I have a confession to make. When I am running on my treadmill, working up a sweat, listening to Beyonce or the Black Eyed Peas, I keep myself going with thoughts of grandeur. I picture myself winning an Oscar, or a Pulitzer, or a Nobel, or maybe just a Mom of the Year mug from my children. I see myself winning races, telling someone off (in, of course, the most profoundly astute way), or competing on Dancing with the Stars. It doesn’t matter that I am neither a star nor a dancer, remember – this is my fantasy.
Admit it. You do it too.
I also see myself being a hero. Standing up in court to deliver a punishing blow against the criminal. Fighting off an attacker. Pulling someone from a burning building.
Tackling a gunman who is shooting at children.
I want to be a Benke.
Dr. David Benke, you may recall, is the math teacher at Deer Creek Middle School who tackled a gunman last year. I met him at a martial arts school. He had been training in taekwondo for about five months before the day of the shooting and he is consistently, at 6-foot-5, the tallest man in the room. But don’t make the mistake of thinking he is intimidating. Tall, yes, and with a surprisingly loud, deep voice, but lanky with hunched shoulders; when he raises his fists for sparring, he is a praying mantis in a blue gi. He doesn’t look anything like a superhero or Jet Li. His face is somber, a hound-dog expression that easily breaks into a dazzling smile. His hooded, downward-sloping eyes sparkle and he often stares at the ceiling for a few moments before answering a question. He is just as likely to quote Goethe or Proust or Schopenhauer as he is to deliver a painfully corny joke or break out in song about the joys of math books.
He is always thinking. Thinking about what he will say. Thinking about how to act. It is in this thinking, Dr. Benke argues, in this conscious rehearsal of acting like the person that we want to become, that we train ourselves to be the person who makes positive things happen: a person he calls the “Domino Pusher.”
We witness these acts of heroism occasionally. From Todd Beamer and others on Flight 93, to Dr. Benke, to the bystanders in the recent Arizona shooting who took down the gunman, we can be reassured that there are people like this in the world. Maybe more than we think. Maybe even ourselves. But how does a man find the strength, the will in himself to bury his own fear, to disregard our most basic instinct: to survive. What makes a person risk their life for another? And most importantly; Can I learn to act in the same manner? Not just fantasizing about it but actually taking action when it is necessary.
Dr. Benke thinks we can. He was prepared when tragedy came his way because he spent time considering scenarios of “what if this happened” and “what would I do?” We can prepare ourselves to act in extraordinary ways by utilizing our moral compass in everyday acts, and in cultivating a positive outcome not only in our actions, but in our reactions, to everyday events. In doing so, we prepare ourselves, our minds and our bodies, for a significant event.
Dr. Benke would say that my daydreaming on the treadmill is good for me. It prepares me to act. I can’t know if I am truly prepared unless I am faced with a life or death situation. You don’t know either. In fact, Dr. Benke himself doesn’t know for sure how he would react faced with another tragedy. But the important take-away is this: he knows that he CAN act because he is mentally prepared to do so. And in practicing, we can all learn that lesson.
Now when I am on the treadmill, between thoughts on landing on the cover of Oprah magazine (with Oprah, of course) and accepting a Grammy, I have a new phrase that I repeat to myself: Be a Benke.
Katherine Braun (kathi_braun@comcast.net) of Littleton is a stay-at-home mom who is working on a book about the Deer Creek Middle School shooting in February 2010.
