Fade to Gray: The case for redemption

It has come to my attention that the world is losing its mind and if we are going to navigate the uncertain roads that lie ahead we are going to need some kind of rule book to govern us.

What am I talking about specifically? Glad you asked. I’m speaking of past sins that many of us commit and how long they must haunt us and what punishment should be doled out for the commission of them?

I can see you’re still lost. OK, let’s try this. You are 55 years old and graduated high school in 1982. After high school you got a college degree in accounting at Siena and joined a small firm in Albany helping companies balance the books. You are a very good accountant and that explains why you kept getting promoted over the years and are now in a position to help run the entire accounting firm and oversee two dozen employees.

The company plans a big luncheon in your honor and sends out invitations and a press release telling the world how great you are. Just one problem. One of the people who went to high school with you, and never did like you much, has a photo of you doing something stupid when you were 17 years old. They put the picture up on social media and tag all the important people and media outlets making certain you’ll be humiliated by this ghost from your past.

The big boss sees what you did and even though it happened 38 years ago it doesn’t look good for the company to be promoting someone who does stupid things like that. What did you do? This is where we need a rule book, to determine how grave the sin is and how much distance, if any, must pass before we forgive you.

I am stunned lately by how many people are being undone by idiot things in their past. At the rate we’re going the local dog catcher may end up running the state of Virginia with the fallout from inappropriate photos and charges of sexual misconduct.

Now for the record, I went to college at around the same time as these guys in Virginia and I don’t recall a single party on campus where anyone wore “black face.” That said, I’m being sincere when I ask this question; should someone lose their entire life over a single mistake from 30 years ago? Understand I’m not defending the behavior (I honestly don’t understand it at all) I’m just wondering which mistakes qualify as unforgivable and which ones we chalk up to a young person being foolish?

People are imperfect creatures; especially when they are young, and one would hope as you mature and grow you learn from those mistakes and don’t repeat them. Perhaps you are deeply ashamed of them, as in the Virginia case they should be. If a person at 50 is far different than they were at 20, should they lose their career because of a mistake made at age 20?

I’m a big fan of forgiveness and redemption. I think people can change who they are and often deserve a chance to prove it. I’ve heard it said that nothing makes God smile more than seeing a sinner repent and change. Every day we let people out of our prisons and jails hoping they have learned from the experience and we offer them help to stay on the right path. I guess what I’m asking is, if we’ll forgive someone who threw a punch they shouldn’t have when they were 19, killing a man, do we owe the same mercy to someone who said the wrong thing or took an inappropriate photo when they were 19?

Kids today are growing up at a time when everything they do is documented and lives somewhere on the internet. I hope they are being careful about every little thing they do because someone, somewhere, will dig it up at exactly the wrong time to humiliate them.

So let’s put together a general rule book. If it was high school do we view it one way and college another? If the person was drunk at the time do they get more of a pass on the mistake? What if they were in extreme emotional distress, say they just got dumped or cheated on, do they get some leeway? You see what I’m driving at. We need a rule book because right now you can burn someone’s life down with a single tweet.

If anyone out there reading this has a grandchild under the age of five and you’d like to see them in charge of a company or run for Senate someday, I’d make the wise decision now to keep them off all social media forever. I’d also tell them they can only attend parties where all the cell phones are placed in a basket and the cameras out of reach. The world is watching and when it comes to idiotic mistakes, if you make even one, there is no redemption.