By Kathy Banaszak
kathybanaszak@wi.rr.com
www.kathybanaszak.blogspot.com
(This article was originally posted 3/10/08 and has been edited for corrections)
For about the fiftieth time in the last ninety minutes, the same news clip parades across every single cable news network. With few exceptions, reporters and anchors express collective shock and outrage, while still others labor to mute their obvious glee. This is the red meat they live for.
No doubt about it, this is a big news day. New York Governor Elliott Spitzer caught on a wiretap in the thick of a high-stakes prostitution ring with ties to organized crime. As far as newsrooms go, it doesn't get much better than this."There is a place in hell reserved for these sorts of hyprocrites; hypocrite with a capital H", pontificates one pundit. "Wall Street is breaking out the champagne right now" smirks another.
The feeding frenzy has just begun folks.
The pictures tell the story better than all the talking heads: the mortified wife with grief-stricken eyes standing by her husband's side, numbed by the crushing brunt of raw pain. The culprit himself wears that strange grimace of someone caught with his pants down (literally in this case). Not exactly the look of a genuinely repentant man I think to myself. Remorse for sure, (he got nailed after all, who wouldn't be). But repentance? Not yet. Later one hopes. For now, he's still looking for that "Stay Out of Jail" card.
Amid expressions of moral outrage, I am reminded yet again that "there is nothing new under the sun." Solomon (no innocent himself) got this right. No matter how sophisticated, how intelligent, well-educated, cultured or evolved we see ourselves in the dawn of this 21st century, there is no escaping the obvious truth. We are trapped by the same moral dilemmas and wallow in the same cesspools that have plagued mankind since the beginning of recorded time. It's not just "the times in which we live" as one anchor suggested.
What's crystal clear is that the nature of man has not changed at all in the three thousand years since Solomon penned Ecclesiastes. Solomon embraced a spiritual truth rejected by many still today: We are the problem. What we need today (and have always needed) remains the same. We need an "inside job" - all of us - me, you, Elliott Spitzer, everybody.
Solomon offers a word of wisdom for Elliott Spitzer: "Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall." Pride tops the list as the "chief of sins" and for good reason; there is nothing so sneaky, so dangerous, so completely hideous and so utterly blinding. In the days to come, I hope that Governor Spitzer will genuinely reflect on this unheeded wisdom.
But be wary all you outraged commentators. Take heed all you gleeful gloating cable news voyeurs. Listen up all you church-going folk. The apostle Paul has a word for you (and me) too: "Let him who thinks he stands, take heed lest he fall." (1 Cor. 10:12) Gotcha!
I'll be honest. It feels good (at first), so "natural" to let myself simply wallow in today's community gloat over Elliott Spitzer's stunning fall from grace. (There's that darned "nature" thing again!) How desperately I need the finger of God to prick my heart yet again to remind me of what I am supposed to already know: "Love does not rejoice in evil (or injustice, take your pick of translations), but rejoices in the truth." (1 Cor. 13)
No gloating folks.
I love how C. S. Lewis (Mere Christianity) puts it all in perspective: "All the worst pleasures are purely spiritual: the pleasure of putting other people in the wrong, of bossing and patronizing, and spoiling sport and back-biting, the pleasure of power, of hatred...That is why a cold self-righteous prig who goes regularly to church may be far nearer to hell than the prostitute."
Whew!
Listen closely to the words of another notable sinner, King David, no less. Caught in a similar trap of his own making, he went to even greater lengths (murder!) to hide his own moral transgression. Yet who can read Psalm 51 and not be moved by the God who specializes in "inside jobs":
"Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love, according to your great compassion, blot out my transgressions, wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin...Surely you desire truth in the innermost being, you teach me wisdom in the inmost place...Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me...The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise."
So on this very hellish day, I pray for Governor Spitzer. I pray for truth in his innermost being, for a broken and contrite heart, a clean heart, a new and steadfast spirit. I especially pray for shelter and comfort for his wife and children in the midst of such shattered trust and public humiliation.
I pray that Governor Spitzer might genuinely seek the gift of repentance. It is the "gift of tears" for those who deserve none.
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