"Pride Goeth Before A Fall"

When you are in a position of authority, you are surrounded with those who will do your bidding. A little world is created for yourself. They like being in their position. They want to keep it. To that end, they strive to keep you where you are. In so doing, they too remain where they are.

This is all pretty reasonable. Until it all falls apart. And that starts with a lie.

Former First Lady Hilary Clinton has been touting her new book, in which she describes how her marriage with President Clinton endured. You don't have to work a couple of blocks from the White House to know the stories that came out of there over the years. Each time he erred, she believed him until he finally admitted otherwise. Or so she has said.

She had a lot to lose in believing otherwise. He was able to get away with anything. Sexual liaisons, lying to a grand jury right in front of an entire nation, you name it. Were she not to go along, her own ambitions would be at risk. So, as she looked in the mirror every day, she made little deals with herself, to explain it all away. Her ambitions endured. For now.

Who could touch them? Ours was the generation that would never grow old, that could misbehave and get away with it. We fooled ourselves, we voted them in again. All while they did things that even Nixon couldn't get away with. After all, Nixon wasn't one of us. More important than that, he didn't look nearly as good on television as... well, that other guy who fooled around on the road to the White House.

In previous entries, I have commented on the effects of addictive behavior, how I have seen it in my own life. That bar fight I narrowly missed over Memorial Day weekend (see entry entitled "Bullies and Empty Hands," dated Friday, May 30) was followed by no end of rationalizing by those who were there, those whom I still consider my friends. You can't expect to reason with anyone who claims not to remember something, that happened right in front of them the night before. After all, only they know what is in their heart. And only they know if they have made any bargains with themselves.

It is said that seven percent of Americans have some sort of addiction, nearly all of them to alcohol. And for every one of them, there is at least one spouse, parent, child, or somebody on the payroll, who will make excuses for that person. That could double or triple the percentage of people with the problem, directly or indirectly. Twenty-five percent, perhaps? That's one-fourth! (Shudder!)

For a long time, I didn't want to believe certain things about people who were close to me. But eventually, the bottom fell out, and I fell on my face. It is not difficult, then, to imagine what Thomas O'Brien went through in the final hours before he resigned his position as Bishop of Pheonix, as an article in the Arizona Republic shows us. After all, who wants to admit they just ran over somebody in a car. Respectable people just don't do those things. Only less savory types do those things.

Or do they?

We want to stand by our friends, even as we know their faults. Unfortunately, we cannot save them from themselves. We can excuse or explain them away indefinitely. But if their behavior is their undoing, they stand to take us right down with them. I've seen it happen before. I've read about it in the news of late. And so, dear reader, have you.

Even now, I have seen it among my own friends. What if that guy in the bar had beaten the crap out of me? Would anyone have cared? Would whomever put them up to it still come out of it smelling like a rose? Would it be worth the risk of bringing the party down, so to speak? I keep wondering. I may never know.

Sometimes the best thing we can do for our friends, is hold the mirror in front of them, and catch them before they try to bargain with themselves. Today's headlines should tell us something of the price of friendship. It should also tell us that, in the end, we have to be our own best friend before anyone else can. To do so may cost us every friend we have. But Christ did the same on this earth. He gave the straight story in the little synagouge in Nazareth. ("This scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.") The whole town, most of whom were probably his blood relatives, was ready to kill him. He gave the straight story in the sixth chapter of John, when he said he was the Bread of Life, and practically all of his followers left him. He gave himself up to the chief priests of the Sanhedrin, and those few who were left deserted him, even denied ever knowing him.

An abbess once told me: "I am rejected every day by one of my sisters, when I tell her to do something, and she refuses to do it." A parent is rejected by a child, every time he or she is disobeyed. I have rejected my Father in Heaven, every time I have sinned. Only His infinite love sustains my being with Him. Certainly nothing on my own part.

Small wonder, then, that pride is considered the worst of all sins. Because of it, even the mighty have fallen.

As we read the headlines in the weeks ahead, others are sure to fall. There, but for the grace of God, goes each and every one of us.