I am having one of my ‘senior’ hours just now, having awoken at 3 am, and checked some art websites, some email like this, and now will settle into the middle of my current novel, reading Lee Child’s ’61 Hours.’ His protagonist in this multi-novel series is Jack Reacher. And over the past year I have read many of his works. Reacher is an interesting character, fascinating because he is unlike me in every conceivable way, standing 6’5”, an ex military man, with combat skills and awareness of other people’s weakness that makes him fearless; a vagabond of sorts who is constantly travelling across the USA, always on the move, without any possessions whatsoever, carries no backpack or anything else, purchases new inexpensive clothing every few days and discards the old stuff, and wherever he goes, he stumbles into some fascinating scenario where he has a string of heroic moments at the end of which, I as a reader feel relief from the resolution, strength from living Reacher’s story, eagerness to learn more about him as he moves on.I can’t explain my fascination with this diversion from personal reality, in which my inadequacies are all too apparent. But I am aware that Reacher is not my personal hero. Jesus is my hero.
He is so much more than that to me of course, but Jesus is a bonafide hero. We seldom think of him in such terms, but if we do revisit his earth-time story, his character stands out compellingly against the culture and values of his time and certainly of our time.
