Man of Valor

Valor.

The Mancave definition is “Great strength that enables a man to encounter danger with courage, as in battle.”

Are you a man of valor? Am I?

I recently watched the movie, Act of Valor, starring real-life Navy Seals depicting a fictional storyline based on actual events. Part of the story is told through the voice of Chief Dan as he reads a letter he wrote to the unborn son of his best friend and comrade, who died in battle.

Below is part of the letter:

Before my father died, he said the worst thing about growing old was that other men stop seeing you as dangerous...I've always remembered that how being dangerous was sacred, a badge of honor. You live your life by a code. An ethos, every man does…Your father’s grandfather gave up his life flying a B24 in WWII; he kept the liberator aloft just long enough for everyone to jump and then he went down with the plane. That's the blood coursing in your veins…

Before your father died he asked me to give you this poem by Chief Tecumseh. I told him I'd fold it into a paper airplane and in a way...I guess that's what I'm doing, sailing it from him to you…

(final stanza) “When it comes your time to die, be not like those whose hearts are filled with the fear of death, so that when their time comes they weep and pray for a little more time to live their lives over again in a different way. Sing your death song and die like a hero going home.”

So what is a man of valor? Is it only attainable for fierce, dangerous warriors that fight in gun battles in the name of freedom and honor? If so, I am in trouble. I engage in battles at my work as well, but rather than have to maneuver around the chaos of rapid fire machine guns, I dodge boogers and hormones…literally. In the eighth grade, some kids seem like they graduated kindergarten the day before entering my classroom, while others try to dress and act like they are interviewing for the next opening on Jersey Shore.

There are times when I feel like I am swimming upstream in a river that is going nowhere, making no impact in a battleground that doesn’t exist. Those are the days I don’t feel like a dangerous man of valor at work.

The same kind of feeling happens at times at home. When my wife complains that my toenails and waistline are expanding to undesirable levels, my daughter has her 17^th temper tantrum before we sit down to breakfast, and my son’s butt is stained purple from yesterday’s blueberries, I don’t feel very dangerous. But if there is one group of people that needs me to be a man of valor, it is my family. My wife needs a husband that is dangerously in love with her. My daughter and son need to see a daddy that is dangerously in love with their mommy. They need a daddy that will skip nights out watching basketball with the guys to be home reading Bible stories and Curious George.

The blood coursing in my veins needs to show my son how to be a strong man, husband, father. It needs to show my daughter what she deserves from her future husband. It needs to show my wife she is still the princess she was on our wedding day, leading her to uncover all life’s beauty as she follows me down our path.

At the end of life, a man of valor will not beg for more time and extra chances to do things better. He should sing like a hero going home, knowing that he prevailed in the battle he was meant to fight.

Am I a man of valor?

Lives depend on it.