Oh, To Be a Hero

(Picture: my very heroic brother)

Today, I was sorting through materials leftover from our school spirit week, which happened back in February. [Side note: the upside of desk-cleaning is finding scraps like this. The downside of finding scraps like this is that one tends to stop and blog about them instead of finishing the desk cleaning...]

The theme was "Heroes." Each day our multi-age teams began by discussing a goofy superhero question. These were my favorite two answer sheets:

[I would post the actual pictures of the sheets, but they have student names on them. And I always change names of students here, so I'll recreate them instead.]

What is one superpower you would NEVER want to have? Why?

Flying. Too common.

X-ray vision. No use to it.

X-ray vision. It would be a scam.

Stink power. Doesn't want to smell bad.

Mind reader. Doesn't want to know what people think.

Fighter. Peaceful thing.

Invisibility. Don't wanna run into people.

Last student (a kindergartener): he likes all super powers.

If you could do only one heroic deed in your life, what would you choose?

Save a life

Save a life

Save a life

Hit the winning home-run in the world series

Shovel driveways

Gotta love that last one. He must really be a hero to his parents -- that is, unless his wish is to shovel only once. In that case, he's living in the wrong state.

Of course, I had to think of my own answers to this question...

The one superpower I'd absolutely hate:

I have to agree with the mind reading. Yuck.

One superpower that would come in handy:

The ability to magically make unruly middle schoolers stop disrupting my class. I'm imagining me pointing at someone (who just might be making duck noises in the back row), a loud ZAP! resounding throughout the room, and that student remaining frozen until the end of class (or the end of the semester -- I'm flexible). That would be so stinking cool. And effective.

My preferred heroic deed?

Chase a bear away from a vanful of food in the middle of the night while camping -- oh, wait, my mom already did that. (I did wake her up, so I was a tiny bit helpful.) Maybe I could rescue a camper from the jaws of a grizzly bear instead.

Presuming that I actually received the aforementioned super zapping power: in some cases, choosing to unfreeze certain students would be a gesture of heroic, exceptional mercy. Just sayin'.

In reality? I'd like to steal my friend Nick's answer from the last time I played Loaded Questions: take in orphans. Or follow my aunt and uncle's example and purposely live on less than their salary so they can give more. There are a lot of people in my life that I'd like to emulate: people who choose to give their time and resources to those who can't give it back. People who serve without anyone noticing or appreciating them. People who take the high road, or the hard road, in order to follow Christ, even when it costs them.