paterno tendencies

Before I too quickly determine that I would never have acted as Joe Paterno did in the Sandusky child sexual abuse scandal, I have to look at all the tendencies we carry within us that would cause us to react in a similar way.

-Denial.  We don't want to believe that situations are really as terrible or dysfunctional as they might indeed be. We rationalize, justify, minimize, excuse, we live in denial to help us avoid confronting evil and ugly truth.

-Self-protect.   We tend to consider ourselves before the well-being of others.  We fear what it might cost us if we confront the injustice/abuse, we attempt to place the responsibility on someone else, and we often don't recognize the hold that power and money, reputation and our "empires" have on us...even when we consider ourselves to be people of  faith and strong moral character.


Maybe these are not true of everyone, but I know these are true of me.  Just two weeks ago, I was at Picnic in the Park, an event that I co-lead, and I was visiting with a man who is a regular in the park.  We caught part of a conversation that was heating up between a woman and man not far from us.  She was telling the man to leave her alone and to stop stalking her.  She then got up and began to walk out of the park.  The man began to follow her and hide behind trees attempting to stay up with her without being seen.  As the man darted across the street, I said to my friend in the park, "this can't be good," and before I knew it, my friend was on the phone to the police describing the situation and asking for them to come check it out.  

As the man and woman disappeared around a corner away from the park, I had watched him follow her, but then I had been ready to turn and get back to the business in the park.  Something in me was telling myself that I didn't know the whole situation, that it was none of my business, that it was just a relationship tiff,  that I had other important responsibilities to attend to in the park.  My friend, however, had no other agenda and no such filter trying to manage or rationalize the situtation.  Boom, he was on the phone to the police.  This caused me to reflect about our different responses, and without knowing how the situation ended, I decided I needed to pray that I might grow in wisdom, discernment, courage, compassion, and self-abandonment.

I imagine that I'm not the only one that struggles with denial and self-protection.  The Penn State report talks about those in power ignoring the well-being of children.  Today, nearly 30,000 children will die of preventable disease while millions of others will continue to live and spend in excessive patterns across our world.  There are vulnerable children in our own community who are struggling to grow and thrive.  I can deny and self-protect, or I can ask what God might have for me to do to live in the way of compassion and justice.