From the Mind of Meegs

I accidentally made myself think a few days ago. While blogging about the recent avalance of sports related cover-ups, I asked rhetorically (about Roger Clemens) what kind of pathology would cause you to add about a jillion lies on top of a situation you've already screwed up royally, and--here's the kicker--actually believe that you come off looking better for adding to your crimes? That's when it hit me. In my rhetorical smart-alekness (alekism?), there was actually a kernel of truth. It is a pathology. And that pathology is called pride. Too bad all of us suffer from that same pathology.

On the one hand, all the Clemens stuff makes me angry. Seriously, some of it makes me question whether I'd brake if I saw him crossing the street. OK, not really...but the hate does run deep. But on the other hand, it's sad. You're watching someone drown in his own sin, right before your very eyes. It's not pleasant to watch a drowning man who swears he's swimming just fine, thankyouverymuch.

Once you've managed to get yourself in some deep shit, there's really only two options. One is to dig your heels in even deeper, and convince yourself that you're powerful enough, or determined enough, or clever enough to get yourself out of it. This option has a remarkably high failure rate, but it still has its appeal. At least you're keeping your fate in your own hands. Whatever happens to you, it's determined by the choices you make, and how you manage your situation--or at least that's the illusion. Good ol' pride.

The other option is to give up saving face, own up to your crap, and throw yourself on the mercy of the court, so to speak. Thing is, this option also has a less than 100% succcess rate, assuming you're not defining success simply as "the satisfaction of having done the right thing," an assumption which might be problematic in and of itself, but roll with me for a second. Furthermore, you're giving up control. What happens next no longer depends on you. It depends on how others respond to you. I think this is where Roger Clemens is. He can't give himself up because he has no guarantee that he'll be granted forgiveness. He has no assurance that the fans who once cheered him will cheer him again, no confidence that the government will overlook the crimes he committed. Can you really blame him for not wanting to open himself up to that?

When it comes right down to it, what he and others in similar situations are effectively saying is, "I may have done something unforgiveable." And that sort of primal desperation is sad. Who can't relate to that, even if we haven't exactly been there?

Owning up to your own crap is a good start, but it doesn't always have the outcome that all the Sunday School stories did, where the kid fesses up and forgiveness is immediately granted, along with a pat on the head for doing the right thing. Soliciting forgiveness is a little bit like being trapped on a crumbling rock ledge, and being told that your best hope for survival is to let go and fall backwards into a net that may or may not actually be there. I'll bet I couldn't pay you a million dollars to give up and fall. No matter how that rock crumbles, and no matter how bloody your fingertips get from grasping at that rock, no one in their right mind would just give up and fall backwards. We'd keep believing right up to the very end that we could hold on to that rock long enough to come up with a plan for getting off it. Or we'd keep believing that we could hold on until our circumstances shifted favorably. Maybe we'd find a rope we forgot we had, or maybe help would arrive unexpectedly.

But here's where the analogy breaks down. If that help arrived, you can be sure we'd take it. No one would tell the rescue party, "It's OK. I'm fine. I'm not actually trapped on this ledge here. I'm just enjoying the view and can get off it anytime I want to." But from our vantage point on this metaphorical ledge, we somehow convince ourselves that we don't need any help. Even if someone could guarantee that the net will be there when we fall, we've got ourselves pretty well convinced that we have no need for that net.

The only time we are offered any sort of guarantee that the net will be there is when we're seeking the forgiveness of God. That's supposed to be one of the big selling points of this whole arrangement called Christianity. God never declines forgiveness to those who sincerely seek it and, according to the season we currently celebrate, he died to make it that way. You would think this makes at least this side of the equation a little bit easier, and perhaps even makes it easier to sign yourself over to the forgiveness of others, whether they offer it or not. After all, you've already heard the only verdict on your soul that matters, right?

On our better days, maybe. But most days, it feels like all that does is underestimate the pathology of pride, and how truly deep it runs.