Misdirected Steps
Friday, 20 February 2009 08:56 | Written by Barry Bryson | 
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Every time Alex Rodriguez elaborates upon his admission last week that for a three year period he took performance enhancing drugs, he seems to incriminate himself more. What angers fans and reporters alike is his refusal to take any real responsibility for his actions – he was “young” he keeps reminding us. He was between 25 and 28 years old when taking these substances - not young at all by baseball standards. We expect 28 year old sergeants to make life and death decisions in Iraq and Afghanistan. Then there is his refusal to admit he cheated. He admits he sought out these drugs to optimize his performance – so we have motive. He admits he used them – and so we have deed. The three years he took the drugs were by far his best in baseball – and so we have result. But he won’t describe what he did as “cheating.”
A report in this month’s Atlantic (3/2009, p.17) says that 82% of American High School students admit to copying the homework of another student, 67% admit to cheating on tests, 30% admit to internet assisted plagiarism, and 93% believed they have “good ethics.”
When I read that report I hoped against hope that most of those didn’t know the definition of the word “ethics.” Then again I didn’t, since I am of the opinion that stupidity causes more damage than evil. How can 93% of American High School students claim they have good ethics, when most of them admit freely to cheating?
Then I remembered.
When I was in High school many teachers gave quizzes orally, since photo-copiers were not available and the single spirit copier we had was unreliable, and overused. This made it easy for a clever student to devise a way to share a correct answer with the rest of the class - which is what I did for my friends. On a ten question quiz, I would provide the correct answer for 8 or 9 of the questions. This meant that no one got lower than an 80, but that we didn’t all have the same answer for every question. Since I wasn’t copying anyone else’s work I did not consider that cheating. The kids who copied off of me were cheating, because they weren’t doing their own work. But that was their choice, I thought. Since I wasn’t copying, I wasn’t cheating. Of course, the very fact that I devised elaborate schemes not to get caught (all of which worked), means that I knew my teachers (and surely my parents) would have considered it cheating. But in my mind I wasn’t doing anything wrong.
It is not in man who walks to direct his own steps.
For several years I volunteered as a pastoral counselor with troubled kids. What struck me was that none of these kids were without a moral framework. They each just had a warped moral framework. They had most often been left to raise themselves, or had endured a crisis by themselves, and had to write their own code of conduct, alone. These codes usually included double standards, swift retribution, and a lot of license for acting on impulse – but they, every one, had a code nonetheless.
It is not in man who walks to direct his own steps.
Our founding fathers believed that the basis for a civil society was a moral one – that we are created “equal” by God, and that we have, from him, certain “unalienable rights.” They agreed with Jeremiah, that it is not in man who walks to direct his own steps. That is why they devised a system of government in which power was diffused among three branches of government and a bi-cameral legislature. Real authority resides in the text of the constitution. That text exists to establish and protect the unalienable rights given to us by God.
Our steps are rarely undirected – we are almost always motivated to act based upon some sense of what is right, or what is our right. Our steps are, much too frequently, misdirected – guided by self, not by God. This is unnecessary, unproductive, and will not go unpunished.
Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path. Psalm 119.105
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