and Dinosaur Bob is worried.
Weeks after we trekked down the road to Punxsutawney
to hear the groundhog prognosticate an early spring,
the snow remains.
The robins are two weeks late.
The daffodil noses are still buried.
While waiting,
I am reading David McCullough’s book
Brave Companions: Portraits in History.
It contains chapter biographies of remarkable people.
Theodore Roosevelt.
Miriam Rothchild.
Frederick Remington.
Harriet Beecher Stowe.
I was particularly struck by the lives
of Alexander von Humboldt and his friend Louis Agassiz.
Agassiz studied rocks in Switzerland’s Aar Valley
and first voiced the scientific opinion of Ice Ages,
that the Alps region had experienced prolonged periods
of being covered by vast glaciers
whose retreats scoured the bedrock.
When Agassiz moved to America to lecture at Harvard,
he found similar evidence there of prior Ice Ages.
Agassiz is now known as the Father of Glaciology.
He loved to justify his opinions
of science and nature
and his talks were packed with fascinated listeners.
We also love to give our opinions—
just ask us, we’ll tell you!
But last week our friend
asked for opinions on Facebook
and I had trouble answering.
She wrote
“What historical figure (not current)
was not as great as people have thought?”
My mind went immediately to Louis Agassiz,
as further Wikipedia reading informed me
that his name had been removed from a Boston school
when his interpretation of science
did not line up with some current thought.
How easily he was dismissed!
One of my major memories of college
was sitting in Ethics class
listening to the prof go through a list of philosophers—
“(Insert philosopher’s name here)
believed
(Insert philosophy in twenty-five words or less here),
and this is why he’s wrong:
(Insert current opinion here.)”
One of my classmates asked,
“These are among the greatest minds on the planet;
who are YOU to dismiss them so quickly?”
BAM.
Over the passing decades,
I have often thought of his words, “Who are YOU…?”
when someone is dismissive
(often me).
I looked again at the Facebook post.
Commenters offered the names of flawed people:
Thomas Jefferson.
Lincoln.
Mother Teresa.
Gandhi.
JFK.
Winston Churchill.
Mister Rogers had not made the list. Yet.
Hmmmm. What IS my opinion?
I immediately thought of Abraham
and how Sarah encouraged him to sleep with Hagar.
How that one act has changed the world!
Obviously, King David would be a candidate
for the Bathsheba Incident.
Then I heard my classmate’s words:
Who are you?
and I responded by quoting another friend:
“None of us are as good—
or as bad—
as others think we are.”
But the question continued to bother me
and I woke in the middle of the night
to unload my brain on paper:
“Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.”
Is that language sexist?
And how far do we go to remedy the translation?
“Hindsight is 20-20.”
We are all influenced by our culture,
our century,
our personal stories,
our belief systems.
We make decisions based on these things.
I look at decisions in history
and recognize that some
WERE made strictly for selfishness
and evil purposes,
but that many decisions have been made
believing information whose faultiness was later exposed.
People have been tasked with making decisions
while being ignorant of important information.
These people made decisions
without knowing what the side effects might be.
They were trying their utmost to make their best guess.
Examples could include plastics,
fertilizer,
the reaction to 9-11,
dynamite,
hand sanitizer,
genetic modification, and
the post-WW II drawing of national boundaries.
We all, hopefully, try to make our best guess
with the information we have.
We need to hope the future will forgive us our sins,
known and unknown,
as we forgive those who sin against us.
If we cannot gather information
and then make our best guess,
how are we not paralyzed to make any decision?
Denny recently didn’t notice a stop sign on a quiet street.
When I brought this up,
he responded, “That was one time.
Don’t you remember all the times I have done things right?”
I make plenty of mistakes all the time.
I am a fallen creature in a fallen world.
So are you.
I hope I am not remembered for my sins.
I need to apologize
for things I have done that I should not have done,
like the Tuxedo Incident
and things I have not done that I should have done,
like listening with both sides of my brain
and speaking up.
I am often more pursuant of logic than of love.
Should I also apologize for the mistakes of others?
I recently did that for the first time.
When someone told a story of being verbally stung
by an opinionated, self-righteous person,
I apologized to her on behalf
of opinionated, self-righteous people everywhere.
Should I also apologize on behalf of mothers?
Teachers?
Christians?
North Americans?
When does “water under the bridge” come into play?
I have been a questioner all my life.
Want to get the teacher off the subject?
Ask me.
Need someone to ask what everyone is thinking?
I’ll do it!
For years, our car had the bumper sticker “Question Authority.”
Yet Corinthians tells us, “All things are lawful
but not everything is beneficial.”
There are times when questions don’t aid in healing.
Sometimes we can tell when that is happening.
And sometimes not.
We try to live our lives by the quote
Err on the side of compassion,
and Micah 6:8,
Do justly. Love mercy. Walk humbly.
If we have wronged you,
we are sorry.
Please remember us with compassion.
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