Three Weeks

Three Weeks. Apparently, if you're a middle-aged man in Japan, you can survive for at least this long in less than 50 degree F weather without food and water by hibernating. If you go on the Pritkin Diet, this is at least the amount of time it takes for you to "cure" diabetes. And if you're Pastor Ted Haggard of New Life Church, this is how long it takes you to be "cured" of homosexuality.

So we here on the Looney Liberal Left got more than our fair share of chuckles after hearing how Pastor Ted Haggard, founder and leader of one of the most powerful and largest mega-churches in the US, with a direct channel to George W. Bush and The White House no less, was publicly shamed and humiliated after a story broke out alleging that had had been involved in a homosexual affair with a male prostitute, with a little methamphetamine use on the side. That Haggard left his church with little protest after his half-hearted admission of "some indiscretions" almost certainly confirms a large extent of the story of what happened between the two men. It's a story which makes me really sad actually. If you read the story of Haggard and New Life Church, it's a very inspiring story of how one man built up a faith community so big it has a single service of 8000 people, with it's own "spiritual NORAD" where teams of 70,000 people around the world act as prayer warriors. To see Haggard lose all of that is almost heartbreaking, and while Haggard would be more than happy to cast me and others like me down into Hades if he had his way - I have to say I don't feel hate, or anger, or that classically delightful word "schaudenfreude", but rather, sadness and pity. Pity that someone feels ashamed for something they should be proud of, and sadness that someone like Haggard may very well never learn from his experience (albeit temporary) as an outcast gay man.

Like that man who was locked in a period of physiological stasis for 21 days, we too lock ourselves into a state of spiritual stasis where we are content to stay where we are, spiritually, and never change - I wonder if this is a defense mechanism we employ to protect the mental peace of mind we get by sticking to the status quo, like how hibernation protects the body's systems from extreme cold. And like a fad diet, we often delude ourselves into thinking we have it all figured out, and know how to do things The Right Way, when in fact, we really don't at all.

And so, I watch, and wait. I wait for the next time Haggard or someone like him stumbles in his journey of faith, because when they do, people will have to be there to remind others, Christian and non-Christian alike, that acts of weakness need to be met solely with acts of forgiveness.