Treachery.  Nothing burns more than a family member or friend who is disloyal.  It is true personally and in our families and teams.  My oldest daughter is studying law.  Because some men have committed horrible crimes, it seems to her like the professors are practically teaching that men are bad.  All men?  Because a few have done horrible things, half the planet is guilty by association?  

I felt it this week when our bank would not give me mortgage information on my own home because I wasn’t specifically listed on the loan.  Why?  Because others in marriages have tricked or ripped off their own spouses.  Stabbed in the back by their closest friend.  Although it hasn’t happened to me, I am also hurt.  I am guilty by association; I can not be trusted.  I saw it best expressed in a quote by a religious protection group, “crimes committed in the name of religion are the greatest crime to religion.”  Isn’t that true of any group?  

You are not alone

Every one of us will most likely at one time or another feel the burn of friendly fire, whether intended or not.  If your spouse intentionally or unintentionally overspends your savings, it is going to hurt.  If your child gets in trouble at school, it will hurt.  Your team mates, family, friends, and even your own body and the tools you trust will sometimes let you down.  It can be infuriating and insufferable because it hurts so much!  

What can be done?

I can’t just give them permission to do that.  It feels unsafe.  While it may work to mentally allow another adult to live true to their own values in direct opposition to my own, I can’t possibly do that at home.  Can I?  Should I, could I, in any way condone acts of antisocial behavior by my children just because they don’t agree with my values?  They have a very young, naive perspective.  We must have a different responsibility to protect ourselves and others from internal combustion.

As Lincoln quoted Mark 3:25,

“A house divided against itself cannot stand.”

If that is the case, how then do I fight a “frienemy”???  Hasn’t that member of the group, by their disloyal actions, already divided us?

The Flash

My husband and I have been watching a TV superhero series called “the flash.”  This very young superhero was given some surprising advice from a friend.  She said,

“It’s a lonely path.  Don’t make it any lonelier than it has to be.”  

We can fire a dishonest employee.  We can dismiss members from groups that misrepresent us to the public.  We can even divorce a mate that has stopped being a friend.  In many cases we can “get rid of” the enemy in our midst.  We can cut ties even of kinship.  But that won’t make it end.

It is a lonely path.  I don’t want to make it any lonelier than it has to be.  But in my mind I was struggling because I could see no other way to view a particular offense.  It was painful.  It was disloyal.  It was against the rules and all that had ever been taught in our home.  

I felt like a football player.  I’m already on the smaller team.  I’m working my guts out just to get the ball down the field when finally my best friend shows up wearing the other team’s uniform!  What was a tolerable, honorable fight before became an intolerable, crushing defeat.  

How could I keep pressing forward when it seems like we don’t even have a team?  

But, I could see that as long as I viewed it as disloyalty and treachery, I would not be able to forgive. In a moment of epiphany, I could see that how I was seeing it was the problem.  But, I could not see what I could not see.  How else could I look at this painful, personal affront to our family from within our family?

Perspectives

I made it a matter of prayer.  How else could I see this act as anything other than disloyalty?  

I watch my son play soccer every Saturday.  He isn’t the best player on the team.  In fact, if the ball gets past him, he often will stop running and just wait around for the ball to head back his way.  Sometimes he watches a plane going by overhead.  Sometimes he talks to a friend on the other team.  As a parent, who understands the game, it can be exasperating to watch.  (Yes, I am competitive and love cooperation as well).  I feel so proud when he kicks the ball the right direction.  It isn’t something that I can take for granted.

I watch the two best players on the team gut it out down the entire field.  They are largely left alone to do the ball handling.  It goes both ways.  They don’t share the ball much, and the others aren’t very dependable if they do pass it to them.  From their perspective, it could easily seem like they are two players against the whole world.  Their team is behind them, but they are way behind.  Sometimes the other members kick the ball out of bounds or even the wrong direction.  Sometimes they are helping too close and getting right in the way.  Other times they can’t even find their teammates at all when they need them.  Am I like that?

Am I a ball hog that cares too much?

My greatest mentors were people who helped me see my errors in perspective and correct them. They gave me the chance to try again and again.  They helped me not fear being fired or sent off the team and instead helped me learn how to excel at my work.  Instead of treating my mistakes as the team set back they really were, they helped me stay in the game.  What if my mentors had turned on me or taken my work and did it themselves?  What if they were impatient or took my mishandlings personally?  I’m not sure I would have any self-confidence at all.  

Protection or Impatience?

It is really true that my son does not care about soccer as much as I do.  He likes to win, but he doesn’t see how staying focused on the game is that important.  His team has won every game in spite of him.  How thankful I am that he is still on the team. He is getting better with the practice.  He can see how the other boys that have it together do it, and those two boys literally could not play the game all by themselves.  They are not the whole team.

I want to protect myself and my teams from disappointment.  I want to be a loyal representative of my family, my religion, my teams.  I do suffer from my own mistakes and the mistakes of others.  But should it really surprise me?  We are all imperfect, learning, hurting individuals ourselves.  We are all members of various teams competing for our time, focused attention and loyalty.  I can’t protect myself from every error or crime of others; the fact is–it is going to hurt.  

But I can see the immaturity and mistakes for what they are, a symptom of youth or inexperience.  At worst it might be a symptom of human weakness, misunderstanding, confusion, or misdirected loyalty or anger.  They are all a symptom of our humanity.

Alexander Pope said, “to err is human; to forgive, divine.”  

That is it:  “To err is human.”

To love is human.

To trust is human.

To feel betrayed or hurt by those we love or trusted is, also, human.  

Because, “to err is human.”

Give it time

The biblical parable of the wheat and the tares shows how the young weeds and the young wheat look similar.  It might be difficult to distinguish between them.  It would hurt the whole field to too hastily remove the imposters, we might also lose the wheat.  Truth is, time will tell.  Someone intentionally sabotaging your business or team will show their true colors eventually.  But, a few, even many misdeeds does not necessarily make a traitor no matter how much it hurts.  It makes a human.

I need your patience.  Don’t you also need mine?  

Is it wisdom or hurt talking?

I think it is a good question to ask myself, is it wisdom or hurt influencing my perspective?  I know how painful it is on both sides, offender and offended.  I wrote this poem in an agony because my daughter was hurt by me, would not hear me, and had completely misjudged my intention:

Deadly

Secret, silent weapon

no defense

guilty without trial

grudge

I recently met a jail warden who would not let his cousin that he grew up with know where he lives or visit his family.  His cousin has repeatedly been in jail, and he can not be trusted.  He loves him, he will meet with him elsewhere, but he is never invited home.  Like him, we all have to judge what and who is safe to associate with.  It is for protection.  It is wise.  And thankfully, it usually isn’t necessary.

Self Improvement- To read more of DarEll’s articles, click here.

May we unite

in spite of

humanity

and find the

piece of

divinity within us,

in forgiveness.

Namaste,

DarEll S. Hoskisson

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How I Stopped My “Hot Buttons” Self Control, and Reacting- Feeling Forgiveness and Offense Spiritual Renewal: “I Really Don’t Know Snow.”