Fault Line

I have a friend who has fallen on hard times.  As in very hard times, the kind where he could lose everything.  He is a good person with a good heart that has made some remarkably bad decisions.

In speaking about him with another friend, we both shook our heads meaningfully and said unhelpful things like, "what was he thinking?" and "well, what did he expect would happen?" and "I really thought he was smarter than that" and other smug criticisms of how our mutual friend got himself in hot water in the first place.

We contemplated the various consequences that he is likely to face, and we arrived at the consummate cliche that everyone uses to sum up similar conversations:

"Well... it's his own fault.  He brought it on himself". 

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Think about it - it's so tempting, almost irresistible, to dismiss a bad outcome by determining fault or assigning blame.  He lost his car because he missed two payments;  she got pregnant because she doesn't take the pill;  they had to find a new church because he had an affair with the choir director;  she lost her job because she was always running late;  his liver is failing because he drank too much.

I gained 5 pounds because I ate too much pumpkin pie and didn't exercise.  It's my own damn fault.  I brought this on myself.  (Literally!)

This compulsion for fault-finding and blame-placing is a natural human response to negative outcomes.  We have an innate demand to know the "why" behind bad things.  While this is due in part to our desire for safety and control over outcomes, I generally want to know "why" for two reasons.  First, because I'm nosey, and second because I want to feel better about myself by judging you.  After all, it's your own damn fault.  I would never do what you did.

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Now I have given myself a little jolt of superiority (what can I say, my ego gets hungry), the buzz of being better than you. I can go on with my day with a spring in my step and a nearly palpable sense of relief that I'm not you.  What were you thinking, anyway?

I don't admit any of this, of course, to myself or to anyone else, because that would make me a really shitty person.  But secretly, inside the very core of my heart, I know that I'm being a jerk.  What kind of asshole is relieved - maybe even a little joyful - over someone else's pain?

The German word for this all-too-common experience is "schadenfreude". "Schaden" is the German word for harm, and "freude" means joy.  I hate to think about how many times I've danced a little jig of schadenfreude in my spirit because someone finally got what was coming to them.  Heck, even if it's someone I like, I still feel that little tingle of "better you than me, my friend!"

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But.

Where is the mercy?  Where is the grace?  Where is compassion, forgiveness, kindness?

These little comforts are candles in the darkness, warmth in spite of the cold.  They're not hard to muster up because they too are natural to us - after all, it's what we crave from one another.

We need it from ourselves as well - so what about the damn pie?  I can kick my ass about it all day long from here until next Labor Day and it won't change a thing other than make me feel worse.  How about a little kindness and forgiveness, from me to myself?  It's PIE, for heaven's sake.

And now a specific word to people of faith - cut it out already.  I get it, I do it too but we've got to stop it.  Today, as in right now.  I don't mean that we should forget wrongdoing, but we need to stop judging and criticizing the wrong-doer.  Besides, the rightness or wrongness of whatever was done is between that person and God and is none of my business or yours.  Judge not that ye be not judged and all that.

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Take just a minute and imagine that you have screwed up.  BIG TIME.  You've pulled a doozy (or doozies) and you are about to be up shit creek without a paddle.  Oh, and everyone at your office and in your neighborhood and at your church is going to hear about it.

Wouldn't it be nice if someone hugged you anyway?  Or stuck up for you when you weren't even around?  Or brought you a cookie?  Or just gave you a warm smile instead of a cold shoulder?

What if it didn't matter to anyone that you screwed up and you're facing some tough consequences - what if no one cared that you brought them on yourself?  

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What if we give it a try... the next time I hear myself say (or think), "he/she got what they deserved" or something along those lines, I'm going to TRY and come up with a warm thought and maybe a kind gesture instead.  Maybe I will break this ugly habit once and for all.

It's what I hope you'll do for me;  I will do my best to do it for you.