I've been poring over more articles about Mark McGwire's steroid confession, some of which have been reasonably supportive. The rest, well, I have a hard time understanding how some of them could still assume ["http://www.suntimes.com/sports/deluca/1985626,CST-SPT-deluca12.article"] (especially with the facts coming from the explanation) that he is still a bad person. Calling him a "coward" even when he directly and honestly explains everything there is to be explained is, to say the least, utterly dishonest. I would like to ask some of these writers -- especially since they decide who goes into baseball's Hall of Fame and who doesn't -- what their justification is for beating him while he's down. So I ask those writers who are still looking for blood: "What more do you want from the man? McGwire took steroids! I get it! Hold him accountable for everything he did during his playing career, for all I care! But you have no right to keep crucifying him for everything he's done since he retired! He's done nothing wrong after he stopped playing baseball! Get over it!"
As a "sort-of" Christian (I say "sort-of" because while I adhere to many of the doctrinal beliefs my faith is of the do-it-yourself variety) I find that forgiveness is a reasonably huge theme. As a human race, we are a bunch of angry idiots who occasionally thirst for the Truth but lack the patience and the serenity to surrender ourselves to it (myself included). During Jesus' time on earth, He offers us metaphors and explanations as far as how to live and behave in order to join His Father in heaven, so to speak. One of the biggest things He tells us is to forgive others, no matter what.
In Matthew 18 ["http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+18&version=NIV"], Peter asks Him the following question: "Lord, how many times should I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times?" (Matt. 18: 21)
Jesus replies: "I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times." (Matt. 18:22)
Clearly Jesus doesn't mean literally (or only) seventy-seven times; it's a metaphor meaning we should always forgive, no matter how taxing it appears to be. He goes on to describe a parable to show how we must treat each other: (Matt. 18:23-25)
Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him. Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt. The servant fell on his knees before him. "Be patient with me," he begged, "and I will pay back everything." The servant's master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go. But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii. He grabbed him and began to choke him. "Pay back what you owe me!" he demanded. His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, "Be patient with me, and I will pay you back." But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could repay the debt. When the other servants saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed and went and told their master everything that had happened. The master called the servant in. "You wicked servant," he said, "I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn't you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?" In anger his master turned him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he pay back all he owed. This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart.
Life is too short to be petty about things. Erik, my friend and roommate from last year, once devised an excellent plan for taking care of the bill when we go out to eat: take turns. I support it: this practice eliminates stupid haggling over how much one "owes" the other, since both parties would understand that it's never going to be perfect either way. It's how I've learned to split meal bills with other friends. I mean, with some we have decided to cover only ourselves, but even though it isn't a perfect division of expenses, it works out well enough.
In addition, this practice has also taught us to be trusting and forgiving of each other when we do inevitably slip up. Granted, my roommateship from last year hasn't been perfect (the two of us have somewhat different lifestyles), but because we were open to each other and had reasonably open dialogue, I like to think we coexisted well. With a few other peops that I've roomed with in the past, however, forgiveness has been a challenge. My sophomore-year roommate had a bunch of little habits that annoyed me, and as a result of the two of us not really being able to communicate with each other, we tended to just let things lie. My roommate from the following summer and I had quite different stances on various things in life, and how he liked to treat me rubbed me the wrong way. Ironically, it was during this set of trials that I was finally able to forgive my previous roommate. For the summer roommate, it's taken quite a bit longer. I did finally forgive him specifically for the events that transpired that summer about a year later. However, other things that he did later robbed my trust of him, which is why I decided toward the end of my time at St. Olaf to remove all contact with him (part of the "if your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out, for it is better to go into heaven with one eye rather than to hell with two eyes" idea).
There are other people with whom it's taken quite some time for me to forgive, more or less for reasons similar to those I have described in the aforementioned situations. But the one person that I still have trouble forgiving is myself, and the reasons for said issues never seem to stop coming up. One day, it's related to a social situation; another day, it's related to my lack of activity in figuring out my life; and yet another day, it's probably something that happened six year ago (randomly). During this time of Transitus -- as I've taken a shine to calling the last five months -- I've attempted to learn more about myself, and somehow I feel like I am close to putting it together... somewhat. Thing is, I've been constantly learning since I finished college (probably because all that schooling prevented me from having enough time to figure out anything of significance), and even for all that effort it's been a much slower process than I would have liked.
I'm going to stop the post here. I've continued on long enough, and any further will take me off the theme of forgiveness, which is all I really wanted to talk about today. Given the ideas expressed in the last paragraph, I know that more details will be forthcoming someday (carefully crafted for such a public audience, of course), but right now I don't have enough research done to write yet another essay. Till then, to forgive is divine ["http://www.dailywisdom.com/archives/2003/12/31/index.html"]. That goes especially for baseball writers.
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