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About Heritage Trails |
NURTURING HEROES Spring 1984 Written By Elaine D. Rapp Who knows what capabilities lie within? What heights may be scaled and what goals achieved? Quite possibly each newborn person has a potential of wondrous range -- but how can the furthest limits be reached in pursuit of life's accomplishments? As the primary nurturer of three young children, I often wistfully imagine that my work entails not so much the scientific dissection of the inner person and the consequent programming of that personality, but rather the pursuit of the hero in each of them. Hero in both the mythical sense and the mortal sense; a half-god or half-goddess, worshipped as a valid archetype of a person pursuing the courageous and noble path, and also revered as a human demonstrating high moral character. Still wistful, I foresee an awakened heroic consciousness in almost any child unleashing hidden resources which will inspire the best that is within. Our forebears, both in pagan and Christian times, believed that humans were created by the divine as especial beings. Persons were endowed, they thought, with a potential for achievement far beyond ordinary mortal expectations and the divine power was often consulted for guidance. Many pagan and Christian heroes saw visions of sublime human conduct which they sought to emulated often against great odds, in noble deeds and brave actions. When persons were successful in these efforts they showed profound reverence for their maker be feeling they had fulfilled the highest purpose of their own creation. Somewhere deep within each person there may lie a slumbering inner consciousness which might be aroused as heroic ancestral accounts are studied. These ancient heroes are a part of people of today as illustrators of who contemporary people might be and: as such, are models which may provide keys to unlock the internal hero. As I watch my children grow and wonder more about the nature of people, I hope that this heroic consciousness might grow with them. I wonder if their belief in a continuity between themselves and their ancestors, in their values, in the courage they showed an surmounting the rumors of life by aspiring to the heroic, might strengthen inner resources which will mold them and direct them toward high endeavors all of their lives. Heroic pursuits do not seem to insist upon perfection, nor the attainment of the impossible, but may be, indeed, within any person's abilities. Heroic images inspire persons to strive, despite periods of chaos and disillusion, to achieve the highest. The quality of a person's quest for survival and then fulfillment becomes the measure of that person's self-worth. To nurture heroes, it might be well to let noble examples of the past provide assurance that the heroic potential is real and only lies awaiting fulfillment.
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