Crucial Decision

[R. Jay Jay Johnson]

On June 21, 2009, Father’s Day at approximately 8:22AM I was driving along the high way, when I saw the body of a woman lying on the shoulder of the road. She lay on her side with her back facing me. She was motionless. I suddenly found myself in a stream of uncertain drivers, everyone wanting to stop but because of a shoulder that abruptly ends we all ended up passing the victim. I pulled out my cell phone and dialed 911. I got a recorded message telling me not to hang up in both English and Spanish assuring me that my call would be answered. Finally the dispatcher’s voice came on the line. I explained what I had seen and where. The dispatcher told me that help was on the way. I watched the news that night and there was no homicide story in the news. The woman was a survivor. She had survived whatever conflict had occurred. And who was the hero or was there one at all. Yes there was a hero. The woman’s heroic struggle to survive and not to submit to the will of another qualifies her as a hero.

A conflict arises when there are two opposing forces. From the conflict a hero will surface, an individual who won’t submit to an opposing force. When life’s balance or status quo is suddenly interrupted by opposing forces a crucial decision and a moral stance has to be taken that’s when a hero will arise.

The hero won’t accept what’s of less moral value. He or she makes a decision to restore a value and purpose to day to day living by confronting opposing forces. There will be both setbacks and wins along the way to gaining the hero’s objective. The woman on the side of the road won and overcame the opposition. She made a crucial decision not to submit to the opposition and struggled and won.

Heroes are not common individuals. They are willing to take on opposition when so many settle for submission. Their efforts are uncommon because they will take on the challenge of the opposition rather than shrinking away like so many. The biggest step that the hero takes is his crucial decision that things can be better and that he or she doesn’t have to settle for less.. His efforts to overcome the opposition are uncommon acts of valor only because everyone else would fall back and make a setback the end of their campaign and purpose. The hero instead recommits him or her self knowing that achievement of the purpose lies ahead only if they remain steadfast.

We all have crucial decisions in life to make that require not submitting to external forces, and the acceptance of living lives of reduced value. Submission often means accepting unhappiness and sometime suffering. Let’s make a crucial decision today and campaign to take on the opposition to trade in our present degrading lives for more divinely ordained living. The woman on the side of the road did it why can’t we.