Heroes

By Bob Voglewede
Avera Health Vice President of Mission Services

In recent years, meeting with management groups, I've sometimes asked people about heroes: do they have any heroes today or did they as kids growing up. Why? Perhaps it's the kid in me wanting to know about the kid in others. Maybe it's a hunger for inspiration.

Often when I ask the question people are quiet. One or two will talk about a parent or grandparent, and occasionally someone will mention a national figure, like Billy Graham, but on the whole it's quiet. And I wonder, "Why?" Perhaps people need more time to think. Perhaps it's too personal. Perhaps we're afraid that today's hero will be tomorrow's disappointing headline.

Did my friends and I have heroes as kids? Growing up in Minnesota, you bet we did.

In the fall in the early 50's, everyone's football hero was UofM's Paul Giel. In neighborhood "pick-up" games, we all tried to run the ball in Giel's shifty style: Break through the hole, give a hip to the right, cut left, and leave tacklers grabbing air. What a thrill!

When the season changed to basketball, UofM had stars like Whitey Skoog and Bob McNamara, but the real champs were the Minneapolis Lakers. With the great all-pro, George Miken, supported by Vern Mikkelson, Jim Pollard, Bobby Harrison and Slater Martin, the Lakers dominated pro basketball. I remember attending a game one night with my dad when the Lakers beat the Fort Wayne Pistons in one of the lowest scoring games in league history: 19-18, if I remember. It made history but sure was boring!

In the summer I remember going to sleep with a radio next to my head tuned to the Minneapolis Millers. The only name I remember was Willie Mays. Willie spent several months with the team one summer on his way up to the New York Giants where he became a legend.

In a more spiritual vein I remember preparing for the Sacrament of Confirmation. Sister told us we needed to choose a Confirmation name and should give careful thought to which saint we wanted as our personal patron. I happened upon a life of Francis of Assisi and was touched: a friend to birds and animals, simple in his life-style, and someone who radiated peace. Before long I was Robert Bernard Francis Voglewede.

In the years that followed other hero-like people impressed me. I remember the political heroes John F. Kennedy described in his Profiles in Courage. And my grandfather so impressed me with stories about Abraham Lincoln that I bought and hung a large picture of the man in my bedroom. Later, Francis Xavier, Peter Claver and Damian the leper inspired me.

If you asked me who I admire today, I'd say, "Oscar Romeo." If you've rented the video, Romero, you know he was a diocesan priest of El Salvador. When he began his priestly ministry as a young man, he was pastorally out of touch, overly allied with the powerful wealthy and someone who saw conditions for the poor as unfortunate but nothing needing his attention.

But a crack developed in Romero's heart. He had a brother's love for a fellow priest, Artullio Grande, who was working in the countryside helping peasant people organize their lives and speak up for just social conditions. One day Romeo was hastily summoned to a remote country roadside. There he gasped in horror at the bullet-riddled body of his friend. A death squad had put an end to Grande's work for social justice and the poor, but they started a transformation in Romero.

In the months that followed his heart was further opened as he witnessed other injustices and brutalities visited upon the poor. In response, he began to speak out, haltingly at first, but in time with more and more courage. But it wasn't the message political, economic or military leaders wanted to hear from a church person, so Romero, even though now Archbishop of El Salvador, began to get death threats. The situation escalated until one day he was shot to death by gunmen as he raised the host during Mass in a small chapel. His blood mingled with that of thousands of other poor Salvadoreans, and today gives hope that social justice will someday come to El Salvador.

Admittedly a long way from Paul Giel, but what's your history of heroes? Are heroes simply passe`?