Where Have All The Cowboys Gone?
It sounds cliche but my first heroes were cowboys. I remember the first time I read a book by a man named Louis LaMour. The pictures he created in my mind of vast sweeping plains, the lone gunman set against the world and determined to right wrongs, still move me to this day. (A reason one of my goals is to have all his books in my collection and eventually place them in my “study”, which is also a dream right now, for me and my son to read as we want…) As I grew older my cowboy heroes had a few other friends join them, Evel Knievel (yes i had the wind up Evel Knievel motorcycle!), The A Team, Police Officers, Fire Men and a Cowboy named Luke who I met as a young teen who taught me to ride a horse and spit (very important for a young boy)…There’s nothing quite like heroes to a child…the larger than life presence they afford, the influence they hold over our views and how perfect and strong we view them to be. As a man I’ve learned not to idolize other men or women, but I still think heroes hold a place in our hearts and lives. Folks who inspire us to live bigger lives, to impact eternity with the vapor of life we have been given…heroes are still needed. With the new report of Tiger Woods coming out today and his affair, so many of the Pastors I have known through the years having fallen victim to the same “mistakes”, presidents, CEO’s and Pop Music Starlets…I look at my kids and wonder who I point them to? (besides Jesus…I know that!) But who do I let them believe in and be inspired by? Today with a really heavy, heavy heart I find myself asking, where have all the cowboys gone?
December 3, 2009 at 12:18 am
I think there are Cowboys all aroung us. We as a people have gottend so bombarded with stories like this, we don’t see the good in ordinary people. For example, the 400+ volunteers who served lunch at the durham rescue mission and the 50+ of our on church who delivered 500 meals to shutins on Thanksgiving Day. I think Cowboys and Cowgirls are still out there we just have to look a little harder for them.
December 3, 2009 at 8:33 pm
Yeah I totally agree. And we try and point our kids to them. The trouble I have (and you have an older son so maybe you can help with this) is our kids are naturally going to be influnced by culture and though we can’t hand pick their “heroes” we can direct their attention the “right” directions…it’s just getting to be harder and harder to find someone in the public spotlight that you could say, “Now that’s a hero” about…
December 3, 2009 at 9:40 pm
As far as people in the spotlight, I don’t consider anybody in the news a “Hero” unless they are in service to this country. I try to tell or teach my son that the people in he news are getting paid to do a job. Now he can admire them for their abilities, but not as a hero. It’s very hard to teach him that, especially when he is old enough to understand how much they get paid to do that job and when the person is playing a game for that job.