Latest / The Lila Rose Show / E22: Heroes and Anti-Heroes

Transcript

E22: Heroes and Anti-Heroes · The Lila Rose Show

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Hello everyone, welcome to the Lila Rose show.
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Welcome back. Great to be back with you guys.
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I am going to be talking about heroes today, heroes and anti
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heroes. And this is really I think what
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can make or break culture is who are our heroes and what do we
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who do we admire? Who do we look to?
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So really excited to dive into that.
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I think there's a lot of takeaways for us.
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But before doing that, first of all, thank you for everybody who
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has emailed me, sent me your thoughts on the last couple
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episodes. We talked with Josanne Marie
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about her incredible story as a sexual abuse survivor, childhood
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sexual abuse survivor, and her life of forgiveness.
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And so I got some interesting notes from some of you about
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some of you have been through similar experiences and just the
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power of hearing other people overcome and that that does not
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in the end define you, but that you are beautiful as Josanne's
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book is called beautiful. And then we also had an episode
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last week on what to look for in a man.
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I will be doing a what to look for in a woman episode in the
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future. But I love the feedback on that
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too, with some from men saying, hey, it was good to listen
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about, listen to qualities that are good for men to have that I
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aspire to. And some great comments from
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women. I mean, one from a woman who a
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couple from women who are dating or engaged and wondering, OK, do
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I keep moving forward because this person I'm with, this man
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is actually not interested in fatherhood.
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And that's really can be a deal breaker.
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So anyways, keep sending your thoughts.
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It's really great to hear them thoughts at lilaroseshow.com.
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As I shared last week, my new book is coming out actually
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today. Today is my book birthday,
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Tuesday, May 4th. You might be listening to this
1:53
later, but yes, this is the day. It's been long-awaited and I'm
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so excited to finally share. Fighting for life, becoming a
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force for change in a wounded world.
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I'm super pumped about it. I think that more than ever, we
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all need to get in the fight. There is a battle raging.
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Our nation is at a crossroads. Our world, all of our nations
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are at crossroads in a way every day and we have to decide what
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role we're going to play and how we're going to stand up and show
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up and stand up for what's right.
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So fighting for life is a guidebook.
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It is a handbook of sorts for anybody who wants to make a
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change in the world. It's also very personal.
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I share about building live action and the struggles I've
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been through and the triumphs. And I hope, I hope, I hope that
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is helpful and inspiring for you.
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So enjoy, enjoy, enjoy. OK, let's go to this topic of
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today, heroes and anti heroes. On the podcast, we talk a lot
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about development causes, how to be healthier, how to grow as
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human beings. And I think this is a linchpin
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for growth and to lay the groundwork here.
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And this is a topic that I discuss in the book is actually
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a chapter in fighting for Life called Heroes Find Your Heroes.
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And I discuss the importance of this.
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If you are someone who wants to fight for A cause, if you are
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someone who is living your calling or trying to discover
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your calling, here's someone who just wants to become better and
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wants to love more, become the best man or woman you can be.
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Having a hero, having heroes, I think is essential.
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And I think we all have them, whether we know or not, whether
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we realize it or not. Having a hero has to do with the
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principle of worship. Worship is something that I
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think we're all made for. It's natural to the human person
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to want to worship something or someone.
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GK Chesterton says that man's most natural position is on his
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knees. Joseph Peeper, the philosopher,
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says in his book The Basis of Leisure.
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I'm paraphrasing here that the greatest expression of leisure
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or of rest for the human person is actually worship, celebration
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of life, but most of all of God, of the ultimate, of the ultimate
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idol, the ultimate one to be worshipped, which is God.
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And what we admire as human beings is what we become like.
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That's the principle of worship. We become like what we look to.
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We we try to model our behavior, our thought, our our speech,
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even after who we look to, after who we admire.
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That's why God says, you know, one of the 10 commandments is to
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have no idols before me. So for the Christian or Jewish
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audience listening to those familiar with the 10
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commandments, one of them is to have no idols before God.
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That God says I'm first. He's saying worship me first.
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I am the first to look to. Nobody else comes before me.
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And that's why does he say that? Well, it's owed to him because
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he's God. But he also understands that
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because we're made to worship. If we worship anybody but God or
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anything but God as first as the ultimate, as God, then we are
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going to damage ourselves. It is unnatural for us and we
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will miss lead ourselves. I think about just all kinds of
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people. I mean atheists, for example, a
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lot of people who don't subscribe to any religion or
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maybe an agnostic. We all have a belief system, a
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moral code that we live by, even if we don't realize it.
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And I think in a sense we all have a God, somebody, something
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that we look to at that in a sense we worship.
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I think for some today it's science.
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Science is the ultimate authority and arbiter and
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science is what we look to and science is what we Revere and
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respect. And that's kind of our our
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focus. That's our hero.
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For some people, it's maybe a romantic other.
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We put all of our admiration and her reverence in adoring, you
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know, the the latest focus of our affection.
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Everybody in a sense has a hero. Everybody, in a sense, has an
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idol or a God, and we have to decide, will they be good or
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bad? Will they be true or false?
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And so I, of course, would argue the ultimate hero is God.
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And I'm going to close out talking more about that.
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But there are three qualities that make a hero.
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I would say that make somebody a hero #1 is that a hero has moral
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clarity. A hero is somebody who
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understands morality, They understand right from wrong.
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They have a strong moral compass, and they're able to see
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the world for what it is and the human person for who they are.
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They, in this sense, can guide us.
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In this sense, they can actually lead us because they have moral
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clarity. The second thing is a hero lives
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out virtue. What is virtue?
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Virtue is excellence, morally speaking, and we can't live
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excellently if we don't know what excellence is, and we
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don't. We can't live morally if we
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don't know what morally is, which is why first, moral
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clarity is essential for a hero. So there are 7 virtues.
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Some of you have heard of this. There's what I was called the
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cardinal virtues, and then there are what are called theological
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virtues. The cardinal virtues were
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discussed by the ancients, by the Greco Roman philosophers of
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thousands of years ago, who said that the cardinal virtues are
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fortitude, temperance, prudence and justice, and that having
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these, possessing these qualities so be to be prudent,
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to be just to be, to have fortitude, to be courageous.
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You could say are persevering that these were marks of
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excellence, moral excellence in a person.
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And then the early Christians added some virtues, which they
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called theological virtues, some of the early Church fathers and
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doctors, and they said that these theological virtues,
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unlike cardinal, were infused in US directly by God, by his
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grace. And that's the virtue of love,
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the virtue of faith, and the virtue of hope.
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So these are the seven virtues, and together they create
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excellence in a person when we seek to grow in these areas.
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But in order to grow in the area, for example, of justice,
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you need to know what is just, and you can't know what is just,
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what is right from wrong, what is owed the other, unless you
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have moral clarity. So heroes have moral clarity.
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They live out virtue. And by nature, because they're
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doing that, they inspire us to heroic virtue.
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I think we all need models. We're all made to look to
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others, to learn from them. When we're kids, in a way, our
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parents are our first model. They're like God to us.
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I remember when I was little, so much of my moral universe was my
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parents. Even before I can remember.
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They kind of teach us, they do teach us what is right from
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wrong. That's why if we have difficult
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childhoods or neglectful or harmful parents, it's can be so
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damaging. And it's also why it can also be
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damaging to our relationship with God.
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Because sometimes how we see our parents is how we end up seeing
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God. And so how we react to them
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later in life because we've been hurt can be also how we find
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ourselves reacting to God. That's how powerful models are
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from an early age. And that's how important heroes
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are for us at any age because we look to them as what we want to
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be like. We look to them with admiration.
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And if they have that moral clarity, if they live out virtue
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and if they can inspire us to heroic virtue, then we are on a
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path to growth and we are on a path to becoming more excellent
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ourselves. I really credit heroes in my
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life for so much. I mean, I don't think I would
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have been able to focus on the pro-life cause, start life
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action if I hadn't had the heroes that I had.
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When I was a young girl. I had found out about abortion
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and I was really upset about it. I thought it was a huge problem.
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There were 3000 abortions a day at a time at the time in America
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alone. And it was legal.
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It is still is legal. And I was just very concerned.
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I thought I have to do something about this.
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I was also learning about a lot of other issues and there's so
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many other issues in the world to pay attention to.
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But I came across the the little nun from Calcutta, India, some
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of you, I'm sure, I'm sure all of you actually, I've heard of
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her Mother Teresa of Calcutta, now Saint Teresa of Calcutta.
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And at the time, she had, I think, recently passed away when
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I was a young teen, But she had captivated the world.
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I mean, she had won a Nobel Peace Prize.
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By the end of her life. She had spoken before the most
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powerful people on the planet. And she went around the world to
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just sharing the truth and also worked day in and day out when
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she wasn't traveling to care for the poorest of the poor and the
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slums of Calcutta, India. And she started her call.
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She discovered her call as a young girl.
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She grew up in Bosnia. She ends up in India as a young
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nun. She becomes a religious.
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And she is actually teaching young girls in India at a
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school, at a private school. But then she has this call
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within her heart to go serve the poorest of the poor because she
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sees the intense poverty in parts of India and the
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suffering, I mean, because of the caste system, because of
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economic issues. You could say because of lots of
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different factors that there was a whole cast or a whole class or
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group of people that were just treated as less than human by
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society. And they were dying, literally
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dying. Some of these people because of
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disease or because of disability or because of just sheer
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poverty, dying in the streets. And Mother Teresa wanted to go
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and care for them and be Christ to them and give them a death
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with dignity, to love them in their last moments or to help
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them to get them out of such terrible circumstances.
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So as she lived this, she would go around the world.
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As she became more well known, more people joined Missionaries
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of Charity. But she had very strong words to
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say about morality. She had this crystal moral
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clarity about the state of affairs.
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And I'm going to share you what she said at the National Prayer
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Breakfast, which is from a transcript that I read as a
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young girl. I started to bow ring her words
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because I came across some books about her teachings, some of her
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homilies she gave to other sisters or meditations I should
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say. And she just beautiful about how
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you love Jesus and how you put Jesus 1st.
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And I came across these books as a young girl.
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I was raised evangelical, but I'd go to this Catholic
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bookstore and loved reading his books.
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But as I researched her more, she had this crystal moral
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clarity and what she said at this National Prayer Breakfast
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in 1994 before Bill Clinton, then President Bill Clinton and
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all these very powerful pro abortion people.
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She looked at the crowd and she said the greatest destroyer of
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peace in the world is abortion. The greatest destroyer of peace
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in the world is abortion. Now, this nun could have said
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this little sister could have said that the greatest destroyer
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of peace was economic inequality was racism was sexism, was
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sexual abuse was. I mean, she could have named so
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many abuses she and in the sense you would have thought she would
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have because she worked in Calcutta, India, with the
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poorest of the poor. And even that she made a
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distinction. To call it the greatest
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destroyer of peace is stunning. And so when I read those words,
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I was just deeply moved by that and I really thought about it.
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Why? Why is it the greatest destroyer
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of peace? And she goes on to say, in a
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nation where a mother can kill her own child, what is left but
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for you and for I to kill one another?
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She said what she's saying here is it's one thing for the
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wealthy to reject the poor, or it's one thing for even people
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to mistreat others and even enslave or abuse them.
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But for a mother to reject her own child, for the womb to
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become a place of violence? What is left for our bonds as a
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society between people? What is left for our families?
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And when you look at the sheer death toll, abortion kills
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125,000 people daily globally. Every day in the world, 125,000
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people are dead because of abortion.
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That is the greatest destroyer of human life daily.
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It's a it's a leading cause of death, greatest bloodshed.
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And it's legal in most countries, certainly legal in
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the United States. So it's legalized injustice.
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It's not something that just happens, like rape or murder
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happens unjustly and illegally, but this is a legalized murder.
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And as I considered that and I looked at her writing, I just, I
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had moral clarity. I had the gift of moral clarity
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at a young age because of my hero, because Mother Teresa was
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my hero and she had moral clarity.
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She gave me that moral clarity. And I suddenly saw with all the
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causes, social justice issues, this one had to be first.
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This was the greatest destroyer of peace.
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It was the greatest human rights issue.
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Next up, starting live action. And I'm on this mission, right?
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So I share that because Mother Teresa was a hero, she had moral
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clarity. She understood right from wrong.
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She called evil evil and good good.
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She was not ambiguous morally. She was not confused morally,
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and she was fearless in speaking moral truths.
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And I think that is essential for a hero.
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And she lived virtuously. I mean, she lived a life of
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service and prayer, and she passionately tried to love other
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people. And so because of that, she
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inspired others. That's the power of a hero.
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Mother Teresa showed me what heroic love look like.
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And she gave me a vision of moral clarity that I would not
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have had otherwise. It's so hard in our world today
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to have moral clarity, especially when we're told by
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media, academia, friends, politics, we're kind of told
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what to care about. I mean, think about that for a
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minute. What is not reported on, what is
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not the social media news story, what is not the hashtag of the
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year, what is not the iPhone video captured on camera that
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becomes viral that everybody sees, might never be discussed
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or cared about, but could need to be.
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What I mean by that is we can focus our eyes on one cause or
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one injustice and exclude the others because it seems so all
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consuming and we're told that this is the cause of the day
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when perhaps we've missed it. Perhaps this matters.
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This cause matters too. And I'm not saying that the
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fight for life is the only 'cause I'm not saying that the
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pro-life cause is the only 'cause it absolutely is not.
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I care about a lot of other causes.
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But if we ignore the greatest destroyer of peace and we just
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focus on a 'cause that's more popular or easier or less
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controversial, and that is not moral clarity and that is not
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living out heroic virtue. And so I'm grateful.
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I'm grateful that Mother Teresa gave me that.
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I want to talk about two other heroes before talking about anti
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heroes because this isn't just about heroes.
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It's about anti heroes. And then how this applies to us.
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So two other heroes that I have that gave me really a vision for
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what even love was and virtue was.
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And they also had crystal moral clarity where Maximilian Colby,
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I've actually mentioned him on a podcast before and the episode
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on putting up with persecution. So some of you might remember
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him and also Corey 10. Boom.
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She was a woman in in a country neighboring to Germany during
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the World War 2. Her country was occupied by Nazi
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Germany and she and her sister Betsy lived with their father.
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You know, his watch repair above his watch repair shop.
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And this is at a time when the Jews were being viciously
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treated and also political dissidents and others, and she
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and her sister and father were doing their part to just help to
18:29
try to rescue Jews from being taken into concentration camps
18:32
by the s s and the Nazis. And so they actually tried to
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hide Jews above their father's watch shop.
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They called it the Hiding Place. And there's a book, Corey 10,
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Boom's book, The Hiding Place, that I read as a young girl.
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This is how I discovered this hero of mine and what happened
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because of Corey and Betsy, her sister's courage and her
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father's courage as an informant told the Nazis about their
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secret operation and they were captured in the night and
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dragged off to a concentration camp themselves because they had
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dared to stand up for the Jews. And before going any further in
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the store, I just want to stop for a second.
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Betsy and Corey did not have to do that.
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They did the 10 booms did not have to hide Jews in their attic
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and they could have had 1000 good reasons to say, Oh no, we
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don't have to. It's dangerous.
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Maybe we won't actually help them.
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Maybe we'll actually, you know, maybe the Jews will be put in
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further danger of direct aggression.
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You know, we could get in trouble and endangering my
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family. Maybe I'll just find other ways
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and maybe I'll just pray. Maybe I'll just pray.
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I'll just pray for the Jewish people and mind my own business.
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You know, the Nazis are occupying our our country now,
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but maybe that will change and we can we can be free in the
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future. And that's change is happening
19:52
soon. So why take so many risks?
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I mean, you can rationalize your way out of a cause before you
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even started. And I think that there's a
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tendency in all of us to do that.
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And I know when I was first getting involved in pro-life
20:06
work, you know, there's lots of distractions and reasons not to
20:09
do it and. Again, I did not in any way.
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There's no comparison today between what we're doing in the
20:17
pro-life movement and what these people did.
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I mean, Corey Tenboom, Betsy, these are heroes who risk their
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lives. I often say we're so privileged,
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we're so blessed, especially here in America.
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If you're listening, I mean, I know we have lots of
20:33
international listeners. And I think really in most
20:35
Western nations and, and most nations in the world today, I
20:38
mean, there's a lot of poverty and suffering and injustices.
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But you know, if you're listening, if you're able to
20:43
even listen to a podcast, there's some privilege right
20:45
there and blessing right there. You have that freedom and that
20:47
technology. There's so many opportunities we
20:51
have and you know, we're not at risk of dying the way that Corey
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and Betsy, her sister and their father were because of pro-life
20:59
work. I mean, we have the freedom to
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do it where our rights are even protected to do it.
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The real victim. We are not the victim.
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The child in the womb is the victim.
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The the the woman or the young girl has been lied and misled,
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lied to and misled is the victim is is another victim.
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But all this to say, Corey, 10, Boom and Betsy, when they
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decided to step into the fray, when they decided to say we have
21:25
to do something, we're not going to sit on the sidelines.
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We're going to take action. And they rest themselves.
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They ended up suffering the consequences.
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They were dragged to concentration camps.
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They were tortured, malnourished, suffered
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deprivation and disease. Betsy would die and Corey
21:42
Tenboom would almost die. She actually was miraculously
21:45
released right before the end of the war, and she's going to be
21:48
able to tell the story of her sister and write her book.
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But she lived heroic virtue. She sacrificed even herself
21:59
because she had moral clarity about the crisis of how the
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Jewish people were being treated.
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And she did something about it. She understood that she could
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stand up and fight for them. And so that is a hero right
22:09
there. That is somebody who can inspire
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us to self sacrifice for others and give us a better vision of
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seeing even when it's inconvenient, right from wrong
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and being willing to stand up for what is right against what
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is wrong. Maximilian Colby, also a in a
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Nazi occupied nation. He was in Poland.
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He's a priest. He ends up also trying to
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shelter Jews to help them escape.
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He gets caught as well. He's sent to Auschwitz, the very
22:40
infamous internment camp and concentration camp.
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And there he tries to keep his faith alive.
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He shares the faith with others. I mean, he's living heroic
22:50
virtue in the camp despite the deprivation and, and despite the
22:54
torture. And then one day there is an
22:57
escape attempt by, by some of the suffering prisoners.
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They line up all the men in the men's camp for roll call to
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talk, you know, to interrogate them for and punish them for
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this escapee. Maximilian Colby is there.
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And they say as a punishment, they're going to pick 10 random
23:14
prisoners to put them in the bunker.
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The bunker is a place where you suffer terribly.
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You, you starve and dehydrate to death, thirst to death.
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And that's your, that's the way you die.
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And so they start selecting men. And then they're down to the
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last man that they're selecting. And he cries out in complete
23:32
terror. My wife, my children, this, this
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particular prisoner was just distraught to think that if he
23:38
dies in this bunk where he'll never have a chance to be
23:41
reunited with them or to try to rescue them.
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And when Maximilian Colby standing in line heard this man
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cry out, he made a decision that he did not have to make.
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He stepped forward and said take me instead.
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He offered his life for that man's life and they accepted it.
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The Nazis accepted at the s s and they they dragged him to the
23:59
bunker. He led the men in prayer and
24:02
singing as they suffered for two weeks.
24:05
He didn't died after even almost two weeks.
24:08
And so they end up giving him a injection in the heart to kill
24:11
him. And they say that he died with
24:12
peace and even joy on his face. Maximilian Colby had moral
24:17
clarity about the value of life, about faith, about God.
24:23
And he had heroic virtue. Remember I mentioned the
24:26
theological virtues, faith, hope, and love.
24:28
You need God for those those are those are God-given.
24:32
Not that God doesn't give us the cardinal virtues, the other 4,
24:35
but we need particular grace to have the the, the the ability to
24:40
lay down our life for someone to love that much.
24:44
Faith, they say, is a gift. And in that sense, it's also
24:48
infused in US, given to us to be able to have faith.
24:51
We can ask for these gifts. God wants to give them to us
24:54
freely. But Maximilian Colby had the
24:57
ultimate heroic virtue, love, in that he laid down his life.
25:02
So these are some of my early heroes.
25:04
I've had many others since. I want to encourage you to have
25:07
your heroes think about who are my heroes?
25:09
Who are my models? Who do I admire?
25:11
Who do I look to? Because who we look to is who we
25:14
strive to become like, whether we realize it or not.
25:16
And this, we have to be intentional about this because
25:19
there are anti heroes. Antiheroes are everywhere.
25:24
And antiheroes can really, I think, make or break us.
25:29
Antiheroes can make or break our society.
25:32
And what is an antihero? An antihero, I think is somebody
25:36
who number one is morally ambiguous or has moral upholds
25:42
moral wrong is moral right. They're morally confused.
25:45
They do not have moral clarity. In fact, they mislead morally
25:49
because they themselves are confused.
25:51
Maybe it's intentional, maybe it's not.
25:53
Regardless, that's the problem. And that can be extremely
25:57
damaging #2A antihero and antihero, and this is my
26:02
definition for it. But an antihero, somebody who
26:05
promotes vice, instead of living out virtue, they live out vice.
26:09
And typically they, they wear their vice as a virtue.
26:12
In fact, their virtue, they, they, they make vice their focus
26:19
again, whether they do this willfully or not, in the sense
26:22
that they know it's wrong and they're doing it.
26:24
They might just be morally confused.
26:25
Remember, they don't have moral clarity.
26:28
And so because they have deformed consciences, they don't
26:31
understand right from wrong, they're going to be promoting
26:33
vice. So what are some example?
26:35
And because of this, the third thing is that they inspire vice
26:37
instead of inspiring heroic virtue.
26:40
And So what are some examples? I mean, there are examples
26:43
everywhere. I think there are people and
26:46
companies for that matter, who use lust, the sexual
26:50
objectification of others, who use this vice, this sin, this
26:54
immorality in order to sell stuff and promote greed or
26:58
excess materialism. And it's just a cycle of vice.
27:02
And there, you know, there's whole, I think influencers are
27:05
celebrities whose brands are built around the sexualization
27:09
of themselves and others in order to sell stuff, in order to
27:12
promote products. I mean, think about how antihero
27:15
that is the moral confusion of that, the moral dishonesty of
27:22
that, the vice that that promotes in society, that the
27:26
model that they are the antihero model that they are for a whole
27:29
generation of people, particularly younger people.
27:32
And that the toxic influence of that or the, you know, maybe it
27:36
is the antihero is the obsessive careerist who puts, you know,
27:40
climbing the top of the mountain, breaking the glass
27:42
ceiling as the most important value, even more important than
27:45
family or human beings to the point that they would.
27:49
You know, there was a a famous actor who won a Golden Globe
27:52
last year. Some of you might remember this.
27:55
And she actually held this golden trophy.
27:58
And she said that she thanked her abortion for achieving this,
28:03
this milestone in her career. I mean, think about antihero,
28:08
stereotypical antihero, that is the moral confusion, the moral
28:13
falsity and the connected to the vice of killing somebody, your
28:18
own child in order to pursue your career, your own prestige,
28:24
your own fame. So these examples are actually
28:27
everywhere. I mean, it might be careerism,
28:30
it might be the materialism, it might be less.
28:34
I mean, these are all vices that are being held up as virtues and
28:37
promoted to society and all in the name of moral ambiguity or
28:42
moral falsity. Just saying this is how, what I
28:45
think I, I, I decide right from wrong or there is no right from
28:49
wrong. But I will point out that it's
28:51
interesting that even anti heroes understand the importance
28:56
of the, the, the moral language. And so you will see, you will
29:00
see antiheroes who are promoting vices who are morally wrong and
29:05
promoting moral falsehood. You will see antiheroes claiming
29:09
that they know right from wrong. They will see them claiming that
29:12
they know what they're saying and doing.
29:14
And they will actually try to claim the moral high ground at
29:17
times. And that's that's of course the
29:19
standard put a lie on the truth or put the put, put the word
29:24
truth on a lie and hope it sticks.
29:26
But I think that if we take a time to step back, to look for
29:31
moral clarity ourselves, to look to real heroes that have moral
29:34
clarity, and to see virtue ourselves, virtue which at its
29:37
heart, with the greatest virtue being love, is about service to
29:41
one another and love for the other, wanting the good for the
29:44
other, then I think we can discover true heroes.
29:48
There's another thing I'll say too about anti heroes.
29:52
I mentioned. They are everywhere.
29:53
We can be an anti hero too, I think.
29:57
And you know, I, I've been an anti hero in my life.
29:59
Anytime we commit wrongdoing or we rationalize wrongdoing, you
30:04
know, we, we step into moral ambiguity and we're like, I
30:07
don't know, it's morality is too hard.
30:09
I'm not going to, I'm not going to go for it.
30:11
And we and justify that we might think that our wrongdoing only
30:16
affects us, but it affects other people.
30:19
We are all either heroes or anti heroes to the next person we
30:23
are. We are all either influencing
30:26
the next person for good or for bad.
30:29
There's no such thing as neutrality.
30:31
There's no such thing as neutrality in human
30:35
relationships. There's no such thing as more
30:38
neutrality in choices that are ultimately moral choices, you
30:44
know? And whether I'm going to have
30:46
vanilla or chocolate ice cream, that's not a moral choice.
30:48
But whether or not I'm going to objectify my body and try to get
30:52
other people to lust after it or flaunt myself sexually, or I
30:55
choose to respect my body and sexuality for its beauty and its
30:58
power, and I position it the right way.
31:01
Those are moral choices, whether or not I choose to binge and to,
31:06
you know, look at out of curiosity and just scandal at
31:10
other people and waste my time and in a way objectify other
31:13
people by and diving into curiosity by just going down
31:18
this rabbit hole of celebrity gossip and making that my my
31:22
focus. That's that's a moral choice.
31:25
Whenever we choose to do go to the excess, remember the
31:28
virtues, the vices, A virtue that's just or disorder
31:33
distorted, it's in excess one way or the other.
31:36
So you might be in temperance. Temperance is in the mean.
31:40
You're in the middle. But if you're not temperate and
31:42
you're in the excess, you're maybe you're greedy or you're
31:46
you're too obsessed and you're eating too much or you're
31:49
consuming too much or you're shopping too much or whatever it
31:52
is ultimately. Now, if there's an addiction at
31:55
play in something psychological that can mitigate the moral
31:58
responsibility, but ultimately these are these have moral
32:01
weight to them. And so we have to decide what
32:05
kind of people do we want to be. And that's why I did this
32:07
episode. That's why I think it's so
32:08
important to evaluate who do we follow?
32:12
Who do we look to? Who do we read?
32:13
Who do we study? Who influences us?
32:16
Are they heroes or anti heroes? And there will be people that
32:20
have some of both in them. We're all trying to be the
32:24
better, you know, we're all trying to be more excellent, but
32:27
we need to have clarity to know what is right and what is wrong.
32:29
And so looking to people that can help us have that clarity is
32:34
essential. I believe it is essential for us
32:37
to close it out. I'm going to close with the last
32:39
two, the mega hero and the mega antihero.
32:43
Many of you listening are Christians, are evangelicals, a
32:45
Catholic, I'm Catholic, as you know.
32:48
And I think the ultimate hero, my ultimate hero is Jesus
32:52
Christ. And he, he lived, came to this
32:56
earth 2000 years ago, was Incarnate.
32:58
The historical record for Christ is amazing.
33:01
I mean, there's no human in history that has more
33:04
documentation than Jesus Christ. And the record of his life is
33:10
very well kept. I mean, there is, there are
33:13
multiple gospels, eyewitness accounts, there are historical
33:17
accounts and they talk about the life and death of Jesus Christ
33:21
and also about his resurrection. And Jesus Christ, what did he
33:25
do? He was the ultimate hero.
33:26
He came and he had perfect moral clarity.
33:30
He spoke into a time in history with moral truths.
33:34
Each person he encountered, he gave them moral clarity.
33:37
And some of them didn't like it, right, and they rejected him.
33:40
Some of the Jews rejected him. Some people went away sad
33:44
because they didn't want to hear his moral message.
33:46
But he had perfect moral clarity.
33:48
He was God and he also had perfect virtue, heroic virtue to
33:54
the point of love that he would even give his life for us.
33:57
So we will not be doomed to death.
34:01
And that I mean is Jesus Christ himself says no man has any
34:05
greater love than this, that he would lay down his life for a
34:07
friend. And that's exactly what our Lord
34:10
did as he laid down his life for all of us so that we would have
34:13
the opportunity to be reconciled with him eternally.
34:16
That we despite our anti hero within us, despite our sin, that
34:22
we wouldn't get the punishment of separation from God, that we
34:25
could be reconciled with the perfect God, with all that is
34:28
good and true and beautiful, the the complete summit of goodness
34:34
and and truth and beauty and the one who is love himself God.
34:39
So the antihero here is Satan. I mean, if that's probably not a
34:44
surprise, you probably thinking, yeah, I'm tracking here.
34:46
And So what does Satan do? He has to try to make evil look
34:50
good. They call him the Angel of
34:52
light. He is deceiving people by
34:56
presenting what is really destructive as actually
35:00
constructive or positive. And that's part of the whole
35:04
game of Satan and the anti hero, right?
35:06
The anti hero often presents him or herself as a hero, even if
35:11
they, you know, claim to oh, I'm, I'm, you know, I must, you
35:15
know, they're open about their flaws or their vices and they're
35:18
sort of joking about them. Ultimately, they will try to
35:21
find some sort of moral high ground, and I think Satan does
35:24
that in the rationalization that he can get people to buy into.
35:31
And again, you might be listening to this and like,
35:33
well, I don't really know that I believe in this existence of
35:36
Satan or Jesus Christ, or you don't have to believe today and
35:42
have that faith today to see this, to understand that there
35:46
are forces in the world and in our own hearts towards heroism
35:50
or anti heroism. And so I would just encourage
35:52
you, you know, if you're in that camp of like, I don't know what
35:55
I believe on this stuff. The anti hero hero thing is
35:58
interesting. I'll look into that more, but
36:00
not sure about God being the ultimate hero and Satan the
36:03
ultimate anti hero. Our own hearts can lead towards
36:07
anti heroism in our in sin and moral wrongdoing.
36:11
I would just encourage you to take stock of, again, back to
36:14
the original point of this podcast, who do you worship?
36:18
Who do you admire most? Who or what and why?
36:21
And is that thing or person that you put your admiration in?
36:27
Maybe it's yourself and your own abilities.
36:29
Maybe it's no one and you're kind of, you know, pessimistic
36:32
or cynical about everything. Is that really going to answer
36:38
the deepest hopes of your heart if you, you know, are willing to
36:43
think or feel, What are those hopes?
36:45
And what I mean by that is I think we all, we all want and
36:49
are aiming towards truth. We want to be told the truth.
36:54
And I think we all want and are aiming towards happiness and
36:57
meaning. Where will we find that?
36:59
Is it? Find a bowl?
37:00
And I say absolutely look to the ultimate hero of all and work
37:05
with his help. And I speak of course, now as a
37:08
Christian with God's help to become more like him as opposed
37:13
to the anti hero. So thank you so much for
37:17
listening on my meditation today.
37:20
I guess you could say I'm heroes and anti heroes.
37:21
I love your thoughts. Please let me know thoughts at
37:24
lilarocheshow.com. Who are your favorite heroes?
37:27
Who are your anti heroes in today's culture?
37:30
We'll definitely discuss this in future episodes too.
37:32
But again, today is actually release day for my book.
37:36
And some of what I discussed today is from a chapter in
37:39
Fighting for Life called Find Your Heroes.
37:43
There's also a chapter called Let God Find You, which I hope
37:47
is interesting, especially if you're listening and you're not
37:49
a Christian or not religious. It shares my story of how I
37:53
became, you know, the footnotes, I should say, of how I became
37:57
Christian. And, and there's another chapter
37:59
how I actually became from evangelical to Catholic.
38:01
So I share some of that in the book.
38:03
But most importantly, the book is holistically a guide for
38:08
anybody who wants to make a difference in the world.
38:10
And it's also the story of live action and a lot of the work
38:12
I've done. So I hope you enjoy it.
38:15
Please let me know what you think of it.
38:16
Fighting for life, becoming a force for change in a wounded
38:19
world. You can get it wherever you buy
38:20
books, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, wherever.
38:22
And thank you. Thank you guys for tuning in
38:24
today. If you enjoyed this episode, you
38:27
can leave a review five stars on Apple that helps the podcast
38:30
reach more people and I will see you again next week.