"Who idolizes you will crucify you.
Whom you idolize you will crucify.
Remain equal to all and
you will empower yourself and others."
-- Alan Cohen
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I never used the word idolize much but
instead used the phrase of putting people on a pedestal. I did that a
lot, whether it was special teachers, movie stars, sports stars, and
others. I remember those old cartoons when I was a kid of watching the
person with the halo have it pushed down over his or her body paralyzing
their arms against their body now being powerless having fallen from
grace. Not a good place to be in the case of the paralyzed or the
creator.
There are a lot of recent examples of this superhuman
treatment. Lance Armstrong, Barry Bonds, the people who supposedly
brought you the latest recession-depression, failed religious leaders,
and the list goes on and on. I used to play that silly game and have
learned to practice accepting people the way they are instead. It takes a
bit of practice, but it isn't rocket science. Jesus taught it. It is
called unconditional love.
When we love people conditionally, it
is perfectly simple for them to "fail us." We expect perfection from
them and the higher they go, the more perfection we expect. Oh, we are
able to take a few hits here and there and still believe, but as the
evidence mounts, we turn tail and run as fast as we can so the stink
doesn't befoul us like that of the smelly white-tailed skunk. Then from a
safe distance we hurl loser scripts at our new victim with carloads of
blame and pain and deceit. Heck, we might even bar them from being a
human ever again. I knew a major league catcher like that, but of
course, he wasn't his own best friend either.
Truth is, we
probably all have so-called skeletons in our closets. If people really
knew the real us, they might have second thoughts about even liking us.
Who knows all the silly things we do when we think no one is looking. In
their presence we tow the line and in their absence we may burn the
line. Yet one thing is ultimately clear: we are all human. We all have
issues, some larger, or even more interesting than others. We try, we
fail, we succeed, we dream, we live.
The best scenario I can
imagine is to not put people on pedestals, nor idolize them regardless
of their stature in the human community. When we strip everything on the
outside off, we are all made of exactly the same elements--every last
one of us. How many times did Jesus say to forgive? He was asked that
once thinking it was seven times, and He stated seventy times seven as I
recall. Wow. That's a serious line of forgiveness. Probably enough to
last several lifetimes.
Yet, there is no need of forgiveness if
we just treat each other as equal with equal understanding of ourselves
and of each other. If we expect 'I'm sorry' apologies and remorseful
explanations, we are being so judgmental. When treating each other as
equal, 'I'm sorry' is merely a courtesy. If we ever really loved Lance
or any of the thousands of other fallen heroes, we would still love them
the same. Even as we love ourselves equally.
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