Above reproach

Image by sean.flynn via Flickr

A couple of similar news stories are making headlines both sides of the pond at the moment:

Joe Paterno, head coach of the Penn State University American football team for the past 46 years, was fired for not having done enough in relation to sex abuse charges that have been filed against an assistant coach. Ealing Abbey has been in the papers in relation to the whole Roman Catholic child abuse scandal – priests there have been arrested and have even gone into hiding, believed to be in Europe.

What’s interested me has been my own reaction to the stories; apart from being obviously upset for those directly affected, I’ve caught myself thinking that these issues would have been avoided if certain situations had simply been banned outright – if the priests had never been in a situation in which they were alone with a child everyone would have been alright.

But then again, where should you draw the line? Not alone with children, but on their 18th Birthday suddenly it’s ok? Well, that’s just silly. Safer to say that a priest should never be alone with anyone.

A couple of weeks ago I was talking in relation to 1 Timothy 3:2 – I’m not an elder but the Bible tells us to imitate elders, so when Paul tells Timothy that ‘an elder must be above reproach’ I think that’s a good value for us to strive for. One way I’ve addressed this personally is that I avoid if at all possible being alone with a lady, to avoid even a hint of a compromising situation…but I’d never even thought there would be a problem with me being alone with a child, or being alone with a man. Looking at the news stories above, it’s actually these two situations that are the key ones.

Taking this to its logical conclusion, it’s clearly bad if a parent sexually abuses their own children, so perhaps everyone in any position of influence should never be alone with their own child?

What I’m basically saying is that there’s no way to force sin of any kind to just stop – people will always find ways around anything. The answer is the person and work of Jesus, who was without any sin, yet became sin for us. The guilty priests weren’t looking at Jesus; if they had been, none of that would have happened.

Getting older

Image by 涂育銘 via Flickr

It was my Birthday this week. Normally a day of celebration and lots of presents…but not this year.

Not only did I get to open not one, not two, but no presents on my Birthday, the whole sense of celebration seemed to get a bit lost among the realisation that I’m suddenly older than I ever imagined I’d be! Applying my teen mindset to my life, by now I really should be mature and financially stable, have bought a house, be a father, and know where I’ll be in five years’ time.

Turns out I know just about as much now as I did then, despite perhaps being able to explain it in longer words now. I haven’t seen any grey hairs yet, I’ve got a steady job and a wonderful wife, I’m happier than I’ve ever been…but there’s still this undeniable reality that every second of every minute of every day is savagely killing time until my heart ceases to beat.

So anyway I spent a decent slab of time this week thinking about death. Turns out I’m quite used to life at the moment and don’t really want to lose the whole thing, but I don’t seem to have much choice in the matter.

But it also turns out that the things that I care most about (Jesus, justice, love, etc) will be with me forever, and I think that’s pretty cool.

The other day I was pointed towards this little letter that Steve Jobs wrote after he’d been diagnosed with cancer:

Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept: No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven dont want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because death is very likely the single best invention of life. It is life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true. Your time is limited, so dont waste it living someone elses life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other peoples thinking. Don’t let the noise of others opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

I’m determined to make the most of being alive right now, even if I am slowly losing it day by day, but I’m glad that I have the rest of eternity to look forward to, and that’s going to be absolutely wonderful.