Letting Go

Tiger Woods has announced he will participate in the Masters.  Eliott Spitzer goes to his office at his father's real estate business and accepts many public appearance invitations, but this former champion of worthwhile causes who saw what was happening with subprime mortgage lending and tried to stop it hasn't decided what challenge will be next (other than the most important, rebuilding his own family).

It may be hard to feel sorry for these disgraced "celebrities."  It may be hard to feel anything other than disgust for them, but....

Virginia says, "Let go."

She's right.  When I think of Woods and Spitzer I also think of many other people, including George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Marion Jones and most famous athletes.  What do they have in common?  After rising to the "top," they enter a purgatory -- a time of temporary suffering or misery; if not that, a time of introspection (even Cheney, while he continues to blow hard).  They deserve to be let alone if they want it (Cheney apparently doesn't), just as you and I do after we hit a high or low point.

Instead, I go off on my high horse, judging as is my custom, even though I might vaguely remember a religious instruction such as "judge not lest ye be judged."  I was no fan of George W. Bush, but I respect him for "disappearing" into the Texas carpet.  His actions have had dreadful consequences, worldwide, and even though his smirk irked me, still irks me, I sort of think (not sure because I haven't met him) he thought he was doing the right thing.  If he asked me to join him on a run, I'd jump at the chance.

Most us can remember at least one thing we've done that might have landed us in jail, or at least that we wouldn't have wanted our grandmother (or spiritual leader) to see.  If nothing worse, perhaps we waited outside an attraction and accepted an unexpired tag from someone leaving, so we got in "free."  We knew we were required to pay, but we "put one over on the man."  Some friends I know condemn people they call "queers," and, instead of doing something constructive I condemn my friends for their bigotry.  We're in this together.

"Let it go," says Virginia, again.