THE PROBLEM

“If I only knew then what I know now….” That’s the lament of any one of us who has gotten in over our heads and didn’t know how to swim. Somehow we survived the situation, attested to by the fact that we can now make that lament.

There really isn’t anything wrong with “not knowing then” and making a mistake. I mean, we just did not know. If we did not know but should have, okay, then we are truly at fault. But simply not knowing imputes no guilt. The child of some friends jumped into a swimming pool when his parents’ backs were turned. It wasn’t his fault he didn’t know how to swim. Thankfully his dad saved him, although it took a headlong dive, clothes and all, to do so.

No, simply not knowing is not the problem. The problem is not doing: not doing what we know we should be doing. For that we have no excuse. “I should have known better” doesn’t absolve the guilt. Certainly I should have. Then why didn’t I? I didn’t because I did not want to. Why did I eat that strawberry shortcake when on a diet? I knew better. I ate it because I wanted to, that’s why.

That’s crass, isn’t it? I did it because I wanted to. No one made me do it. I did it all by myself. And I loved every minute of it down to the last forkful. Then afterwards, why did I feel so guilty? I did it. I wanted to. No one forced me. And no one stopped me. And herein lays the problem. I didn’t stop me and neither did anyone else. Didn’t they acre? Didn’t they know that it really was their business to interfere with my business because what hurts me hurts them?

Yes, they knew as I knew. But, you see, we’re all programmed to butt out. No, not with our children: we don’t let them do what we know they should not and we tell them so. We butt in all the time, much to their annoyance, especially when they are teenagers and let us know they know more than we do. But as adults with other adults we butt out all the time. We nose around a lot, but we butt out. We should know better, shouldn’t we?

Really! It’s right there in the Gospels. Jesus was always butting into other people’s lives. He never just nosed around. He never let bad-enough alone. He wanted to make it well. And he did so by butting in, by calling a sin a sin. He never allowed someone else’s deliberate mistake to be none of his business.

The problem most of us have is not doing what the gospel commands us to do: being about being other Jesus Christ’s, doing what he would have us do: butting in out of love to help others do what they know they should do and not do what they know they should not do and do so not just because we are nosey. There is a fine line between the two as we know from experience. We’ve all been on both ends of this what sometimes seems like a conundrum. Love of the other knows the difference even as the problem remains.