Some may not know that I’ve taken a job with the Knights of Columbus, selling life insurance. That would mean ignoring the really long post a couple of days ago, but I can understand that.
Part of the mission of the Knights is to support widows and orphans, and one really great example of this happened shortly after 9/11. Within days, and before anyone else, the Knights offered $3,000 checks to the families of every police officer or firefighter who died in the disaster. There were no other qualifications, no strings attached, and no burden of paperwork.
There’s a video made about that offering, called “The Hero’s Fund,” which is basically to inform other Knights about this otherwise unpublicized fund. “Here’s what we’re doing with your money,” sort of thing.
A picture from the video looked like this, but it’s not the same one. The picture I’m referring to was taken in a stairwell, as people filed down the stairs to evacuate the building. A firefighter in full gear was running up the stairs past them. A few of the civilians watched the grim-faced man as he went.
Their faces said everything about duty, sacrifice, honor. You don’t get to see subtle expressions of awe every day.
That man may have been a jerk in some ways, maybe he failed more often than he liked, or maybe he was just ordinary, even in his own eyes.
One day in his life, people looked at him and thought (without quite finding the words), “There goes Nobility of spirit. Honor incarnate walked by, this close to me.”
It would have been for some of those people, I’m sure, a religious experience.
