Humble Hypocrite

Be honest.  Do you ever complain or argue?  Get angry?  Lose your patience?  Judge others?  Worry about life? 

As Christians we know we should avoid these traps but seem to be hardwired to fall into them.  There are lots of these lessons in the Bible and we all violate  some of them (if not more)  some of the time (if not more often).  If we were charged with hypocrisy we'd have to plead guilty.  Fortunately for most of us, our faults are kept private. We can confess them, repent, receive forgiveness and move on without enduring pubic humiliation.

Mark Souder didn't have that luxury.

Washington Post columnist Michael Gerson knew Mr. Souder.  Souder was his first boss when both worked for U.S  Senator Dan Coats.  Gerson wrote, "Souder was "deeply religious, highly intelligent and slightly neurotic" and he "was decent to me.  Not long after I started working there, my father died suddenly.  Mark drove from Washington to Atlanta to attend the funeral.  I won't forget."

"Mark later became a thoughtful congressman, carving out a serious role in drug policy.  He did his job with care and stubborn integrity.  He was not a bright-burning political meteor, but he was the kind of man worth having in the House."

The Indiana representative had been married for 35 years with three children and two grandchildren.  He was a family-values proponent and an evangelical Christian who promoted sexual abstinence education.  This made him a juicy target when he admitted having an affair with a staffer.  He resigned, apologized, packed his things and left Washington.

At least Souder acknowledged he was wrong and accepted the consequences.  Typically public figures hang tough and try to keep their jobs regardless of what anyone else thinks.  And in doing so the unspoken message is that violations of moral standards are of no particular significance.  Maybe it doesn't cost them their jobs and pensions, but it does weaken one more strand of integrity in our morally relativistic culture.  In an environment that tolerates and explains away all kinds of damaging behavior, Souder's sense of shame was refreshing.

Gerson put it this way:

"The failure of human beings to meet their own ideals does not disprove or discredit those ideals.  The fact that some are cowards does not make courage a myth.  The fact that some are faithless does not make fidelity a joke.  All moral standards create the possibility of hypocrisy.  But I would rather live among those who recognize the standards and fail to meet them than among those who mock all standards as lies.  In the end, hypocrisy is preferable to decadence."

Well said.

Mark Souder deserves mercy for confessing and apologizing for his behavior.  He also deserves gratitude for refusing to deny or excuse it.

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Promised Land



Springsteen at the piano

 Sometimes expressions of faith crop up unexpectedly, like in songs by Bruce Springsteen.  He wrote Land of Hope and Dreams and often performs it toward the end of his concerts.  In part it goes:

Leave behind your sorrows
Let this day be the last
Tomorrow there'll be sunshine
And all this darkness past

This train
Dreams will be thwarted
This train
faith will be rewarded
This train
Hear the wheels singin' 
This train
Bells of freedom ringin'

-it ends with-

People get ready
There's a train a-coming
You don't need no baggage
You just get on board 

That last stanza is from People Get Ready by Curtis Mayfield.  It's regarded as one of the Top 10 Best Songs of All Time by a blue ribbon recording industry panel and it may be the most calming, spiritual song you'll find outside a hymnal.  It's an uplifting finale to Land of Hope and Dreams.

I first saw Springsteen in the Springfield (MA) Civic Center in 1976.  His career was just taking off, nobody called him "The Boss" yet, and he put on a great show in a 7,000 seat venue that had been parititioned in half to seat the 3,000 or so ticket holders.  Today he sells out stadiums.

His music has always been insightful and is spiritual at times.  For example, behind his biggest hit, Born to Run, the song sung the most by Springsteen in concert is The Promised Land.  Its refrain is:

Mister I ain't a boy, no I'm a man
And I believe in the promised land

Even more striking is Jesus Was an Only Son:

Jesus was an only son
As he walked up Calvary Hill
His mother Mary walking beside him
 In the path where his blood spilled
Jesus was an only son
In the hills of Nazareth
As he lay reading the Psalms of David
At his mother's feet

A mother prays, "Sleep tight, my child, sleep well
For I'll be at your side
That no shadow, no darkness, no tolling bell,
Shall pierce your dreams tonight."

In the garden at Gethsemane
He prayed for the life he'd never live
He beseeched his heavenly Father to remove
The cup of death from his lips

Now there's a loss that can never be replaced,
A destination that can never be reached
A light you'll never find in another's face
A sea whose distance cannot be breached.

Well  Jesus kissed his mother's hands
Whispered, "Mother, still your tears,
For remember the soul of the universe
Willed a world and it appeared.

Those last two lines exquisitely describe God.  Isn't He the soul of the universe?

There are two video links below, one for Jesus Was an Only Son and one for the original Curtis Mayfield version of People Get Ready.  Please click on them and enjoy some easy-listening, reflective and positive music.

It'll brighten your day.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tEDYw1Ai41Q&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lenHYXtiqoI

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