When I was a child, I loved historical fiction. I soaked in adventures of slaves fleeing evil masters, helped by kind people on the Underground Railroad and stories of smuggling food to Jews who were fleeing Nazi soldiers. I imagined myself as a bold, daring rescuer, willing to risk my life to help others.
In the last several years I've read several books by adults struggling to find out details of their past and their parents and grandparent's roles in history. In Belonging: A German Reckons with History and Home, Nora Krug searches for evidence of what her grandfather was doing during the years leading up to World War 2 in Germany. Where was he when the local synagogue was burned and their Jewish neighbors hauled away in train cars? Did he try to help? Or was he part of the Nazi mob?
Today, with social media, where opinions and beliefs are freely shared and recorded for all to see, it can be hard to imagine the silence of that time, especially with destroyed records and tight-lipped grandparents. Nora struggled with a deep sense of shame for her German heritage, though she had been born years after the Holocaust.
I recently read Soul Survivor by Philip Yancy, which records his struggle to recover from his upbringing in a white Atlanta church where he heard blatantly racist sermons and the deacons patrolled the church doors to make sure no blacks entered. Yancy faced the truth that the blacks in his hometown, with his same last name, had once been owned by his great-grandfather before the Civil War.
I remember looking at the photos of the first black students to integrate into all-white schools in the south and shuddering at the hate in the white faces. I wondered what it would be like to see that photo and recognize the face of my mother or grandmother.
I'll admit to feeling rather smug. My ancestors have been peace-loving, hard-working Anabaptists in Pennsylvania for over ten generations. They weren't slave owners or Nazi supporters, nor did they throw tomatoes at little black girls walking to school.
Somehow I assumed that if I had been living in the mid-1800s, I'd been part of the Underground Railroad, giving a ride and food to weary slaves. Or if I'd been in Germany in the 1930s, I'd have sheltered Jews despite the risk, just like heroes such as Corrie ten Boom.
But what makes me think I'd have been in that small minority who fought against the norms of their culture? I tried to do a bit of research, but the numbers were rather elusive. In Poland, the European country that had the largest population of Jews before World War 2, it is estimated that three million of Jews died, about 90% of the Jewish population. Many Polish people did help the Jews, and about 1,000 Poles were killed for their role in rescuing Jews. But the number of people who helped the Jews is very small, maybe one or two percent of the Polish population. If I had lived in Poland during that time, chances are great that I'd have been among the average, the 98%, who either didn't help or worse, actively hurt the Jews.
We all want to be considered above average, and the historical fiction books didn't help my view of the times. But most of us will be average; that is reality. We can't possibily all be in the one percent.
My ancestors lived just north of the Mason-Dixon line during the Civil War. The stone house that I grew up in was old enough that it would have seen General Jeb Stuart's cavalry travel up the Mercersburg Road to round up horses for the Confederate army. Family stories tell of hiding horses and blankets by the creek from General Stuart's raiders.
But there are no family stories about hiding slaves. With their location so near to the Potomac River, surely there were slaves traveling through the area. There is at least one house, a few miles away, that is said to be a stop on the Underground Railroad, but what role did my great-great-great grandparents play? Did they never happen to be at the right place to lend assistance? Were they unaware of the needs of those across the border, and instead focused on the daily work on their farms? Were they unwilling to help slaves, not wanting to get on the wrong side of the law? Or were they so humble that their roles in helping others were never spoken of or recorded for future generations? I'll never know.
As I muddled through these thoughts, I realized that no matter where and when I lived I would most likely been average, and not the heroic rescuer of my childhood dreams. And I need to repent of my pride that my ancestors were not evil slave masters or Nazi camp guards.
So what does it mean for me today? Though I claim to want to serve others, I usually choose modes of service that are convenient, comfortable, and personally fulfilling. I pat myself on the back when I help with the prison Bible study, but then go back to my comfortable home with no risk until my next scheduled evening. I enjoy helping with a children's Bible club, because the children are cute and sweet, even when they are a bit dirty, but I wish to ignore the adults in those same households, with their addictions, poor choices, and chronic health conditions. I'm am not the material of which heroes are made, not when I lack the patience for even long rambling conversations with mentally-unstable people.
I look in awe at friends who jump fully into serving others - loving a foster baby and her parents, walking with a neighbor bound by addictions, choosing to be family to a new immigrant. I admire those who form long-term relationships with broken people and selflessly give beyond convenience.
At one time I read stories and gloated about who I would be if I had just been born in another era. Now I see my own heart and know that without the power of God, I am a miserably selfish person. But I'm certain that Corrie ten Boom didn't view herself as heroic nor did she seek adventure, but she simply loved her neighbors because God gave her His love.
I have a choice to love, a choice to surrender, and choice to put others before myself. And those choices make us a true hero, even if our story is never told in a book.
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