Today as I wrote about the young parish priest that had a positive affect on me, but was found to beg negative and abusive toward others, I thought more about when people go astray and what we can do to avoid that in our own lives and help others avoid that in their lives.
In general, I believe that we have to have the courage to confront troubling issues in ourselves and others sooner than later. As an educator I had a flaw that took me a long time to confront. My flaw was not a secret and it didn't involve criminal behavior of any kind, but it was a flaw that was eventually remedied, but in hindsight, I wish I had more support for remedying that flaw early on in my career rather than later on. Early I likened the flaw to personality, but later learned that the flaw was connected to some childhood trauma I had experienced. Once I unraveled that trauma with some counseling support, I was able to move beyond the flaw.
There were other missteps during my career that were quickly remedied thanks to the courageous words and actions of colleagues, who educated me about how to do a better job with regard to those missteps. I was always thankful to those colleagues since my missteps were due to a lack of knowledge rather than intention.
As humans, we have to help each other navigate our life paths in positive ways. It's easy to misstep and it's even easier when you don't have the kind of connections or leadership that helps you to stay on a positive value-driven path. Onward.
