Speaking of Heroes

The path we walk.

I grew up in a small West Texas town where everybody knew everybody. Idyllic if you were white, especially if you were male. We all read the same newspapers, listened to the same radio programs (we didn’t get tv or ac until sometime in the 50’s) and most of us went to church.

Much different today. Media and transportation have contributed to the exponential changes in our lives. We whites no longer live in a Norman Rockwell world. Our society is deeply splintered and appears to be moving away from fundamental values I hold dear. Is that my opinion because I’m old?

I have started to reflect on who and what formed me, who shaped the path I have chosen to walk.

First and foremost, my father, Virgil Cauthorn, a man of integrity, loyalty, strength.

Priests, The Episcopal Church from the time I was an acolyte to the current day and the Psalms.

Public education, particularly my high school English teacher, Mrs. Thelma Adams.

As I consider public figures who have influenced me profoundly, Abraham Lincoln, Nelson Mandela, Bishop Desmond Tutu, 14th Dalai Lama, Congressman John Lewis, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X.

Religious figures I deeply admire, St. Francis of Assisi, Abraham Joshua Heschel, Thomas Merton, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Richard Rohr, Walter Brueggemann, Howard Thurman, James H. Cone.

Authors whose underlying wisdom and goodness shine through, John O’Donohue, Wendell Berry, Mary Oliver, Huston Smith, Oliver Sacks.

My two prayer groups—one meeting every Wednesday since 1994 and the other meeting every Friday since 1974. My Wednesday prayer group includes Baker Duncan (decd.), Jack Willome, Olivier Nadal, Randy Townsend, Guy Bodine and Abraham Verghese. My Friday prayer group, originally ten, is now down to Bob Sohn, Clarence Bray and me. We had the great privilege of meeting weekly with Bill Cody, Bob Sawtelle, Corky Sledge, David Dillon, Bob Scott, John Younger and Bill Galbreath.

Harry Parker, a deceased brother who affirmed, encouraged and loved me.

Jesus of Nazareth, the fully human man, whose example and teachings guide me.

Quoting Oliver Sachs, writing about impending death in his precious little book Gratitude, “But my predominant feeling is one of gratitude. I have loved and been loved, I have been given much and I have given something in return, I have read and traveled and thought and written. I have had an intercourse with the world, the special intercourse of writers and readers. Above all, I have been a sentient being, a thinking animal, on this beautiful planet, and that in itself has been an enormous privilege and adventure.”

I am not facing impending death and I can’t know now how I will feel when that day arises. I do know that Sachs has beautifully put into words how I presently feel about my life and how I hope I feel when approaching death.