Do you ever wonder how to get people to speak life over you and pour out kind words? I have totally solved the life riddle and it is a harsh truth to discover indeed, but the surest way to avail yourself of great people favor is to commit some atrocious crime, something that just makes all civilized people want to throw up in their mouths a little.
That is NOT advice, it is simply my deeply rooted sarcasm and bitter gallows humor at play. It also has an element of truth to it.
Many years ago, not far from here, there was a man receiving all kinds of praise, “he’s a good father, an outstanding husband, a valued member of our community whose selfless service to others is well-known.” Naturally at the time, the news was reporting on the body recovery efforts underway on his property. Apparently when Mr Right was not selflessly serving others, he was picking them off one by one and burying them in his back yard.
“He’s been such an amazing neighbor. He’s like the boy next door,” said tearfully of course, as if Mr. Right were now being victimized and unfairly judged for his propensities and perversions.
Let me pause for a moment and mention that anyone who has some uncomfortable feelings over the word “depraved,” as in perhaps “totally depraved” sounds too harsh when describing the state of human beings in general, you need to get out more. Walk a mile in my shoes, spend 15 minutes looking out my window. “Depraved” is the polite term for it.
So, it is with all wry humor and delicious bitterness, I discover yet another upstanding community member, worthy of all due people favor. “He is universally loved by a lot of different people who expressed that to me and he is a terrific human being.”
Our “universally loved, terrific human being” is actually California Deputy Attorney General Raymond Liddy, the 53-year-old son of Watergate burglar G. Gordon Liddy. He has just been arrested for possessing child porn, including numerous images of kids under 12 engaged in sexual activity. link here.
Yuck.
My point here being, the world’s approval, the favor of people, social standing, these are fickle things indeed. They should not be taking too seriously and they should never be used as moral markers, as evidence of someone’s worth and value, including your own. People approval has got to be one of the worst ways to discern whether or not you are on the right track, morally, spiritually. While it’s fabulous to be teachable, to take the opinions and suggestions of others under advisement, they are only a tool, a tiny piece of the puzzle.
Keep that in mind if you’re ever twitter bombed, if you ever encounter the mob mentality of rabid and mindless human hatred. Keep your perspective and remember that while you may be the “most despicable human being ever” based on the opinion of random strangers on the internet, California Deputy Attorney General Raymond Liddy, child porn addict, is also being called a, “universally loved, terrific human being.”
Words always have power, but sometimes words don’t mean diddly squat.
See, there's this thing called biology... 
“While it’s fabulous to be teachable, to take the opinions and suggestions of others under advisement, they are only a tool, a tiny piece of the puzzle.”
All I heard was: “They are only a TOOL” 😂 I think that about many people… many act like tools frequently 🤔👍
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Ha! Good one. Yep, there are some real tools in the world.
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I often think of this delicious irony when a movie star dies. Everyone praises this strung-out, drug-addicted, narcissist for being such a wonderful human being, and I wonder why…
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Yes! It’s the strangest thing.
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This was another great post, of things we sometimes don’t think up. I agree that some people are put on pedestals, because of position or power. Even when bad things come out about that person, some people still cling to their belief that they are good. Most of us think of evil, and yes depraved people as the stuff of nightmares. Individuals that lurk in the deepest darkest nights. The real monsters in this world walk among us in the bright light of day. We just don’t recognize them for what they really are.
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We build so many little altars for people–others as well as ourselves…
And mostly for those we only see from afar….
Think entertainers…we tout them to be all that and a bag of chips. They receive the accolades like olympic gold medals—not even bothering to stop long enough for their national anthem as the quest goes on to acquire more and more praise.
We all fall short of the Glory of God.
We are all sinners…
while some of us are even monsters.
Perhaps the moral of your story is that we should watch how we heap praise upon man (that being also on ourselves) as it would behoove us to remember that it is from dust we have come and it will be to dust we shall return.
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A few days ago I was googling for some old recordings of a priest who was once the spiritual director of Saint Mother Teresa of Calcuta.
I would listen to him years ago on those long drives through the Painted Desert on my way from Flagstaff, AZ to the where I lived on the Navajo Reservation near the 4 Corners. I enjoyed them very much as they were very inspiring.
Sometime between now and back then, however, that priest had been exposed as one of the worst pedophile priest ever known in the Catholic Church.
His predations probably started back in the 1950’s but began coming to light in the late 1960’s. Over the decades, the Jesuit establishment tried to cover everything up but the dyke just sprang too many holes evidently.
He was eventually busted and is presently serving a prison term that will last the rest of his life.
Jesus is asking a lot that we not have deep enmity toward our fellow man.
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Oh,ouch, SOM. That’s a real betrayal. There have been times I have learned the truth about people I admired and I’ve been pretty crushed. As to love and forgiveness well, God is real because left to my own devices, it would look more like a Western, with me as a gunslinger saying, “some people just need killing.” Patience and mercy can take quite a bit of Divine intervention.
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IB, my mother loves people such as Bernie (whose wife completely damaged a university she was at and who opposed Planned Parenthood but now says they’re cool), Liz Warren (who lied about her native American heritage), and Nancy Pelosi (the sewer alligator), include John McCain into that as well. And yet is somehow my moral superior…
I have stopped trying to seek her approval as well…it’s sad but parents can be quite wrong.
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Parent’s can be a real challenge. Mine were pretty broken people,very self absorbed. Today my mother carries on about politics too, and I just have to let it roll off of me and bite my tongue. I turn into a Southener, “poor dear” and “bless her heart.”
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“He is universally loved by a lot of different people who expressed that to me and he is a terrific human being.”
Yup, that’s pretty much what Jesus called “the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees” (Matt.5:20). It’s surface-level, based on appearance. And we all know what Jesus thought about that in those religious pretenders.
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Not only do the terrible criminals get described as nice people and good neighbors, but their victims also turn out to be the cream of the crop, the best of people, the ones who will be terribly missed. When a mass murderer takes the lives of six or eight or ten people, each and every one of them happens to be the smartest, the best-liked, the one most likely to succeed. How do they manage consistently to miss the half of the population that is below average?
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“How do they manage consistently to miss the half of the population that is below average?”
LOL! Good point.
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If serial killers and other felons showed their true selves in public, we would all run the other direction. They have to act like one of us, before they can hurt us.
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What airbrushing…
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