Hero Worship

What is the definition of a hero?  I like the quote by our own Ralph Waldo Emerson that, “A hero is no braver than an ordinary man, but he is brave five minutes longer.”

You may have seen the recent news story about the Houston, Texas waiter who refused to serve a customer because he asked to move his family to another table to be further away from a child with Down’s Syndrome who was sitting nearby with his family.  Further, the customer reportedly said to the waiter, Michael Garcia, that “Special needs children need to be special somewhere else.” 

Garcia responded by telling the customer that he was not able to serve him.  He also asked him how he could say that “about a beautiful 5-year-old angel?”  Since the incident, Garcia has been the object of media attention, celebration and pats on the back from restaurant customers eager to thank him for his five minutes of bravery.

 Here’s a link to the full story:

http://www.today.com/moms/waiter-hailed-hero-after-standing-boy-down-syndrome-1B8038223#waiter-hailed-hero-after-standing-boy-down-syndrome-1B8038223

What was it about Garcia’s act of defiance that caused such an outpouring of love and support?  Could it be that they saw in Garcia what they could not see in themselves?  A willingness to take a stand?  The courage to risk retribution and possibly injury/loss of job/loss of prestige to do what they think is right?

As Unitarian Universalists, we are compelled to be heroes every day of our lives.  Our faith requires us to speak out against injustice in whatever form we find it.  It requires us to be brave five minutes at a time.

Thank goodness for people like Michael Garcia.  He reminds us of the hero in all of us and the need to stay true to our values and to ourselves.  As George F. Kennan wrote, “Heroism is endurance for one moment more.”

 

Mark Bernstein

CERG Growth Consultant and UUA Liaison to Equual Access

Looping Your Sanctuary by Carol Agate

Are you planning to build a new sanctuary or remodel an existing one? Now may be the perfect time to install an induction loop around the perimeter. The loop will allow people who wear hearing aids to hear all the voices coming from the microphones right in their ears.
You may wonder why they would need that if the sound is already being amplified. That's because loudspeakers distort sound. Our brains do wonderful things with the sounds our ears pick up and deliver to them. But when those ears lose the ability to hear well, the brain can't do a competent job of interpreting the sounds. The brains of people with normal hearing are capable of interpreting those distorted sounds and understanding what comes through the loudspeakers. But for the brains of people with hearing loss the amplified sounds remain distorted. An induction loop sets up a magnetic field and hearing aids that have telecoils pick up those voices and put the sounds right into the ears, just as though the speaker was one foot away.

You may already have installed an FM transmitter and have receivers that you distribute to congregants and guests. If so, good for you! But do you find your ushers don't know where the receivers are kept, the batteries are dead more often than not, or the ear buds or headset pads are to hard to keep clean or to keep changing? When people with telecoil-equipped hearing aids walk into a looped sanctuary, no equipment is needed. All they have to do is flip a switch on their hearing aids.

Even if you aren't remodeling you may be able to install a loop.