An Anecdote for Knowing It All
I woke up this a.m. and listened to my favorite political fix show Morning Joe. Naturally most of the news was about the Super Committee dealing with the budget, the Republican candidates for president expressing their viewpoints, and the lingering news about the Penn State fiasco surrounding the accusations of child abuse brought against a long time football coach. I then read a few e-mails from some of my friends who were expressing hard line positions about “certain” people and things political – most with which I strongly disagreed. At first I wanted to e-mail them back and tell them about their “lost” way and share the “truth” with them. As you can see I started my day hearing about people taking hard line positions – speaking as if they knew it all about the person or the issue which they were addressing. It was then that I turned to my morning meditative reading. The words I read were from the twentieth century monastic Thomas Merton.
We ought to have the humility to admit we do not know all about ourselves, that we are not experts at running our own lives. We ought to stop taking our conscious plans and decisions with such infinite seriousness. It may well be that we are not the martyrs or mystics or apostles or the leaders or lovers of God that we imagine ourselves to be. Our subconscious mind may be trying to tell us this in many ways and we have trained ourselves with the most egregious self-righteousness to turn a deaf ear.”
Was this a God thing? Those who have ears, hear! Maybe taking the time to come to know ourselves (our desires, our motives, our strengths, our weaknesses, our hopes and fears) before becoming a know it all about any person or issue might just be the way to building bridges over chasms of misunderstanding.

A Lesson from Penn State That Requires Our Attention

So Joe’s Gone – Stop Piling On – Sinners All
The forced exit of Joe Paterno as coach of the Penn State football team will not ease the pain of the victims and their families. The tragedy has happened and hopefully time and an undercurrent of God’s grace will help the abused to find some healing from scares inflicted upon their souls. Paterno’s exit, while necessary, will not solve the underlying problem that allows all forms of abuse to take place in the world of sport……games have become multi-million dollar businesses. And those teams and usually their coaches that succeed in the business of sport – whether amateur (I almost regret using the word – Are there any left?) or professional – have been elevated to a divine status. They are worshipped and adored and well-compensated for their elect status. O come let us adore them! Let us adore them with TV contracts and tee shirt sales and media commentator praise! Let us adore them with the excessive adulation of fanatical followers and free athletic equipment as long as the logo of the giver is visible for all to see. Come let us adore them by allowing substandard academic achievement and blind acceptance of all forms of less than acceptable behavior.
I am amazed at the number of sport’s commentators who make a living helping to elevate and praise these gods of sport who have suddenly become so self-righteous in their pointing their fingers at “those” sinners. I am repulsed at the “grandstand righteous” who know what Joe Pa and others should have done but in their daily lives either look the other way or do just “what is required” in the face of all kinds of injustices and marginally and blatantly immoral behaviors that occur around them. I have always been concerned about those who are rabidly fanatical about “their team” and in doing so lose all sense of rational thinking or behavior. We who have lost our way and our minds when it comes to our love of sport are guilty of allowing competitive sports to live by different moral standards.
And what is our penance? Let us in all possible ways begin to bring back into sports a spirit that affirms “it is not whether you win or lose but rather it is how you play the game.” May all parents and coaches of children and youth sports teams behave in ways that exemplify the highest in moral behavior. Let us help our children to build character not resumes for scholarships. Let all who love sports appreciate fair play and good behavior on the field of play more than the their team’s standing in the league or their rankings in the polls. Let us speak up not just about such heinous acts like those that has brought disgrace at Penn State but whenever we see less than character building behaviors in any sporting endeavor.
Personally from afar I have liked what I have seen in the character building work of Joe Paterno. He made one very tragic mistake which will not soon be forgotten. Yes, maybe all the adulation led to some hubris in dealing with his tenacious desire to coach until the end of the season. But there is at least one visual testimony to Paterno’s character building focus that is displayed every time the Nittany Lions take the field. There are no names on the players’ shirts. It is all about “we”, not “me.” It is WE who say we love sports who need to accept our share of the blame for where the world of sport has gone. And it is we who need to take the steps to bring individual and team sports back to earth. It is we who have done much in granting elevated, godlike status to those who excel in playing games. For the sake of all children we need to do the right and moral thing so others are not emotionally scarred through their participation in playing their games or through, God forbid, another very sick predator’s actions.
“Those who are without sin, let them cast the first stone.”
Prayerfully and Penitentially Yours, Bob