Headlines are loaded this morning with the news that darling of the Left, Cesar Chavez, was not so darling – motivating some states to cancel Cesar Chavez days, and I am sure a lot of street renaming is to follow. It is arguable, and highly politicized, as to whether Chavez did any good in this world, but that is not the discussion I think we need to have this morning. Let’s permit, for the sake of discussion, that the movement he started did produce some good – good that is now being erased by his personal failings. I think there are two important lessons to be taken from this.
The first lesson is that no one is perfect – and most everyone does some good in their lives. We cannot let their failings destroy the good. I could tell stories all day, personal stories, of friends and acquaintances that behaved scandalously at some point in their life. I have seen lives quite literally destroyed as people concentrated too much on the scandal and not enough on the person and the good they had done.
If we are to view scandal properly, we must carry grace in our hearts and grace is learned by examining the grace that we each receive. Each of us is scandalous to some extent or another – and the people that love us overlook that scandal because they love us. The good their love permits them to see outweighs the scandal. We need to view the world with such love, and we can start by understanding that we are loved in spite of our failings, not because of their absence.
Which brings me to my second point – because personal scandal tends to so often override and good that person may have accomplished, our job must be first, foremost, and primarily to build good people. We noted a week ago, when discussing how extensive fraud has become in our current culture, that, “character no longer plays a major role in forming students these days.” We have become a culture that prioritizes results over person and in becoming so, the person has become lesser.
It is deeply ironic that a culture that places results over person will so easily discard results when the flaws in a person become evident, but then we live in a deeply ironic age. Whether we want results that are good and lasting, or simply to escape the irony, the solution is the same, we need to be better people.
Being better people starts with the extension of grace, but it does not end there. The reception of grace should be met with a deep desire to avoid its necessity simply out of gratitude and humility. But these are traits also short in this world of movie awards that think they are political platforms and each person thinks themselves an authority unto themselves.
Grace…gratitude…humility. Whatever your issue, whatever your fight, whatever your stance – can we start with cultivating those things in ourselves and in those around us? I think the world would become almost miraculously better – no movements, marches, unions, or holidays would be needed – just good people.
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