Considering Cosby

A generation ago, well before the events of 9/11, my wife and I happened to stay at a rustic motel in southern Maine. It was early summer; the weather was beautiful. We sat our luggage down, got oriented to our room, and turned on the television for a time of rest before dinner. What we watched for the next 20 minutes or so was a man whom I considered to be a very funny comedian. His observations about parenting and marriage -- part of his 1983 special "Bill Cosby: Himself" -- were on target and endlessly amusing.

Well, can I still find Cosby, the man once called "America's Dad," funny -- now? After what he's done?

When I watch the octogenarian jester now, may his humor be enjoyed knowing he's been found guilty of drugging young women to sexually assault them?

On the face of it, Bill Cosby's crimes are a cautionary tale for those of us who consume popular culture. Wait a minute. Let's broaden that net to include not just entertainers but everyone we meet. We really don't know what's going on in the mind and heart of another person, even someone we know personally.

Be very careful of putting anyone on a pedestal is perhaps one lesson to take away. Yet we seem to do it again and again -- and we are often disappointed because the sin nature is alive and well. Mark McGwire, Lance Armstrong, Kevin Spacey, add your own names, dear reader.

I once witnessed a lady before worship one Sunday, a woman revered by her congregation, verbally rip into a janitor because a task had not been done to her liking. It was a vicious moment, witnessed by only the three of us, and bespoke her attitude toward those of a different, and lower, socioeconomic standing. In candor, I didn't see that gal the same way again.

You might say -- and accurately -- anyone can have a bad moment, a bad day. Yes. I've certainly had them and will in the future. It's when such moments become a pattern, as they did for Cosby, that makes considering the totality of a person's life difficult. Bill Cosby has done a lot of good in his life. But the bad was really bad. A jury considered all the evidence in a Pennsylvania court and said as much with its verdict late last month. As the Washington Post put it, Cosby's fall from grace, and the erasure of the good opinion of the American public, are "thundering." Given his age, blindness, and overall declining health, the actor who played kindly Dr. Cliff Huxtable will likely die in prison -- absent a very lenient sentence or a successful appeal.

St. Thomas Aquinas, in his Summa Theologica, wrote about the frequent travails of the Christian life, what he called "shipwreck" on the rock of postbaptismal sin -- chief among them, apostasy, adultery, and murder. Aquinas wrote that a person so shipwrecked must return to his baptismal vows. If he does, if he is willing to go through the process of public and private penance, then a plank must be thrown to the drowning sinner as one more chance, but only one more, to get it right.

I read the words above and they make sense to me. Then I read Jesus' words about forgiveness. Those words strip away my self-righteousness. The disciple Simon Peter asked him how often we should forgive. "Seventy times seven," the Lord replied. (Matthew 18:22) Yes, Lord, but forgiving must be on a different plane than excusing. Often I'm too obtuse to discern any difference.

In noting my tiny righteousness, which is as filthy rags (Isaiah 64:6), my mind realizes how far I still am from the kingdom of God.

Jesus would likely tell us to forgive Cosby. I'm not sure I can. Not right now, certainly. Perhaps not until forgiving stops feeling like excusing. Hopefully, God isn't finished with me yet.