Inconsistencies and Hypocrisies...

This weekend I enjoyed a man-cation in the Nevada desert learning how better to shoot my "practical rifle". It was outstanding.

On my drive home I was passed by an SUV with a sticker in the rear window reading, "GAS SUCKS; ride a bike". And, although it was a small SUV, I was struck by the stark irony.

I will speak only for myself, and if you see things that resonate with you, I'm happy to have company.

I have a moral compass that guides and informs my behaviors. That compass points me in a good, healthy, happy direction.

I also have free will that allows me to make choices to follow my moral compass or not. And, in certain situations, I have chosen to ignore my compass. When I make those choices I learn again that my compass really is pointing me toward goodness; and I didn't find that in the wrong choice.

I see this as an inconsistency. I'm not out telling others what to do. And I'm not condemning them when they don't follow my advice. And I'm not turning around and ignoring my own advice. That would constitute an hypocrisy.

In my inconsistencies I am losing my own private battles in the war I am fighting within myself.

I have had friends who have become jaded toward organized religion because of what they call "hypocrisy" among the adherents. And I will grant that there certainly are cases of blatant hypocrisy in churches of all colors. Leaders who preach one thing and live in an entirely different way, or members who make a show of devotion in worship services yet are cruel at home or at work are examples that come to mind.

But I choose to believe that the vast majority of what my friends have called "hypocrisy" is really inconsistency. They're really watching a person a lot like myself winning and losing private battles in an invisible war that can last a lifetime.

Instead of watching and getting some Roman sense of pleasure when our fellow creatures are battered and bruised in the Arena, we would be better to have compassion and, with the wise man, remind ourselves that "there, but for the grace of God, go I."