I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the Tiger Woods issue. I want to learn something from this just because it seems to happen all too often. Our heroes fall and somehow we celebrate it. But something inside of us is glad that there is this all too human side of Tiger Woods. We like the condemnation and the tabloid exposure of the darker side of a man America has come to admire and celebrate.
Here is what I am feeling today: shame on us. Shame on us for specializing in tearing people down or, at least, somehow being interested in the public disintegration of a husband, wife, and children, and so many others who surround this issue. Here is my conclusion. There is nothing inspiring about a man’s sins and imperfections being on display.
What we need in America are not more cautionary tales; exposures of how public people have gotten it wrong in their private life. What we need is more exposure of those who are struggling to get it right on both sides of the equation. There are so many who are getting it right. They’re the ones who are inspiring me; the ones who against all odds, win in the public and private arena. There are so many more of those than the Tiger Woods story.
I need to be inspired. I fight each day against the gravitational pull toward the cynic’s chair. I refuse to sit there. I was created by a God who knew how flawed I would be, and yet loves me anyway; a God who forgives, redeems, and restores; a God who can pick a hero up and set him back on the right path.
Maybe Tiger will never be put back on the pedestal. Maybe he should never have been up there in the first place. I’m going to find my inspiration in those who are getting it right, not in cutting down and shaming those who are getting it wrong. Again, there is nothing inspiring about celebrating, fixating, or condemning the imperfection of another person.