The Hypocrisy of Our Humanity

Faith, Valor, Wisdom, Hope, and Trust.?When you query the symbolism of an Iris, this is typically what you'll get get in response. They're beautiful characteristics that any of us would hope to embody and see represented in those we surround ourselves with. Oftentimes, we're challenged in each of these dimensions because, as humans are wont to do, we are put in situations where the mettle of our character is tested. Sometimes we succeed and sometimes we fail.

As we take in the world around us these last few days, we have seen limited success, more resolutions than challenges. We've had small victories of fairness, of representation being upheld for marginalised people. We've had the application of law upheld against those who violated it with conscious volition. These represent a moral victory, if not an ethical one. The fair application of jurisprudence to our society in meaningful ways is oftentimes at odds with what we see happen leading to us being shocked when something good or beneficial happens. We're conditioned to believe in the inevitable decline of society based on the actors that we seen on our various screens.

We argue for hope but are hopeless. We preach faith but are faithless. We extol wisdom but we're foolish. We plead for trust but are untrustworthy. We value valor but we are cowards.

There's a certain poetry to our hypocrisy as humans. It's not pleasant to read or experience as it cuts to the heart of who and what we are. For every virtue we hold in high esteem, we counter it with the way we live. To use a verse from the Bible, "there is none righteous, no, not one." (Romans 3:10). It's the aberrations of this hypocrisy that cause us wonder; for example, when we see the rule of law followed and upheld.

How many of us exceed the speed limit? How many of us understand that we, in doing so, violate the law? How many of us get angry when others do the same and yet, we're complicit in the very same actions? It's a cheap example, to be sure, but it points to the very nature of us.

How many of us rejoice when harm,?physical or otherwise, befalls those who we feel have abused the goodness of our common condition? How many of us rejoiced in Pat Robertson's death??We haven't held inviolate those beautiful virtues of faith, valor, wisdom, hope, and trust have we?

Again, it's a state of affairs with our hearts, with who we are. We love having external examples of objects, of perfection, of nature's very best because we can anthropomorphise (as I am doing here) the very values that we yearn to espouse and yet, a Monday morning will roll around, traffic will happen, another narcissistic oligarch will make choices that affect millions and we'll rage against their machinations.

My dear souls, there's nothing I can tell you that will change your behaviour. Your volition is not mine to keep or corral. All I can do is show you the beauty that resides in all of us, the potential that we all possess as humans, and have the faith, hope, and trust that we will find the wisdom and courage to chase it.

We have, deep within the fabric of our being, the capacity to do so much, to knit together a wonderful world that espouses virtue and honour. This fabric of faithfulness is the antigen to our hypocrisy and something that we'll spend a lifetime chasing.

This weekend, as you view the beauty that surrounds you, as you smell the roses, walk your gardens, love your neighbours as you love yourself, take a moment to reflect on your heart's condition. Where are you being hypocritical? Where are you exemplifying the character that you seek in others?

I?hope?and challenge you and place?trust?in your seeking, in your pursuit of?wisdom?and?courage. I embrace your?faithfulness?against the faithlessness of what surrounds. May you find grace in your self-examination.

May it ever be so.

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