The Hero’s Journey
Shabrae Jackson is an expressive arts facilitator and educator. She is the founder of Collective Tapestry and co-founder of UMBRAL, leveraging arts-based approaches to foster healing, belonging, and social change. What we admire most about Shabrae is her deep trauma-informed perspective, which reflects her exceptional self-awareness, mindfulness, and care. We are honored to have her on the BLK South Board of Advisors.
On the theme of Heroes and Saints…
It’s not loss on me as I write this update with the theme of heroes and saints, the many people who are literally putting their lives on the line in response to the fires in LA, those who are tirelessly responding to the many wars in the world, and the people who show up everyday to show love and care for another.
The theme of hero has been showing up in a few spaces for me. Last Saturday I spent the day with a new cohort of Directors who are in their first 5 years of leadership of after-school programs in the city. In our opening session we talked about the idea of the Hero’s journey and pondered if the idea of “heroism” is still relevant today. The hero’s journey is a common narrative or story template, that involves a hero who goes on an adventure, learns a lesson, wins a victory with that newfound knowledge, and then returns home transformed. The template or idea of a “hero’s journey" can be seen in many movies and fiction and comes from the work of Joseph Campbell who studied mythology across world cultures and found that there was a common pattern and theme that informed myths and stories, calling this idea a monomyth theory.
There exist many debates on the limitations and questions that this is a universal framework and one that serves all, which of course it cannot. We must also acknowledge that the hero’s journey is often only told from the perspective of the hero, leaving many of the other actors and pieces of the story to the wayside. It is however, an interesting frame to have profound debates and conversations on leadership, purpose, and calling.
As the group explored heroism for today’s world, the group's answers surprised me as they were less grandiose and more grounded in the simple day to day act of being human. One leader shared, “to be a hero is to see someone in need and respond”, another shared, “a hero is someone who listens well”, while another shared, “being present with kids everyday is a hero.” We spoke about the current landscape for many young people in our city and across the country today, the need for a heroism that listens, responds, and offers the gift of presence.
Perhaps a “hero” is anyone who steps into a call and finds the strength to persevere in it despite the overwhelming circumstances that may be facing them. It could be the call to help a neighbor, to mentor a young person, to call a family member who is going through a hard time, to volunteer for your local council, or to step into a new leadership role. Or maybe a hero is not just an individual, but a community acting together for their dignity and wholeness. We decided that ultimately, the work of recognizing the humanity in those around us was the true act being called for today.
Eighteen years ago I was bouncing around in a pickup truck with Dr. René Padilla and a group of other leaders who were in Mexico City for a conference. I had relocated to Mexico 2 years before and was still learning Spanish and the contours of Latin American culture. Known as the father of integral mission, Dr. Padilla was a renowned theologian, pastor and author. “Integral”, a word in Spanish that means homemade whole-wheat bread (pan integral), was the word that Padilla used from his own culture to refer to a synthesized spiritual and structural approach to mission, meaning, “a comprehensive mission”, a mission of wholeness with all the good stuff.
I was excited to be in the car with a leader of this caliber, and so with my jumbled Spanish, I asked Dr. Padilla who he thought might be some of the up and coming leaders, who would be the next great movement leaders for our times. I specifically wanted to hear from him as he an important voice of resistance and challenge to American Christianity. He is often remembered as giving a fiery speech at the Lausanne conference in Spanish to resist colonialism and teach the West to experience listening through a translator.
Dr. Padilla responded, “I believe that the next wave will not be a single leader but instead pockets of actors in many places of the world leading and bringing movements of change”. I am paraphrasing as this was 18 years ago, but he spoke of the work being more communal and occurring in parallel moments and places. I was struck by his words as I was waiting for him to name several specific people or places that would be inspiration points.
This is not to disregard the impact of various influential leaders in our world today, however over these past years since meeting Dr. Padilla, I feel like I have witnessed his words in numerous and unique ways. And even as more and more stories are shared of all of the many named and unnamed leaders in the past and now, we know that all movements and all great leaders are part of a larger community of actors.
This week, as a country we are entering into the annual time in which many communities and people gather to celebrate the life of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. This year, the MLK celebration falls on Jan. 20, a day that also marks the inauguration of the 47th president. There are events planned starting on the 15th, Dr. King’s actual birthday and through this upcoming week to celebrate the belief in the beloved community. A church in Memphis, Tennessee is even hosting a prophetic listening and prophetic response space to the inauguration encouraging people to not disconnect but to be ready for response.
On some days it can feel like there is too much to respond to. But I am then challenged and invited to consider a different response, a need for what peace builder John Paul Lederach calls the moral imagination, “the capacity to imagine something rooted in the challenges of the real world yet capable of giving birth to that which does not yet exist.” In the Hero’s journey, the hero must step out of their comfort zone to begin a new path. I am left wondering of the new paths before us now as a community of response, pockets of people who must act in beautiful and unique ways. For it will take each person offering what they have, working together and reimagining a shared future.
Reflection Questions:
In what ways can you step into your own "hero's journey" by responding to the needs of your community, whether through small acts of kindness or larger commitments to justice and wholeness?
How might shifting the focus from individual heroism to communal action change the way you view leadership, purpose, and your role in creating a more compassionate and equitable world?
