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Everyone’s Rubbish Smells But Mine
By Monte Wilson

”Britney, Lindsay, and Paris: all three are idiots.” They have fame, wealth, and a large public stage from which to influence others for good: yet they keep throwing it all down the toilet.

We then ridicule, condemn, make fun and rebuke the idiots: understandably so. After all, none of us have ever behaved like an idiot, eh? Think about some of the screwball things you have done. Now, imagine doing the same thing...while being famous.

One of the things I have learned about humans is that we all make the choices we do because, at the moment of our decision-making, we didn’t see that there were any better choices available to us. In our experience, we simply had to do what we did. There was no better alternative. This doesn’t make the decision wise or even right, but it does cast the decision into a different light, doesn’t it?

It seems to me then that our objective should be to help the person realize there are healthier and wiser choices that can be made as to meeting their needs. And even if we are not in a place where we can be the ones to help them, we can at least pray that someone will do so, can we not?

“But Monte, they are idiots…fools!” Well, okay. Does this mean that we are now free to do whatever we can to make it even more difficult for them to be restored, to be healed? Does their behavior negate the laws of love?

Pascal said that we humans were both the glory and the rubbish of the universe. The problem for some of us, however, is that while we ignore our own rubbish, we are quick to condemn rubbish behavior in others.

St. Paul said that we were to seek to restore those who had fallen into rubbish behavior in a spirit of gentleness. Furthermore, while we are seeking to restore them, we should also remember that we too have our own rubbish to deal with. It is when we follow Paul’s directions that we behave as the glory of the universe.