Return To Honor

In my second book, Return To Honor, I write about such topics as “Courage,” “Truth,” “Attitude,” and other core values that I draw upon to illustrate how one can liberate him or herself from the traps of moral weakness, illusion and “victim” mentalities that keep us stuck on the never-ending treadmills of life. In the first chapter, I refer to Audie Murphy, until recently considered the “most decorated hero” in U.S. military history.

Today I learned of the death of another American hero, Col. Robert Howard, the only person in history to be nominated for the Medal Of Honor three times, for three separate acts of the ultimate level of heroism. (You can only receive one per lifetime.) Bob Howard also earned eight Purple Hearts (for injuries sustained in battle),  and numerous other medals such as the Silver Star, the Bronze Star and so forth. If my count of what was listed is correct, he surpassed the total of Audie Murphie’s awards, which is almost inconceivable. To earn even a Silver Star alone takes an act of courage “above and beyond” the call of duty, and the Medal Of Honor itself is almost impossible to earn. Over 60% of those who did received theirs posthumously.

What compels me to write about Col. Howard at this point is to point out that nothing is impossible. One does not have to be a battlefield hero to be a “hero.” As the beloved “Doctor of Love,” Leo Buscaglia once wrote, “For most of us there will be no tickertape parade…no awards banquets or medals handed out for the heroic deeds we’ve done. But if we only knew the ripple effects that resulted from even the simplest acts of love and kindness we’ve done in our lives, we’d all be ‘heroes’.”

That may seem not so significant, but I can tell you for certain, and a good number of movies have portrayed it, and books have depicted it, that in fact a simple act of kindness can indeed change someone’s life. Consider the classic film, “It’s A Wonderful Life,” starring Jimmy Stewart, or the recent hit “Blindside,” starring Sandra Bullock, both of which were based on true stories. There are many more, and many that we’ll never know about…but lives have changed and have been saved over acts of kindness that may not take the courage and sacrifice of people like Col. Howard and Audie Murphy, but the long-term benefits can actually be just as great.

“If we only knew,” as Leo wrote, “the ripple effect” that our kindness and our courage to act kindly toward others has created. If we had the chance to step back and see the good that we’ve done, it would most certainly prove to have been worth all the difficulties, the challenges and heartaches that we have endured.

Never think that your life hasn’t counted for much. If you’ve done even the smallest thing to help someone else, to love someone else, or to do anything kind for someone that enabled them to change something troubling to them, then you have been a “hero.”

Don Kirchner
Sedona, Arizona

Charles Dickens wrote in A Tale Of Two Cities the classic line, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.” At no other time in my tumultuous life have I known that to be more true than right now. I look ahead and I look around, and I see and feel dread, fear, anger and despair, and yet in the midst of it and beyond it in truly glorious colors, shades and hues I also see and feel beauty, hope, promise and even joy.
How is that possible, and which is really true? A teacher of mine once said that everything has its balancing counterpart, and if we can step back in our minds far enough from any given event or experience, we will see the balance of all forces. Many of our great religions teach us in some form or another that “God gives us hardships in direct proportion to what we are capable of handling.” How capable we are of “handling” anything, I believe, is the degree to which we are able to “step back” and look objectively at the dilemmas of our lives. Our willingness to do that enables us to see those dilemmas for what they really are…opportunities to gain strength, insight and clarity about things we only thought we knew about before, or had learned…or perhaps resisted out of fear or discomfort or arrogance.
Whatever they are or have been for you, they are not insurmountable or as bad as they may seem, no matter how grim or awful they may look. They are only that way to the extent that you fear them, resist them or detest them. It is vital that you do not see anything or anyone as “doing something to you,” but rather that you have created the experience yourself through many different devices, beliefs and patterns of behavior and thinking for your own growth and transformation. “God” didn’t do anything to you but give you grace…which is your own spirit to draw upon for insight, inspiration and faith to accept what is before you and what you’ve left behind you in your wake, and do something positive and counterbalancing not just to make it right but to propel you out of the storms and into the bright, sunny light of day beyond them.
If you choose to see only the storms and the difficulties, you will only continue to create them as further “evidence” that life is stormy…the “worst of times,” as Dickens wrote. If you choose, however, to see the storms as merely experiences you have created to learn something or simply something to experience and gain wisdom from, then they will abate and you will see and experience what a friend of mine and I coined recently as “tangible miracles”…things that happen for no particular reason that bring new light, new friendships, unforeseen encounters and “chance” meetings with others who suddenly make life so much more meaningful, joyous and fun. Suddenly, it’s the best of times.
You and you alone have the power to change even the worst of maelstroms in your life into forces of good and decency. Call on God or Allah or the Great Spirit, if you wish, to help you through it, but know in your deepest psyche that it is you that determines by your daily choices how to view the problems in your life in such a way that you can thank them, bless them and use them so you can stop hacking and slashing your way through a jungle when there is a paved road only a few yards away.
You can keep hacking and slashing if you wish to, but at least you’ll know the road is always there. Then you can stop from time to time, raise your goblet in toast to the journey you’re on…and laugh. It’s only as bad as we think it is.
To the journey…

Don Kirchner

Sedona, AZ