inspiring ancestor
Wednesday, December 30th, 2009
If you search “What would Jesus do”, Google delivers 360,000 pages. Put a .com after the unpunctuated phrase, and you get a site promising you 10% off “the widest collection of WWJD bracelets and apparel on the internet.” (Is it just me, or is there something deeply disturbing about this?) I don’t doubt Jesus existed or that he lived an exemplary life. But he’s not the easiest guy to relate to. (The Immaculate Conception, for starters… The walking on water business. The loaves and fishes trick. The crucifixion, of course – not to mention rising from the dead afterwards.) Really. How can a well-meaning but deeply flawed woman living two millennia after such a performance even pretend to model her behaviour after such a man?
Laura Secord, on the other hand, is family. I share her bloodline and – amazingly – her profile. Her heroic acts – while impressive – happened less than two centuries ago, played out within a few hundred miles of where I live and, most importantly, remained within the range of the humanly possible. It’s at very least remotely conceivable that – on a good day, fortified with enough chocolate – I, too, could muster sufficient courage and perseverance to accomplish something mildly admirable (if not country-cementing).