Hi, this is Chris Abbs.

I don’t know why you’re listening to this, but since you are, let’s talk about heroes.

First off, apologies if you hear a chainsaw going in the background.

The neighbor’s getting tree work done.

I’m glad he is.

Yesterday, the news came across social media that Sir Patrick Stewart, the actor, passed away this week, and I immediately tie his name to beloved Star Trek character Captain Picard.

I think the first episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation I ever watched was the last episode, which is a bizarre way to do it, but I mean, that’s a long story.

But of all the Star Treks I’ve loved, and I’ve loved most of them, Captain Picard may be my favorite character across all of them.

The inherent dignity, the wisdom of leadership, the way he dealt with conflicting priorities and managed to get through it, and always played a serious character who took, even if it could be considered a, you know, a cheesy entertainment and sci-fi, and times when, honestly, some of those episodes were cheesy, he carried himself with a dignity as a character that just was always remarkable and felt worthy of emulation.

As I have read more about Patrick Stewart himself in real life, I’m encouraged to find similar behavior.

As an outspoken advocate for domestic abuse victims, for soldiers and veterans suffering from PTSD, for the rights of LGBTQ population, just a man who was outspoken and used the power and the privilege that he had to care for the people around him.

I ran into an interview, and I blogged about it a few years ago, where he talked about the work that he did on Star Trek TNG and how in the work, as he said, for truth and fairness and honesty and respect for others, he said, in a sense, we were ministers.

We were, in a way, whether we knew it or not, helping people, and that came through even in the TV program.

And I’ll say that’s a good bit of maybe what I recognized from him too.

And then when I see the people that gathered around him and the positive benefits that they’ve brought and the good people that they have appeared to be, when I read the comments of people like Wil Wheaton, who is a child actor on TNG, and the benefit that Stewart brought to him in that kind of relationship, just super, super encouraging.

Stewart published a biography a couple years ago, which I read, and he was very forthright, it seemed like.

He was not a perfect person.

He had all sorts of his own mistakes that he would admit to and frustrated him and so on.

But he continued to try to live his life with integrity as he went through it in the best he knew how.

And as he passed away here this week at the age of 86, it seems like an example worth emulating.

When I think about other men like that that I see and have looked up to in my history, people immediately come to mind.

I mean, somebody like Mr.

Rogers, right?

Fred Rogers, who demonstrated a kind of quiet, gentle humility that was wise and taught and led people and ministered to people in profound ways, even if he was not what today would get pictured even by lots of religious sort of Christian.

Theo Bros as a manly man.

He was a short dude who wore a cardigan and, you know, changed into his loafers every day, and had a profound impact on children who grew up to be adults who hopefully recognize the value of a loving, earnest, honest, humble heart when talking to anybody, but especially approaching children.

As a complete side note, and as I get toward the end of this, I had forgotten until I read a biography a few years ago about Mr.

Rogers also being a pianist.

And as somebody who’s now been a pianist myself for more than 40 years, I wonder if watching that program when I was a small child had any influence on that.

We’ll talk later.