero that does the dishes, gives pretty darn good massages, and fulfills my role as husband, companion, and future father…. It makes me so excitedly anxious to have children. To be their hero, providing food, teaching them to love the lord, and loving their mother…. I also aspired and still aspire to be my brother’s hero. I want them to feel comfortable and confident that I can help them achieve their dreams and I am in their corner. I want them to feel proud to be my brothers (and sisters but she is one of my heroes so I surely can’t be one of hers). These are all dreams I have had since I was a kid. I can’t honestly suggest that I aspired to do dishes and give weekly massages but I have tried to adopt these realities of life. It’s like they say, when life gives you lemons… make lemonade… or alternatively, when life makes you feel pretty far from heroic… regroup, adapt, and keep trying. These deeply rooted and powerful priorities that are given to us by heroes don’t need to be set aside in order to embrace the difficulties of life. 

Modern Day Heroes:

Where are our modern day heroes? They are in our own homes. Good fathers and good mothers heroically fight for the well-being of their children. I struggle when I see that being a parent has dropped far down the list of priorities for many people my age. Very rarely did friends of mine discuss the desire to become husbands and fathers. That is because our paths don’t actively teach us that, we have to learn that in our homes. That’s why we need good fathers and even better mothers. Children learn what it means to sacrifice better from parents than from anyone else. Think about the dreams put off in order to have children, the constant adjusting of plans, the late night diaper changes and later nights waiting for children to return home. My mom and dad’s lives changed significantly when they got married. My sister was already about 3 years old and they had me soon after getting married. Sometimes I wonder how in the world my mom raised my sister and found my dad. How my dad and her decided to get married and managed to afford their apartment and two children when they were years younger than me. How in the world did they do it? Why did they do it? Have they received any return on that heroic investment? I think about these questions constantly and find the most heroic people I know to be the ones that raised me. I cannot comprehend the sacrifices that were made to put me where I am. I feel that so strongly that I somehow know, deep down, that the only way that I can repay them is to pay it forward to my family. I am overwhelmingly grateful for them

Christ; The Hero:

This conversation of heroes would not and could not be complete without mentioning Christ. Of all the people to sacrifice themselves on our behalf, none other deserves the title of Hero so definitively. It almost feels irreverent to call him, the Savior of the World, a Hero… but he is The Ultimate Hero. In his own words the people in the ancient americas heard “ I am the light and the life of the world; and I have drunk out of that bitter cup which the father hath given me, and have glorified the Father in taking upon me the sins of the world, in the which I have suffered the will of the Father in all things from the beginning.”….”And it came to pass that the Lord spake unto them saying “Arise and Come forth unto me that ye may thrust your hands into my side, and also that ye may feel the prints of the nails in my hands and in my feet, that ye may know that I am the God of Israel, and the God of the whole earth and have been slain for the sins of the world”. I can’t think of a mission more meaningful than his, nor a fulfillment of that mission more complete. 

Christ teaches gentleness, meekness, lowliness, and love-unfeigned. The attributes of any of your truly heroic heroes finds its perfection in Christ. I believe that the greatest heroes inspire Christlike attributes in us. Whether explicitly or implicitly, heroes give rise to charity, hope, selflessness, and so many more desirable qualities.  I invite you to consider Christ’s invitation to “become as little children”. Christ wanted us to live in the world but not be of it. That coupled with the direction to become as little children suggests, that he wants us to know what sin is but not choose it. He wants us, as little children, to desire to overcome and maintain that desire even when we are introduced to sin, tragedy, and suffering (as a hero would). He desires that we become like him… he wants us to be heroically committed to him. Christ knew where his life would lead and yet he walked that path to the end. We do not know where our lives will lead us but because of him we know that we can lead it to the end. I know that he lives and loves us. I know that he can make heroes out of us all. I hope that we can all take time to recognize his heroic influence on our lives… and then ponder the heroic opportunities we have to bless the lives of others.

There is an urgent need in the world today for heroes. I want to invite everyone that finds the time to read this, to analyze the heroic influence you can have in the lives of those around you. I believe that, like Christ, we were meant to save and succor those in need of help. You are a hero to someone, maybe to many people and your influence is much greater than you know. So once more, the invitation to us all, is to find meaningful ways to be a heroic influence in the lives of those you love.