Hope For A Better Year

Hoping for better things to come, while finding rays of light beyond the headlines on a quiet Thursday morning.

The six million members of the Church of God in Christ have an unexpected, but welcome, newly ordained minister: Ex-KKK leader to minister in black majority church

[Johnny Lee Clary] had joined the KKK at the age of 14 after his father committed suicide and his mother abandoned him. And for 16 years, Clary advanced in the white supremacist organization, all the way up to becoming an imperial wizard.
After going through a time of torment, anger, and disgust, however, Clary left the KKK and struggled to make an honest living. He turned to God after feelings of guilt led him to depression and on the verge of committing suicide.
He has since become a guest speaker at numerous schools and churches across the nation, and lectures on occasion for the FBI and other law enforcement agencies, educating officers on the mindset of white supremacists and how to best fight against domestic terrorism.
“Yes I made mistakes in life, and a person cannot go back in time and change the past, but he can certainly do something about today in order to build a better tomorrow,” Clary says today.

Heroism year-in-review: CNN finds 5 little-reported stories of heroic co-workers whose quick-thinking and initiative earlier this year deserve greater acclaim. Despite the 2009-in-review framework CNN sets for their article, their first candidate was in the news for an action she actually performed the previous year, back in 2008, as she brought a North Carolina co-worker back to life from no less than five heart attacks:

...Everyone in the office rushed to Marlowe's side. Knowing he was a diabetic, they were looking for ways to get his blood sugar up, thinking he had just passed out. But cashier [Debi] Coffman looked at Marlowe and knew it was much more serious. "I knew that he was dead," Coffman said. "I knew he was."
Coffman and another co-worker, Larry Garrett, began performing CPR on Marlowe. "[Garrett] couldn't get any pulse," Coffman said, "and he hit him in the chest and started compressions." Coffman and Garrett are not sure how long they worked on Marlowe before they revived him.
... Coffman would revive him three times before emergency crews arrived on the scene. "I told him, 'I will not let you go,'" Coffman said.
Coffman says she isn't a hero, but she is proud she knew what to do. Proud and glad that she doesn't have to think about what would have happened if she hadn't put her training to use.

Their second story is really full of heroes, but singles out the actions of Arizona's Daniel Anderson, whose initiative helped raise sufficient funds to buy his co-worker, one-legged cancer survivor Gregory Lewis, the new prosthetic leg he so desperately needed:

"He has been walking on what looked like a stick and a brick for close to 30 years. It was starting to crack and part of it was held together with electrical tape," Anderson said.
...
Anderson found Hanger Prosthetics & Orthotics in Chandler and a sympathetic employee, Tyler Ritchey. "When I met the guy, I knew we had to do something," said Ritchey, who also is an amputee. "I don't know how he (Lewis) did it for so long. When he walked he dragged [the artificial limb] on the floor to keep it from coming off."
After Anderson raised a $1,000 down payment from friends and family members, Ritchey arranged a partial donation by the company and manufacturer.
David Hyatt, manager of the Fiesta Mall Dillard's, spearheaded fundraising at the store, which included employee donations and proceeds from the sale of surplus store fixtures. One worker contacted Ecco Shoes, which donated a pair to Lewis.

"I saw the lights coming down the tunnel, and I had to do something," said the third hero, Houston Transit worker Eliot Swainson, as his volunteer work in a Washington DC train station saved a woman's life, when she fell onto the tracks right in front of an oncoming train:

[Swainson] was able to direct the woman to safety on the track while a train passed overhead, preventing her from being struck and allowing her to be extricated safely a short time later.
...
[H]e explained to the woman -- as he had been trained to do just the day before by Metro officers -- to stay as close to the edge of the track as possible, under the overhang adjacent to the platform in order to avoid being hit by the train. Metro authorities then cleared the platform and the train, cut the power to the tracks, and eventually got the woman to safety. She was transported to a local hospital "with non life-threatening injuries," according to a Metro spokesman.
...
"This was a new world for me. You still have that fear factor about what's down below there, and what not to mess with. But we had to do something to get her to safety," he explained. Swainson will now head home to his wife and daughter, who turned three years old today. "I'm just happy to have had the opportunity to see somebody safe," he said of the incident.

A series of wonderful coincidences underline the fourth hero's story, as hair stylist Carol Morgan is shocked to see her co-worker collapse to the ground. Reflexes kick in, and she draws upon years of CPR training... even though she had never before performed CPR in an emergency situation:

Morgan repeatedly delivered chest compressions and rescue breathing to Sue’s unresponsive body. When performing CPR, Morgan said one worry is that you will hurt the person. She said there is always a possibility of breaking a rib or bruising the person, but it is better they have a broken rib and still be alive.
"I wasn’t scared until it was all over,” said Morgan. Afterward, she wondered if she had done everything right.
...
“I feel in my heart the Lord put me in the right place at the right time,” she said. “He helped me remember all those steps.”
Morgan said “it was strange how everything fell into place.” She normally does not work past noon on Wednesdays. She happened to have the day off from her other job, which is why she stayed later at Innovations.
“I still think that God was watching over us that day,” she said.

The article explains her long-time CPR training:

In addition to being a hair stylist, Morgan works at Central State Consumer Services of Oklahoma. Because she works with persons with disabilities, she is required to know CPR. She has to take the course annually to keep her Red Cross certification current.Morgan had just taken her refresher course in May. She first learned CPR in 1998, when she worked for the Cherokee Nation headstart for a couple of years.
...
Morgan said she wants to encourage people to become CPR certified. She said you never know when you might need to use it.

The fifth heroic act, out of Trinidad, ends on a sad note. Who can imagine the thoughts racing through the mind of young Shiva Jagroop as he says goodbye to his co-worker, at his funeral.

" 'I just want to say thank you, Earl,' he muttered":

[Earl Rampersad, married father of a two-year old boy] pushed Jagroop out of harm’s way and took the full blow of the glass panes which fell on them at their Caroni workplace on Wednesday. Rampersad was already dead when paramedics pulled him from under the broken glass some time later.
...
Gaitri Hosein, an employee at Delta Glass Ltd, where he was employed, described Rampersad as a pillar of strength and a hardworking man.
’He was willing to do anything to make a person happy. He was a humble man who did more than what he was expected to do,’ she said.

Doing more than expected of us, making the ordinary extra-ordinary, seems as good a New Year's Resolution as anyone could look for. I adopt it as mine for this coming year... just like I did last year. Only this time, I hope to keep it...

Happy New Year to all our readers, and Best Wishes for a happy, healthy and successful 2010!

Rescuer's Desperate Vow Saves Child From Flames: "I'm Not Going To Leave This Kid"

An amazing example of courage and self-sacrifice, as a clear-thinking New Zealand policeman witnesses a horrible car crash and springs into action :

[Inspector Mike O'Leary, operations manager for the Eastern Police District] said he heard screaming and jumped a fence, running around to the other side of the upturned wagon to see two children hanging out of the vehicle.
The wagon was engulfed in toxic smoke and flames, he said.
He grabbed a child in red clothing and ran about 10 metres from the burning vehicle. His daughter Sinead, 13, took over, comforting the hysterical boy.
He heard the other child, still trapped in the vehicle, talking to him. A man in the wagon called out "save the kids".
"I couldn't see into the van. I was pulling as hard as I could to free the child."
The wagon began making more exploding noises and he pushed [his 15-year son] Conor and the bystander Peter back.
"I had to make a decision - do I risk myself?
"I did step away but I thought, 'I'm not going to leave this kid'."
He called out for a knife to try to free the boy from his seatbelt or whatever was holding him inside and was given one by Peter. With the help of Conor and Peter, they eventually dragged him free.
The boy was badly burned and they stripped the clothes from his lower body, soaking him with water.

As it always seems with true heroes, their bravery is matched by their self-effacing humility:

Nursing a bandaged hand from burns received during his rescue of the children, he was modest about his efforts.
"It's not about me. Anyone would have done the same," he said, adding that he was proud of the way his family had acted during the incident.

... Debbie O'Leary said she was proud of her husband and his brave actions, despite his regret that the flames prevented him from getting anyone else out of the van.
"I'll never forget the look on his face when he said: 'I can't help these people'," she said.

The story has more layers of drama still; the inspector's family came upon the fiery accident while driving home from the funeral of a friend's son who had died from cancer:

As they drove, they were having a discussion about how life could sometimes be unfair and he told his family that some people get up in the morning "but never get home".

Godspeed to all involved, especially the two children now without at least one of their parents, and the hero forevermore struggling to reconcile the guilt haunting him for the five other lives he could not rescue, with the pride he should feel over the young souls his initiative allowed him to save.

May they all find peace.

8-Year Old Gets Surprise Visit From Hero Home On Leave

A benign conspiracy between mom, grandparents and coach leads to a big treat for a little leaguer in Walkertown North Carolina:

Young Matthew Armstrong knew that Saturday would be a big day, since it was the first day of the season for his Little League team.

But Matthew, 8, of Walkertown, didn't know how big the day would be until an announcer called him up to the microphone during the opening ceremony. She asked him where his dad, Frank Marques, was.

"In Iraq," he replied shyly.

And what message would he like to send to Marques?

"That I love him," Matthew said.

The youngster then got his chance to deliver that message in person.

Frank Marques, back home on a two-week leave from his tour of duty with the Army, emerged downfield and walked from first base toward home plate, where Matthew was standing

Matthew ran out and jumped into Marques' arms, hugging him tight. And the crowd of hundreds applauded.
...

An eventful hug caught on tape.

[Hat tip to Jeff at Voices In My Head]

Gratitude Builds A Home For A Hero

I was reflecting earlier today on how powerful a force gratitude can be; spending a moment to sincerely show how thankful you are is a double blessing, elevating the spirit of both the "giver" and the "getter". A simple "Thank You" goes such a long way towards making the pain of a sore back seem to disappear, when the recipient of your back-breaking labor humbles themselves to show their appreciation for your efforts.

Here's an inspiring example of the renewing power of gratitude, courtesy of New Jersey's Courier Post. It follows the story of U.S. Marine staff sergeant Andrew Robinson, who was paralyzed from the chest down by an IED in Iraq in 2006, and the wonder to behold when someone says, "Thank You":

In his new, specially adapted home courtesy of Homes for Our Troops, Robinson can maneuver his wheelchair through wide hallways, travel up and down from the basement via an elevator, wash dishes and more. An automated hydraulic system allows him to press one button to open the door.
...
It was during a series of hot days last July that volunteers pitched in for a "build brigade" to bring up the frame of the house. Robinson and his wife, Sara, were handed the keys to their new home on Veterans Day.

"I was just crying," she said. "The builder gave us everything we wanted."

The couple, married for four years, previously resided in California, where they rented a regular four-bedroom home, but it was difficult for Robinson to move his wheelchair through narrow hallways or over the thick carpet. The new 2,200-square-foot home has wood flooring, wide doorways and a lift to assist Robinson in getting out of bed and going to the bathroom.
...
Since moving into the home, Robinson has been learning to do various tasks, but he still is limited by a lack of finger dexterity.

"I used to clean a lot, do laundry, iron and clean the kitchen," he said. "I just learned how to make a sandwich. Next, I want to cook an egg."
...
Robinson hopes to go to college in the fall and volunteer with organizations that help other veterans.

A Blur Of Contradictions

Vaucluse, France: It's 8:00 AM and a mother is driving her sick young son to a doctor, when a sudden fainting spell makes her lose control of their car; it leaves the road, hits a guard post, skirts a row of cypress trees before perching itself on an embankment above a thirty-foot drop.

Once the car steadied itself from this unorthodox stop, 9-year old Arthur Pipard springs into action, to save his mother. Despite the shock of the last few moments, young Arthur has the presence of mind to dig through his mom's purse, to make a call on her cel phone, selecting to phone his father, a firefighter whom he knew to be on duty that day. The child then examines his unconscious mother, adjusting her head, which had been stuck between the headrest and the seatbelt as a result of the accident.

His father, no stranger to heroics himself, given his career as a volunteer firefighter for the community of Voconces, as well as a member of the GRIMP mountain rescue unit, remarks with pride on his son's response to the crisis: "Usually, in these types of situations, reactions tend to be more self-oriented. One tries to first protect oneself. Which is normal..."

[Translated from Le Dauphine's reports here and here.]

Studying events like the one above leave us with a blur of contradictions. It's always amazing to me to read of situations like these, where individuals seem to be able to act against all expectations. That it can happen at all ages makes it even more revealing about what it says about potential as human beings... and how foggy might be our appreciation of the fullness of that potential. When it would be normal for people to be hesitate, they act, like 11-year old Dustan; when they should panic, they remain calm, like 9-year old Drew; when every impulse is to flee, they stand their ground, like 8-year old Drayden, even leaping into the fray, like 7-year old Alexis.

Of course, we've all been given an unforgettable example of accomplishing the impossible this week, courtesy of Capt. Chesley B. "Sully" Sullenberger III and his staggeringly succesful piloting of US Airways Flight 1549 to safety in the Hudson River. He should have lost hope, he should have been numb from despair, his fear should have crashed that plane.

On the outside looking in, we might presume that there simply wasn't any fear to overcome; maybe that's how these heroic children, as well as the Captain, were able to think, and act, as they did. But that's not seeing the big picture:

In recent years, neuroscientists have been able to see what happens inside the brain when people, like Sullenberger, are forced to make decisions under pressure. Though the typical assumption is that some people don't feel fear -- that they are somehow less scared than the rest of us -- that assumption turns out to be false. The fear circuits in the brain, such as the amygdala, generate their response automatically; it's almost certain that everyone on board Flight 1549 was terrified.

What, then, allows people like Sullenberger to make effective decisions in harrowing circumstances? How do they keep their fear from turning into panic? Scientists have found that the crucial variable is the ability to balance visceral emotions against a more rational and deliberate thought process, which is centered in the prefrontal cortex. This balancing act is known as metacognition -- a sort of thinking about thinking.

Pilots have a different name for this skill: They call it "deliberate calm," because staying calm under fraught circumstances requires both conscious effort and regular practice.

This is where flight simulators enter the picture. The advantage of these realistic simulators, which have been in widespread use since the early 1980s, is that they allow pilots to practice extreme flight scenarios, such as a total loss of engine power over water. The training provides pilots with important technical skills -- they can practice flying crippled planes -- but it also teaches them something more important: how to draw on an optimal blend of reason and emotion.

I’d like to think that, for those of us without access to such high-tech gadgetry, who might be interested in learning the same self-discipline for own times of personal crisis, there's another simulation more readily available, one that aims to provide the same balanced resolution: humble prayer.

Prayer is a study in contradictions: in our stillness there is a flurry of activity. By temporarily shutting out the world we try open ourselves up to its possibilities; by closing our eyes we strive to imagine, with as much clarity as we can summon, everything from our most dreaded fear to our most cherished wish. In doing so we think about how to think about them... how to possibly survive the arrival of the former, how to probably bring about the arrival of the latter. We pause our life in order to review whether we're heading in the right direction, usually recognizing a need to take a step back so that we can resume our way forward. We measure our past actions, stretching them out into the fog of an unlived future, to dare to see how they may weigh in a more long-term balance.

Whether it's seeing children behaving with the utmost calm when our natural expectations of childhood tells us that there should be little such reserves to draw strength from... or busy people dropping everything in order to be of maximum service to total strangers, when “everybody knows” that city people aren’t friendly to strangers… we have many examples of incongruities and impossibilities to help penetrate the fog to let us see the unimaginable: an emotional light to find hope in a darkness where reason tells us there should be no hope, an emotional faith in solutions when reason denies us the likelihood of success… a simulation of the miracle of balancing contradictions.

Heroic Brothers

With all the bad news that envelops you whenever you sit down to keep up with current events, it's a welcome break to find inspiring stories like the following pair. They come with a common thread: the quick-thinking self-sacrifice of one sibling ended up saving the life of the other.

First, from BC, a 16-year sister is saved from an icy death by the initiative of her younger brother:

A 16-year-old Vancouver girl was taken to Lions Gate Hospital in critical condition yesterday with a head injury and hypothermia after she plunged into Lynn Creek in North Vancouver.

The girl appears to have slipped on the ice and snow on a trail above the creek and slid about 11 metres [approx 36 feet] down the steep bank and into the icy creek, said Mike Cairns of the North Vancouver District Fire and Rescue Service.

Her older brother climbed down the rough terrain to the edge of the creek and pulled her from certain death, said Cairns.

"Her brother definitely saved her life at that point," said Cairns.

"He got pretty banged up doing it."

The brother was also taken to Lions Gate suffering from mild hypothermia.

I was just up there, and I think I hiked past the area where the accident took place; at one point there were footprints mysteriously leading right off a snowy cliff, and I can't imagine any other explanation for them, given the precipice they led towards. It certainly took a lot of guts to go after that girl, that was a very steep slope! This photo shows Lynn Creek a little north of where I'm guessing the incident happened, but the terrain is similar to that of the location described in the story.

Next, a story from our neighboring province of Alberta, showing that there's no age limit for heroic initiative, as an 8-year old boy puts his own body into danger in order to save his older sister from an attacking dog:

Drayden, 8, and his sister Sara Werner, 10, were sledding on a hill just half a block away from their home at 4:30 p.m. when they saw the dog, named Chinook, jump over a fence from a nearby house.

When Sara, an animal-lover, reached out her hand and beckoned Chinook towards her, the dog clamped onto the bottom of her coat and started dragging her away...

Drayden immediately jumped to her aid, launching snowballs at the dog and attacking it with his snowboard until it turned its attention toward the boy.

As Chinook attacked Drayden, biting him all over his body and tearing off his jacket, Drayden yelled at Sara to go home and seek help.

The children's uncle, Luke Werner, and the RCMP quickly dashed to the park and were able to rescue Drayden and corral the dog in an ice rink until Red Deer Animal Control arrived.

Drayden was rushed to hospital where he received seven stitches to his head and two to his arm.

Putting Faces On Numbers In Delhi Bombings

The numbers vary from source to source; as the calendar moves along the numbers will change ever more. But some things will not change: the five bombs (out of the nine planted) that tore through busy Delhi markets and parks during weekend religious festivals made no differentiation between men and women, young and old, rich and poor. For many families, loved ones went out to fulfill some mundane chore, or a lark at the park, and then never came home.

It's easy to just think in terms of numbers; how many attacks, how many casualties from the attacks. But these numbers represent lives. These people have names, faces, and stories.

Here are some of the stories of those in the wrong place at the wrong time, suffering at the hands of people who are now said to be putting Mumbai in the crosshairs of their next homicidal attack.
It’s likely that 25-year old Kamlesh will never forget this day of death. The terror bombings claimed no less than 10 members of her family: her husband Ashok, 30, his brothers Harichand, 35, Archant 50, Ganga Kishen, 40, their wives Saroj, 30, Rama, 40, and children Kusum, 2 and Raju, 4.

Sometimes it's the lack of any news at all that causes the most despair. This seems to be the case for the wife and brother of 25-year old Raju:

[He] was standing outside his house in Karol Bagh when the bomb went off. Since then, no one has seen him.
His grief-stricken wife Yashoda has now been hospitalised, Raju's brother Shyam told IANS.
"The police say they have no information about my brother and that we ourselves should visit every hospital to check out."

One young man was blown to bits for having decided to do a favor for his beloved mother:

Subroto Mondal's wish to buy a new mobile phone for his mother proved fatal for the young man, as he perished in the blast at New Delhi's Gaffar Market minutes after he bought it Saturday.
...
"When he came here the last time, his mother told him she had lost her mobile. Then he promised her that he will get her a new set. Yesterday (Saturday) he bought the new instrument to fulfil his promise. But god is indeed cruel," said his brother-in-law Haren Hazra.

Gloom descended at Subroto's residence and the village Sunday as the news of his death came like a bolt from the blue.

"It never crossed our minds that he could be among the victims. Because he did not live in that area. So, when one of his cousins called up from Delhi Sunday morning to give the news we found it difficult to believe,' Hazra said, as Subroto's parents looked inconsolable.

"He was a very good boy, We all loved him," said a neighbour, wiping her tears.

I can't imagine the guilt that the mother must now feel... nor can I easily put myself in the place of young Shishir Jain:

It was a birthday party that 21-year-old Shishir Jain will never forget. While he was busy clicking photographs of friends during his classmate's birthday celebrations at the Central Park here Saturday evening, a bomb explosion left him critically injured.

"We were having fun at the Central Park and Shishir asked for a final group photo before we leave for the hostel. As he moved back to focus the camera, a blast took place leaving him injured," Shishir's friend Prashant told IANS.

Shishir, a mechanical engineering student at the Jamia Millia Islamia, suffered injuries as a splinter from an exploding bomb pierced his spinal cord. Some of his friends too received minor injuries.

How haunted will his life be for him, if he ever gets out of the hospital?

Finally, the tragic news awaiting an expectant mother, who now has lost the father of her second child:

Till Saturday, Balbir Singh had the ideal family: two sons, a daughter-in-law expecting her second child in a week's time, a four-year-old grandchild and a younger son who had got married just six months ago. On Sunday though, Singh looked like a shell as he waited to claim the body of his elder son Tejinder at the LNJP mortuary.

Standing alone in a corner, Singh seemed to be divorced from the rest of relatives waiting to claim Tejinder's body as the police asked for details. Said Sunny, Singh's nephew, "My bhabhi is expected to deliver next week. We haven't told her about Tejinder yet. How can we, when even uncle is still to get over the shock?"...

For 36-year-old Tejinder, one of the first victims of the Ghaffar Market blast, the day had started routinely. "My cousin works in an electronics shop and was on the way to another shop with his friend when the bombs exploded. He and his friend, Manmeet, were both taken to Jeevan Mala hospital, where he was declared dead in only a few hours. His condition was so bad that doctors told us that survival was not possible. His face and torso were badly injured, and both his arms were broken," added Sunny. Tejinder's friend Manmeet fared better, and is being treated for severe head injuries in the same hospital, he added.

The immediate concern for the family though is breaking the news to Tejinder's wife. "We don't want to jeopardise her health by breaking the news right now," said Pankaj, a neighbour.

Even after all this bad news, dare I end on a positive note. As many of these terrible stories as there are, the number of them would have been higher still, were it not for the alert initiative and public spirit of two quick-thinking heroes:

Located at the bottom of the urban social pyramid, ragpickers are the smelly boys in tattered clothes whom everyone quickly passes by. Even street dogs, sub-consciously aware of their lowly status and often confusing them for thieves, chase them in shabby bylanes.

On Monday, one such ragpicker and a roadside vendor will be treated as heroes. Reason: their timely action saved dozens of lives in the Saturday bomb blast. Ragpicker Krishna and cloth seller Kundan detected live bombs and alerted the police.

Police point out that if the live bombs had not been detected in time, the death toll from the blasts would have been close to 100. ...

[For our other posts on the Delhi bombings, see
Another Terror Attack In India, and
Delhi Terrorists' Email From Hell.]

Update: Thug Who Shot 7-Year Old Alexis Sentenced To 25 Years In Prison

Speaking of heroes, here's a timely update to a story we blogged about in early May. A 7-year old girl had thrown herself in front of her mother as a human shield in order to prevent her mother's enraged former boyfriend from shooting her down in cold blood. The little heroine was hit by several bullets and lost an eye from saving her mother's life.

The creature who chose to fire repeatedly on the mother and child was sentenced today to 25 years in prison, and the judge was so disgusted by the vile character of the man he sentenced that he vowed to personally pay a visit to the parole board in 2033 to argue that he should remain in prison.

"I've seen a lot of evil in this building, perhaps a hundred lifetimes of it, but this one certainly takes the cake," [Judge] Allen said.

Handcuffed and surrounded by deputies in front of a Wayne County Circuit Court judge, Calvin Tillie loudly demanded Friday to be returned to jail rather than face the sentence he had agreed to for shooting a little girl seven times at point blank range when she tried to protect her mother.
"I'm ready to go back to the bullpen. I done spoke my mind and my piece. I don't have nothing more to say," the muscularly-built prisoner in a green jail uniform announced. "Take me back, now. Now!"

After the small demonstration of rage that prosecutors say has fueled Tillie through 15 years of violent criminal behavior, deputies led Tillie, 29, away and Judge David J. Allen issued a rare sentence in absentia.

"He has proven himself as someone who shouldn't be walking among us," Allen said after ordering Tillie to prison for at least 25 years and up to 60.
...
Tillie's victim, Alexis Goggins, turns 8 later this month. The pain from her wounds has mostly passed. She still suffers complications and occasional hospitalizations. An artificial eye has replaced her right eye that one of Tillie's bullets destroyed. There still is talk about the need for surgery to replace missing bone from the left side of the girl's skull.
...

It's simply amazing how children can seem to possess such remarkable resilience in the face of daunting challenges, revealing themselves to be not so fragile as we may be tempted to believe. In some ways young people are just not that different from older people: when much is asked, and for a worthy enough cause, then much may be given. It's comforting to know that if we, as adults, should waver in our commitments to carrying the crosses we each have to bear, there exist inspiring examples such as Alexis to teach us what it means to have inner strength:

Psychologically, Alexis has moved on in a way her mother hasn't.
"She's doing fine, wonderful in fact. Better than I ever thought. She's the same wonderful little girl," said [Alexis' mother, Seliethia Parker] ...

Mementos from the recovery are displayed in Parker's china cabinet. Members of the Detroit Pistons visited Alexis in the hospital. She was hailed a hero by the Detroit Police and a church. ...
"We did 'Good Morning America' and a lot of interviews for newspapers and television," Parker said. "A man in the Army sent her one of his medals for bravery." ...

...[A]s long she is well, I am well. I have to live with this. I just wish he was getting life for trying to take my pride and joy from me. She is my little hero."

And mine.

[Go here to see Alexis' appearance on Good Morning America]

Five Heroes Save Fisherman From Being Killed By A Bear

There is always so much apathy, vice and immorality in the news, and our own lives can be haunted by so much tragedy, that it is hard to remember sometimes how there can be some good in the world, as well.

This week British Columbia was blessed with an inspiring example of courageous initiative, of genuine heroism, multiplied by five.

Fisherman saved by five others after being jumped by bruin in his boat

... [Douglas] Miller heard Pharis screaming, picked up his metre-long spiked gaff and dashed toward him.
"He was pinned on the floor, the bear had a good hold of him and was biting and shaking him," Miller said. "I figured he was dead in seconds."
Miller sunk his gaff with its five-inch spike into the bear's neck. "It went right in and the bear still wouldn't let go."
Miller, a Victoria fishing guide, kept sinking the gaff into the bear's neck until another fisherman showed up with a gaff and joined in the fight. But the bear kept hold of Pharis's shoulder.
Two other men showed up armed with a knife and a ball-peen hammer.
"This bear was getting hit between the eyes with the hammer and it didn't flinch," Miller said.
A fifth man with a fishing knife began stabbing the bear in the neck. But, Miller said, the bear "didn't let go until he was dead."
Pharis was able to walk off the boat and waited until an ambulance arrived 25 minutes later.
Pharis's friend, Leslie Cheeseman, said Pharis is doing "remarkably well" in Royal Jubilee Hospital in Victoria.

We can add Bruce Miller and his four anonymous fellow rescuers to a growing list of heroes. Bravo!

One In A Million

At birth our eyeballs are scarcely any smaller than they are when we are fully grown, which accounts for infants having such disproportionally large heads.

Yet isn't it interesting how the use we make of that body part is constantly growing as we grow, adapting as we age. As children we may witness our parents' daily sacrifices on our behalf, but it is often not until much later in our lives that we learn to see what it was that we had been really looking at, right before our eyes, during those early glimpses we undertook as infants.

It's tempting to view history as a narrative cut from the same mold as that of our own life. We find it easy to believe that when we were kids life was much better than it has become now that we are adults; similarly, we readily accept that "The Good Old Days" of our nation's infancy, or of our civilization's early life in the cradle, are giving way to a new, unprecedented time of despair as the nation and culture around us decays and grows frail with age.

Or so we may come to believe, if we don't strive to perceive as much as possible, of the present as well as the past.

On the whole, are people really generally worse, or better, than they ever were? When we envision a "Golden Age" in some fog-encrusted past, are we painting a picture with the same nostalgic airbrush we might take to our own childhoods, or are we truly seeing all that there is to be seen?

The revelations offered today through our evolution in communications technology certainly tempt us to conclude that ours is a world filled with unprecedented evil, unparralelled tragedy, and insurmountable temptations to forsake Doing The Right Thing. We see these problems because so many of them are, for once, readily at hand, the world's sadism and cruelty dumped onto our doorstep through the channeling of a million gutters: television, radio, newspapers, the internet, cel phones and combinations of these media shrink our world so that, for the first time in history, we see so much more of our civilization's daily story that the millions of mis-deeds pile up like garbage at an Earth Day rally.

Does there remain a good soul lurking in all this rubbish?

It's understandable that we would see all this, and despair. But if we are persistent, and honest, in studying all that we see, if we hold to a belief that somewhere there must exist some good within the bad, our faith-driven perseverance can reward us with one story plucked out of that million, such a jewel of human decency that it actually outshines its context, as a candle lights a path through the night.

Here's a story out of Georgia, one story out of a million that is enough to inspire me to continue to believe in a future worth living to see:

A 6-year-old Georgia boy said he was simply being a good friend when he rescued his 5-year-old buddy from drowning in a pool.

Fayetteville, Ga., resident Haden Stusak said he was trying to find out what was making a dark spot at the bottom of the pool Sunday when he found his friend Josiah Buddah, 5, unconscious in the water....

"They took me to the hospital. I was dead and couldn't breathe," Buddah told reporters.

A doctor and two nurses performed CPR on Buddah after Stusak pulled him out of the water."

Were friends. That's what friends do," the young hero said.

As it is with heroes, he is humble about his accomplishments:

Haden, who is home schooled, has spent the last several days doing news interviews. But he is weary of the spotlight. He prefers to play in the pool with his brother and sister, diving off the board and splashing around.His mother, on the other hand, is proud of her son."

He's a protector," Stusak said. "I think that comes from having a little sister. He won't hesitate to stand up for what's right."

Every once in a while it's good for we "grown-ups" to see the world temporarily once again through the eyes of a child, for children seem much more capable of seeing the good that the world has to offer. They have yet to lose their childlike faith that good exists, somewhere in the infinite darkness, an abundance of ones in a multitude of millions.

If we grow up and out of that faith, are we really better off, are we really seeing all that there is to see? It's fitting that as the young depend on the old, the old grow to depend on the young, to renew their faith in a positive future; were it not for the sake of our young, what reasons would we find to continue to try and live a good life ourselves?

Perception is an ongoing process, requiring a perennial re-viewing of things, and not a one-time-only snapshot. If at first there seems to be nothing positive to see, shame on us for not having enough faith, and doubt, to summon the nerve to look a second time, in order to observe what must be there... that one in a million departure from the norm.

Thank you, Haden, for being one in a million, for swimming against the current and believing that choosing to do good is the right thing to do. Just as you will learn a lot from your elders, we have much to learn from you... if we only maintain the humility to see it.