Last Friday, a third grader read an epic comic in our Zoom group. Trying to follow without easy access to the images, I asked a follow-up about one of the characters: “Is he the hero?” “Oh, yes,” the reader answered, “he has to bring balance to the world.”
What an amazing definition of the hero! Not someone who completes a quest, vanquishes an enemy, or saves a city, or a life, in this definition a hero is one who has to bring balance. The form of the obligation is as striking as its content. He can’t turn from this commitment. He must bring a thing the world surely and sorely needs: middle way, neutral, plumb line, reconciliation.
With the world in balance what could education be?