Awakening Your Inner Hero

Love is what we all want. Admit it or not…we do. In order to receive it we must practice living it. We all need to get better at love and the better we get, miracles happen.

I LOVE YOU

I do.

Do I know you?

Maybe.

Maybe not.

So, what do I remotely mean when I say, “I love you?” Am I just blowing some mushy, gushy smoke your way? Are you ready to stop reading and move on to something more real?

Please don’t.

Trust me.

My words today potentially will stick with you long enough to make a difference in your life and in at least a few others’ lives, too.

Let me tell you a true story that I have blessedly been living the past few weeks. I met a new friend awhile back over at the gym I go to four to five times a week. Don is his name, and I love him. He is a devout Christian. I am a devout Jew and wear a yarmulka on my head so everyone can tell. And if you know me at all, you know I don’t believe in coincidences. There is something to learn in every moment of the waking day.

Don is a walking animal. He walks six to eight miles nearly every morning starting around 6am…and fast. I can’t walk as far or as fast as he does. Aging and injuries have set some hard-to-accept limits. Oh, and Don is a few years older than me. One day, he said, “Hey, Burt. Let’s walk a few laps together.” The track at Larkspur Community Center, in Bend, circles the workout area that includes people of all ages and genders exercising on stationary bikes, weights of all kinds, a cross-country ski machine, stretching areas, and a treadmill if you’d prefer to avoid slow people like me on the track. It’s a fourteenth of a mile long so you’ve got to walk a lot of laps to get very far.

Back to the main topic, love. A few steps into our first walk, the miracle began. Over time, Don and I had gotten to know each other enough to know we were both spiritually-guided old fellas. Very different pathways in many ways, but in other ways, the same pathway.

Here are a few of the topics that quickly made it into our walking time together: God, love, forgiveness, gratitude, kindness, humility, mystery, unity, connections, purpose, and joy. Most of these times I have been able to walk faster and longer than I thought I would or could. Our discussions took us into another realm, and my pain gave way to a blissful awareness and appreciation of our unity. Frequently we’d say something like, “This is heaven” with smiles that many of our buddies working out inside the track couldn’t possibly miss.

On our second day, I offered up a suggestion to my dear friend:

As we walk around the track, let’s halt our conversation and look at each of the folks working out. Let’s not focus on what they’re doing, or what they’re wearing or anything in the physical realm. Let’s focus on each ones’ essence, their spirit, their holiness.

REALLY SEE THEM.

In our discussions we’d already agreed that every one of us have these essential qualities, and way too often we forget to focus on these parts. Maybe not forget, many of us haven’t ever been trained to look and see through our spiritual lenses. I wasn’t, until relatively recently. I am thankful, nearly every day, that I have lived to be nearly 80 years old and can see more clearly than at any other chapter of my lifetime.

Thank you!

Don really liked my suggestion. We stopped talking and looked at and saw all our workout buddies through our “love lenses.”

And it worked!

It works!

We all have this lens. It was given to us at birth. At the end of the first lap, we looked at each other and with no words, we kept on walking and seeing…and learning. We saw angels, holy people, dedicated folks of every kind. We saw pain. We saw serenity. We saw heaven right down here on Earth and we were still just walking around the little track in Bend, Oregon.

That’s my story…that’s our story.

I love you!

—Burt Gershater is a local counselor, leadership trainer, speaker and writer. He can be reached at info@burtgershater.com.

This article appears in Source Weekly June 5, 2025.