Believe It or Not – We’re Not Perfect

It was the eve of Christmas Eve, December 23, 1988. Several close friends, St. Joseph’s choir members, ready to celebrate our traditional holiday potluck menus and traditions – Polish, Irish and Italian. But something was wrong; our host wasn’t answering the door. In fact, the house was dark. Could we have the wrong night?

After several minutes, the door opened. Our host poked his head out.

“Sorry,” he said. “We’re not doing it.”

The door closed. Our group stood there in the chilly dark, wondering what in the world was going on.

A few days later, we heard our dear friends, husband-wife business partners, had split. He essentially “fired” her, locking the home office door, giving her an actual letter of termination, and throwing her out of the house. We were rightfully – righteously – outraged. I didn’t speak with the husband, our “friend,” for decades. It was only then I learned the full story. Turns out his wife, also our friend, had become pregnant by her out-of-town lover – who she would later marry.

Whose sin was worse – the wife, who had a transgression of the heart? Or mine, who made a conscious decision to turn my back on a dear friend and fellow choir member at the lowest point in his life?

Sounds like a no-brainer to me. But lessons from no-brainers don’t necessarily provide immunity from future stupidity.

Another friend in our close parish circle imploded his family several years back. He had an affair with, and then married, his office manager. His cruel, caustic behavior toward his daughters caused a years-long estrangement. Because of this egregious behavior, we – his closest friends – turned our backs on him.

Later, we learned he wasn’t well. A former professional athlete, he had CTE – chronic traumatic encephalopathy – an incurable degenerative brain disease that causes severe headaches, memory loss, disorientation, rage, and dementia. Many victims kill themselves. We abandoned a dear friend, our brother in Christ, a good man, because we never asked what might be wrong.

Did we forget all the basic lessons from church school as kids? Were we all sleeping through every Sunday homily? Or do we just display the Christianity label without buying into the brand?

We tend to condemn people, especially ourselves, without bothering to learn why we suddenly act outside our good characters. We don’t consider what past influences have flawed our present personalities. That’s part of our “human nature.” Also known as “original sin.”

It’s not like we invented sin. Even saints, sometimes especially saints, are seduced by the easy satisfaction of “righteous sin.” St. Paul, stubborn and temperamental, wrote of his own ongoing conflict in a letter to the Christian community in Rome in 56 AD.

“For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do – this I keep on doing.”

If the Apostle Paul can’t get it right, even after his dramatic conversion, we’re really screwed. Now what?

Well, like Paul, accept it. We should always try to be better, but we’ll never be perfect. Never. Others will hurt us; we will hurt others. That doesn’t mean it’s okay, it simply means we should anticipate it. But if that’s all we do, we’ll end up walking around with a big sack of hurt for the rest of our lives. That’s why Step #2 is critical.

Let it go. Forgive. Including yourself. Life’s tough enough without hanging onto that hurt, hoping for payback, holding a grudge. And since screw-ups aren’t one-offs, expect to forgive a lot. St. Peter, not the forgiving type, had to be set straight by Jesus and his “Seventy Times Seven” rule, which, in Biblical, pre-calculator times, translated to “more than you can ever count.” And then forget it. Don’t let the acid from the past keep burning you in the present.

Forgiving yourself and others won’t make you better looking or lower your cholesterol. Oh, it may help lower your blood pressure a tad. But here’s the real value – it can keep good relationships from breaking, and can fix broken ones. The synonym for that is – Love.