I love movies that portray the ordinary man or woman as a hero.  They make us believe we are capable of doing brave and courageous things despite the non-believers of the world.  We are all ordinary people until an extraordinary event pushes us to be more than we ever expected from ourselves.  In that moment, we draw from our souls and make a good thing out of a bad one.

Needing to relax after an emotionally taxing week, I picked up two DVD’s at the video store.  One was a contemporary story about a chaplain in the army and his troubled life after serving in Iraq.  The other movie was a fantasy about a man destined to become the king of the ocean and his war against the evils of the underworld.  Both accomplished one goal: to get my writer’s juices flowing again.

Both male characters were ordinary people who illustrated human strengths and frailties.  There are good and bad traits in all of us, even some ugly ones, but it is in our pains, our fears, and our doubts that we become heroes of the world.  We grow the most when we acknowledge that we need help and go onto creating a better world by doing extraordinary acts of love.

The chaplain felt challenged when he was deployed to an area outside of Bagdad.  As he grew to know the soldiers in his command, he realized how vulnerable they were to their anger, fear, and doubt.  He baptized one of those soldiers before he was sent out on another mission.  The young man was killed by a roadside bomb, and the chaplain’s neighbor from back home lost his leg in trying to save him.  When the chaplain returned to the states, he struggled with why God had let this newly-baptized young man die and why his neighbor was severely wounded.  The chaplain’s anger turned against God and became a wedge between his wife and children.

This true story ended with the chaplain receiving the bronze star and his captain’s bars.  When his wife finally broke through his pain, the chaplain realized that every warrior’s armor has cracks in it, and every warrior, like Michael the Archangel, can win the fight when he places his faith in God, the giver of life.  We are given a purpose and a time to be here on the earth, and God rewards those who fight the good fight.

Fantasies are symbolic of man’s search for truth and goodness in an evil world.  Despite insurmountable odds, an ordinary man can fight to overcome the darkness of a hostile world.  This man, born of human and alien parents, fought to save his mother’s world from her mortal enemies, even though he had never been a part of her world.  The story illustrated how we can build a more vital world by letting go of our doubts, even fighting for something that defies logic.  In the end, we learn that we can tackle any problem and survive its consequences by learning how to love the darkest, most hostile enemies of the world.   Forgiveness is part of God’s plan for us, and we can do no less than allow Him to help us love our enemies.

We are all ordinary human beings; we can do incredible things when we harness our pains, fears, and angers and turn them into powerful forces for good.  Like the ripples of water that form after dropping a stone in a pond, every act of love we do creates another ring, another ripple of love for someone else.   Celebrate life and our abilities to be extraordinary heroes.  You never know when you’ll be called upon to do something great, something extraordinary.

Anna Hartt