Deceive, Dominate, Eliminate

By:  Staci Stallings

Long before this incarnation of my life (house, kids, two businesses, etc.), I was a newly-married young woman with a lot of time on her hands.  My newly-married husband and I liked football, and at the time, after football and with nothing else to really do, we liked to watch a show called, “Lois & Clark:  The New Adventures of Superman.”  It was a fun show, as I recall, all old-style charm and romance–with some violence thrown in so Superman had something to do.  Then the kids came and the house and the yard… and well, you get the picture.

So the other day I was walking through Hastings, making a bee-line for a new book I wanted when I saw the four sets of discs on the shelf.  All of the episodes!  How could I pass that up?

Short answer:  I didn’t.

While digging out from the unbelievable pile of laundry in my house, I’ve been watching those old episodes (children are all at school now, so I can watch things more adult than Max and Ruby–what a concept!).  Through the prism of the 18 years that have passed since I last watched the show, I now see the things that so fascinated me about it back then.  The romance is so real–he loves her and wants to protect her, but she won’t let him because she sees that as her being weak, and the two of them trying to figure out how to become one in a way that gives each the room to also be themselves.  It’s fascinating.

However, another aspect that fascinates me is the roles the villains play.  Becuase Superman is based on a comic book, and comic books have comic book characters, most of the villains are cartoonish.  There’s the Prankster and the Handyman.  There’s Mindy Church and Intergang.  What fascinates me is the lessons that are just underneath the surface about how evil treats evil.  These gangsters and their ilk are not just evil toward the good guys, they are evil toward each other.

There is the one who busted out a prisoner only to kill him and frame him for more murders.  There is the guy who agreed to pay the other millions for a “job,” but the payment ended up being two bullets in the back.  I saw a movie one time.  In it, there was a gang of three villains.  In one scene Villain #3 did something Villain #1 didn’t like, so Villain #1 shot #3 with #2 right there.  Now, Villain #2 and #3 had been friends prior to that moment, so Villain #2 was understandably upset that his friend had been murdered right in front of his eyes.  He reached down to help his dying friend.  Villain #1 looked at him and pointed the gun at him.  “He’s of no use to us now, right?”

Villain #2 in a performance I remember to this day, looked down at his dying friend and then up at his new “boss.”  There was a moment of decision and he sat back on the sofa.  “Right.”  I knew at that moment, Villain #2 would be killed by #1 by the end.  Sure enough.  It’s how evil works.

The other day, I was watching a Superman episode (can’t tell you which one), and one of the villains said to the other, “All you have to know is:  deceive, dominate, eliminate.”

Deceive.  Dominate.  Eliminate.

Three words that should send anyone who even thinks about joining evil running for the hills. Let’s, for a moment, take this play book into a more spiritual realm for this is Satan’s play book open wide for all to see, and it’s the very plays he is using against us.

Deceive.  This was to a letter what he did to Eve in the garden.  He deceived her.  I once heard someone say, “Satan doesn’t have to convince you, all he has to do is confuse you.”  Deception is his foot in the door.  “It’ll be okay… this time.”  “She’ll never find out.”  “It’s for his own good.”  “What have I got to lose?”  “It’s just this one time…”

I just finished reading a book in which a young woman is widowed suddenly.  She loses her memory of the events leading up to her husband’s death and spends the whole book trying to piece her life back together.  In the end we find out this loving husband-wife scenario she had going in her mind was a fantasy.  Her husband was cheating on her to further his career.  He was planning on leaving her, and their whole lives together were built her willing acceptance of his lies.

That’s what deception and choosing to live in deception will get you–misery.

However, once the evil has deceived you, it will not stop there.  In the book, there is a scene in which the husband is trying to “convince” her that his way is what she should want as well–fast cars, lots of money, a lifestyle of the rich and famous.  She, however, wants a quiet life with a family and a husband who loves her.  He has deceived her to the point that she believes she has that… until she rocks the boat and asks him for what she wants.  Instantly, deceiving her is not enough.  He backhands her, and she is left trying to figure out what she did wrong.  They have entered the dominate stage.

In Superman, evil is always trying to dominate evil.  They will lie, cheat, steal–it really doesn’t matter, and at the right moment they will turn on each other like a vicious pack of dogs. Domination and power, however, have very short shelf lives as each new, successive villain seeks to dominate the old one.  The game never changes, only the players do.

And then there comes a point when domination is not enough.  The other person is just too much of an annoyance to keep around. “He got in the way,” is a famous villain catch phrase.  In the book this showed up when the husband pushed her out of the car when she dared to question why he no longer loved her.  It also, I suspect, led to his death at the hands of the evil he had embraced (though the book is never very specific about this).

In all examples of evil, the lesson is very simple:  Do not throw your lot in with thieves.  Do not take even that first step with an evil person.  They have three goals:  Deceive.  Dominate.  Eliminate.

You will no doubt be shredded by these people, and no amount of money or power will save you.  In the end, you too will be eliminated.  It’s in the cards when your hand was dealt.

Therefore, be very careful the company you keep, for where they go, you will follow.  You will deceive, you will dominate, and eventually, no matter how hard you try or how high you go, you will be eliminated.

Best to stay out of the game to begin with.

You Can Tell You’re Getting Older When…

By: Dennis Bates

One of the sure signs you’re getting older is knowing the doctors in your area on a first name basis. And not just your family physician, but a lot of the specialists too. It’s bad enough when you recognize them at the grocery store or in a restaurant, but when you can call them by name and match them with their specialty, Medicare can’t be far behind. If you know the names of their spouses, you get bonus points, but not the good kind, the scary kind.

After the summer I’ve had, I’m close to being there. This morning when I went into my family doctor’s office for yet another skin infection, I asked my doctor how his children did at the recent dancing competition. Now I’m worried. We are becoming much too familiar.

As if that weren’t bad enough, he said Joe asked him how my arthritis in my knee is doing. Joe’s my orthopedic specialist, and he’s looking forward to replacing my knee much more than I am. Frankly, I’d rather have him ask me about football.

The plain, simple truth is that our bodies are only made to last so long, and your mileage may vary from mine. The mortal part of us ages much like a car. As it gets older, it needs more tune-ups, more daily maintenance, and more rest. It still gets us where we’re going, but slower and with lots more creaking than it did when it came off the showroom floor.

That’s just the way it is, and there’s not much we can do about it except replace the tires every so often and make sure the oil level is filled above the add mark. I guess the question I’ve always had was why would our Creator make us this way?

After all, these transitory bodies wear out and sooner or later stop all together. Why would he fill them with a soul that may grow weary at times, but never wear out and never stop? As the Creator, he could have made us any way he wants, and that includes matching our immortal souls with an immortal body.

But He didn’t. Why? What is the point of only being here on earth for a short time? What is it we’re supposed to learn from that? And if it were that important, why didn’t He just tell us instead of making us learn it for ourselves, if, in fact, we ever learn it?

I don’t have those answers. I’m not even certain that I have the right questions. Maybe some theologians get closer and maybe not. The Pharisees thought they had most everything figured out. So did the earliest leaders of the church: St. Augustine, Calvin, Knox, Luther, and the list goes on into the present day. They only had part of the picture.

All I know for certain is that I don’t know, but I don’t have to. All I have know is Jesus Christ and Him crucified, just as Paul did. That is more than enough until the earthly vessel God gave me wears out completely and frees my immortal soul. Maybe then it will become clearer to me, maybe not.

In the meantime, I’ve discovered that a lot of doctors aren’t such bad people.

First Lines and Sheep

By: Dennis Bates

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times; it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness; it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity; it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness; it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair; we had everything before us, we had nothing before us; we were all going directly to Heaven, we were all going the other way.”

I never get tired of reading that paragraph. It is, of course, the opening paragraph of “A Tale of Two Cities,” written by Charles Dickens. It breaks a lot of the modern day rules of good writing. For example, it is far too long, and it’s all one sentence. It uses semicolons, but worst of all, it uses “was”, past tense of “is.” How totally shameful. Obviously, that Dickens fellow didn’t know that all forms of  the infinitive “to be,” are not used in good writing.

I had one well meaning writer tell me once that Dickens could never get published today because of those obvious defects in his writing. I didn’t have the heart to tell the person that books by Dickens still appear everywhere in bookstores, classrooms and private libraries 150 years after they were written.

To me, that paragraph sets the tone for the entire book, and isn’t that what a first sentence of any good piece of writing should do? I think so.

Another of my favorite first lines comes from the 23rd Psalm: “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.” Back in the day when we still had to do such things, I memorized that Psalm along with all the other people my age so we could qualify for adult membership in our church. I remember how even then I loved everything about that single line.

It set the tone for the relatively short number of lines that followed, but it always brought peace to me, even if I only read that line.

My grandparents kept a few sheep in a small pasture behind their house. One summer when they were away for a while, my mother, my younger brother and I stayed in my grandparents house and watched those sheep.

Don’t believe all the stories about being able to lead sheep anywhere. They aren’t entirely true. Almost every day at least one of those sheep managed to get out of the fenced in pasture. Sometimes they all did. My grandparent’s house sat on the edge of a small town and a busy highway went along side of it. For some reason, the sheep liked to go there as soon as they escaped. I don’t know what worried my mother more: having one of the sheep struck by a car or seeing my brother and I chasing those sheep off the highway.

Still, in spite of their bad habits, sheep can be very docile and they seem to do better when they know there is somebody like a shepherd there watching them, taking care of them, and ready to get them out of trouble. It is enough for them to see the shepherd in the area and hear his voice. They don’t need much else to remain calm.

That’s what I like about the first line of the 23^rd Psalm. It reminds me of that summer at my grandparent’s house. It’s enough just to lie contentedly in a nice, green pasture knowing that my Shepherd is there, and He will always come get me off the highway when I wander away.

I Want To See

By:  Staci Stallings

It’s funny how you can go to church for an hour, hear everything, but remember only small snippets of things. This weekend, the Gospel was about the blind man, Bartimaeous, who I’ve studied just a little.  I remember that they were trying to shut him up as he sat by the walls of Jericho.  He was invisible as the poor and needy were at the time (still are).  The problem was, he just wouldn’t shut up.  He kept calling out, “Son of David, have pity on me!”

Jesus heard him and called him over.  When Bartimeaous heard he had been called, he threw off his cloak and ran to Jesus.

I don’t know if you’ve ever been around someone who is blind.  My grandfather was blind for the last several years of his life.  Trust me, he didn’t run anywhere.  Running is singularly dangerous when you are blind.  In fact, if you can see but wear glasses, take them off and go run in your backyard.  You’ll quickly see what I mean.  Little things like the height of a step or a small hole can do you in before you know you’ve been done.

So I think it very interesting that he threw off his cloak and ran to Jesus.  When he gets there, he doesn’t demand his sight back.  It isn’t until Jesus asks him what he wants that he says simply, “I want to see.”

I want to see.

How profound.  Not just for some blind beggar in Jericho, but for us.

I want to see is an admission that at present I do not see.  It says, “I’m blind.”  It is an admission of weakness as much as a statement of fact.  How often, do you tell God, “I want to see”? How often do you admit to Him that you can’t, that you are blind and you need His help?

The truth is, I do want to see.  I want God to help me see the things I don’t–with my eyes and with my heart.  I want Him to gently show me what I most need to see and then to help me to change it.  I am not perfect.  I am blind in many, many ways.  Although I do see some things of God, many are not clear or some are completely blank to my vision.  There is a phrase in a song I love that says, “give my vision wider view.”  I believe God is doing that for me.  How about you?

Increase, Lord, what I can see, and help me to have the grace to know what to do, how to do, when to do… whatever is necessary when I do see.  Amen.

Sharp Objects

By: Dennis Bates

More than once I have been told to stay away from sharp objects, and I do fine for a while, but then forget and suffer the consequences.

My earliest recollection of my little problem goes way back to Scout camp at a time when my voice was changing and I still thought camping was fun. It was my turn to build the fire, and I had to do it the old fashioned way with flint and steel to qualify for my camping merit badge. I had little trouble getting the spark to hit the tinder, and after some judicious blowing I had a full flame. Now I needed some wood kindling to build a fire that would catch the logs on fire.

That took a hand axe, which is a sharp object. I learned quickly that when you hold a chunk of wood so you can make kindling, it is really a good idea to keep your fingers out of the way. I didn’t. Luckily I didn’t lose my left index finger. Let’s just say that one of my buddies and I qualified for our First Aid merit badges that day too, and although I have long ago misplaced the actual merit badge, I still have a substantial scar on my left hand to remind me I earned it.

Then there was the time that a friend and I stood at the top of a hill and threw bottles at the railroad tracks below us to watch them hit the rails and shatter. Don’t ask. It’s a boy thing. What did I learn? Never throw a bottle that is already broken. Jagged glass is nasty. My right index finger will testify to that. There’s a scar there too, just so you know.

I have quit counting the number of times I’ve cut myself trying to slice bread or mince fresh garlic. There’s just too many. My wife tries to give me kitchen duties that require use of nothing sharper than a rubber spatula so she doesn’t have to bandage me up in the middle of meal preparation. I love to cook, but the last time I picked up a chef’s knife, my wife said calmly, “Put the knife down and just back away.” See, sometimes I forget.

The middle finger on my left hand has a scar and a permanent numb spot, which are the result of a crystal glass snapping in my hands while I washed it, and slicing my finger open. Stitches were required. I never saw that one coming.

And as much as I’d like to think that’s all behind me, I actually have places on my body that haven’t been scarred yet, so there is still time for a sharp object lurking in the shadows to find them, and I’m sure some will do just that.

As painfully humorous as some of these incidents are now, looking back at them, they remind me of something that isn’t all that funny. Sin is a sharp object. It can cut, maim and even destroy. We should stay away from it, but like I sometimes forget to stay away from sharp objects, I also sometimes forget to stay away from the spiritual sharp objects, and I pay the consequences when I get too close. I carry the scars.

Fortunately, however, I have a Savior who carries deeper scars, so mine can heal, even if they’re yet to be inflicted. As long as I remember that, I’ll be more than fine, even when I forget to stay away from sharp objects.

Grandpa Charlie Cookies

By: Dennis Bates

When I visited my grandfather and grandmother’s house as a kid, there was a simple aluminum container with a lid that served as their cookie jar. It always sat in the same place and it always had chocolate devil’s food cookies with marshmallow chocolate  coating. They were store bought cookies that my grandfather picked up because he knew that all us grandchildren liked them.

In fact, to this day, most of us still call that kind of cookie “Grandpa Charlie Cookies” because that’s what they are, no matter what Nabisco or any other cookie maker thinks.

The first thing that most of us did whenever we went to Grandma and Grandpa’s house was go to that cookie jar and eat one of those cookies. It was almost as if that made our visit official in a way, and it always made us feel welcome. I don’t ever remember going to the jar and finding it empty. Even when family gatherings totalled in excess of 30 people, the cookie jar always had more than enough cookies for everyone. It never got emptied.

The last time I was ever in that house was after my Grandfather’s funeral as more than 40 family members gathered there. There on the counter by the back door  where it always sat was the cookie jar, and it was full of “Grandpa Charlie Cookies.” I had to wait in line to get one.

If one were to analyze those cookies for what they were, they weren’t anything all that spectacular. They had a tendency to be a little dry. In spite of being almost totally chocolate, they didn’t taste all that chocolaty, and they didn’t have either peanut butter or raisins in them, two essential  ingredients for a cookie, as far as I’m concerned.  

But, they are still my favorites cookie, and they were always where they were supposed to be, in that simple tin container, on the counter by the back door in Grandma and Grandpa’s house. We all knew Grandpa kept them there for all of us. That’s what makes them so special, even today. We did’t analyze them or compare them to some fancy new gourmet cookie. That wasn’t the point.

It wasn’t the cookie itself that mattered. In a very simple way, those cookies were and still  are Grandpa because they are full of his love for me and all the rest of us. Every time I see a package of them on the shelf in the store, I think of him, and I remember what it was like when he shared a glass of cold milk with me at his kitchen table, and we ate one of his special cookies.

A Typist for the Holy Spirit

By: Dennis Bates

This Sunday I have been invited to attend a local church that I have never gone to before. In fact, it is about 45 miles from here, and I don’t know that I even know exactly where it is. A former Pastor of the small church that I attend has used one of my books in an adult Sunday School class there and asked me to come discuss the book with the class.

This is exactly the kind of experience I hoped for when I started to write. To say the least, I am both nervous and excited about the prospect. One of the things I really enjoy is hearing how my stories are being interpreted by my readers. The fact that this semi retired Pastor has chosen to  use one of my short novels to teach Christian principles tells me I must be doing something right.

Sure, I would like to think that my story is so well written and moving that the New York Times should have included it on its best seller list two days after it was released. Similarly, local colleges should be analyzing it for its unique style and hailing one of its local writers (me, of course) as the Faulkner of the Midwest, or at the very least as the new Nicholas Sparks.

Why not? It could happen.

But that’s not what I’ve done right, if,I have done something right at all. What I did right was listen to the Holy Spirit and then do what I was told to do…write what I was told to write. The Holy Spirit dictated and I typed. It’s as simple as that.

I don’t mean that to sound arrogant or the tiniest bit self righteous. I have no unique insight into the Holy Spirit or God. I have the same one everyone has, but I try to listen extra hard to hear the Spirit’s voice. I have to; at my age, I don’t hear through my ears like I used to, so I have to hear through my heart and soul more and more. I try.

My former Pastor gave me a short list of questions  that he wants to discuss about my book when we talk Sunday. At first I thought I couldn’t address them honestly because the themes that he sees in the book are simply nothing I consciously set out to write about, at least not in the detail that he described them.

But then I realized that I didn’t see them because they were themes that the Holy Spirit developed in my story, and whether I was aware of them or not, they were there. Plain, clear and screaming for attention.

Wow!

Now I’m really excited. Not only do I have an opportunity to address the questions and share my passion for writing, but I also get to witness.

 My real witness is how I try to write, not what I try to say. As my good friend Staci has told me many times, “The Holy Spirit already has the story written; all you have to do is pray, listen for the response and copy it down.”

That works every time, although sometimes it is easier than it is other times. You wouldn’t think that a young Catholic girl could teach such an old Protestant dog new tricks like that, but believe me, she has. Of course, there’s always the chance that the Holy Spirit has something to do with that too.

Do you think?

Front Load or Top Load?

By: Dennis Bates

Front load or top load: that is the question of  my day. Sounds exciting, doesn’t it. Still, as my wife is quick to point out, that’s the way life is.

I learned Friday that washing machines are supposed to remain dry outside as they clean the clothes inside. It is not a good thing when water pools around the outside edges at the base of your machine. It is even worse when the pool of water takes almost as many towels to sop up as the machine just washed.

When I say I learned, I mean my wife told me all this, so it has to be true. As a guy, I figured as long as I had one or two dry towels left, I was okay. I can stretch two towels for several weeks, even a month if I’m careful. My wife is more demanding. Several days with the same towel is her absolute limit. I’m thinking, as long as it’s dry when I use it, what’s the difference?

All of that to say that today we have to shop for a new washing machine. It’s a complete waste of time as far as I’m concerned, but if  I have to so do this to maintain domestic tranquility around the home front, okay. I guess.

Now we come to the top load verses front load decision. Would that it were that simple. You can’t stop there. There are high energy machines, some with spin cycles, some with small hand wash cycles, some rinse only, cotton only, permanent press, and some  for delicate fabrics. For the record, none of the things that I wear are delicate, or require special treatment. At least you guys know what I’m saying here.

Like almost everything else these days, there are far too many options. Back in the day when I was in college and did all my own laundry, it was simple. The white cotton clothes got washed together on “Hot.” Everything else got thrown together and washed on “Cool” or “Cold.” And, oh yeah, nothing got washed at all until it was mature enough to walk to the laundry on its own.

Hey, it worked.

You women married us didn’t you? So don’t wrinkle up your noses. 

I don’t know why it needs to be any more complicated today, but for some reason it just does. Some people (mostly engineers and techie types) have made careers out of taking the simple and the obvious and making them complex and mysterious. It doesn’t have to be that way, and that is from a retired lawyer. Nobody can obfuscate better than we can. Well, almost nobody. I forgot about theologians.

In the Old Testament God said to the Hebrews, “You are my chosen people; here are Ten Commandments; follow them.” They didn’t. Eventually, the elaborate set of rules and laws that their religious leaders developed became so confusing that nobody understood them, but that was great for the religious leaders because they had a full time job explaining them.

In the New Testament, God tries to clear things up for us. He sends His Son Jesus to tell us we’re making things too hard. All we have to do is “believe in him and love one another.” Period. Beginning and end of the story. We didn’t. Instead, we got more rules, more interpretations and more leaders ready to take advantage of the confusion they helped create.

A washing machine cleans our clothes; God cleans our souls. It doesn’t really take multiple cycles or constant reinvention for either of those things. It just takes us. We have to listen and do what we’re told. Nothing more.

My Final Answer

By: Dennis Bates

I have to come clean. Sometimes I have a little trouble making decisions. Well, maybe it’s more than a little, but maybe trouble isn’t the right word. Maybe difficulty would be better. No, it’s not difficulty exactly; maybe I’m just a perfectionist at times. Come to think of it, maybe I don’t have trouble at all. Perhaps I just need to think things through completely before I move forward. No, I have trouble and that’s my final answer. Or is it?

An example: I’ve been working off and on writing a manuscript for more than three years now. First it was one story, then two. I meshed them together to make one again. Then I wrote two more. I wove those into the first two, that was really one now, and the four, or three, depending upon how you are counting, became one again.

I can’t tell you how many versions of each story I’ve written. For one thing, part of me doesn’t want to think about it. On the other hand, most of me can’t remember all of them. Somewhere I have pieces of all of them in computer land, but just remembering where I kept all the pieces would be a daunting task.

I can almost hear my cohort, Staci ,screaming in the background, “Put it away; do something else; come back to it later when you have all the pieces.” That’s probably good advice, but it’s advice I can’t take. Or at least I can’t follow it. I’m just not built that way. Too linear I guess. I can’t get to the finish line until I go through all the points between here and there.  Otherwise, I just can’t get there from here.

In some ways I wish it were different. It is incredibly frustrating to see the finish line from where you’re standing, but at the same time realize you aren’t there yet, and you have a lot of things to do before you get there. It almost makes you want to give up and not go any farther. But, see, for me at least, I can’t do that either. It’s sort of like the third law of thermo nuclear dynamics: You can’t win, you can’t tie, and you can’t get out of the game. I’m not certain I understand that totally, but I can feel its fright and its frustration.

The worst thing I could do at this point is quit, no matter how tired my WIP is making me. (That’s writer speak for Work In Progress, by the way. Everyone who claims to be a writer has to work that into a conversation on a regular basis.) I can’t and won’t get out of the game. Writing that story and others is the reason I am here. I am totally convinced of that. And it’s the reason I’ll keep my eye on the prize and keep moving forward.

I would like to be able to say, as Paul did, that I have fought the good fight, finished the race and kept the faith. I’m not there yet, but some day I know I will be. That’s one thing I know for sure and it is definitely my final answer.

I Was Wrong

By: Dennis Bates

Dave Letterman is just the most recent example of one of the most significant problems facing our society today. His announcement that he was the subject of an alleged blackmail plot and his admission on national television that he had affairs in the past with several staff members are big news, and the details that will no doubt come out in the following days promise to make that news even bigger.

There are some who say his unveiling lends credibility to the old maxim that what goes around comes around. As a comedian who makes a living using his acerbic wit to poke fun at the foibles or other prominent people, he is now getting a dose of his own medicine. Perhaps. Others say, as one of his recent guests did, that his actions  just prove he’s human. Duh! What else would he be?

All the rationalizations trying to lend him cover notwithstanding, what bothers me more than anything about this is the way he’s treating it, and the way his buddies and audiences are responding to it. Of course, there has been ample precedent for this type of reaction, and it doesn’t matter whether you approach things from the right or the left. There are less than shining examples on both sides, whether the person is a former President or a former evangelist. They just prove that a lot of the public is nonpartisan in its myopia.

Here’s what I mean. Mixed in between Letterman’s comments that have been generously described as an apology from him to his wife are the usual Letterman quips. Even though their barbs are self directed for the most part, they have the effect of trivializing and  attempting to excuse his conduct.  To say that “…when a person hurts someone, they have to fix it…” is a far cry from an apology. To add “I have a lot of work to do” is similarly no apology at all. At best it merits an equally flippant response such as “Do you think?”

Letterman appears to be trying to deflect any personal wrong doing or responsibility here when his comments are taken in total. The fact that he has a national television show to beat his breast lightly and whisper “mea culpa” doesn’t impress me much.

Furthermore, the willingness of his supporters and audiences to accept that kind of modern day non confession is even more appalling. It reflects in a small but significant way the total lack of morality that eats at the very soul of our society today. Everything is relative; nothing is wrong, especially until you get caught.

Let me suggest something radical to Letterman and all of us who continually fall short of perfection. I’ll even provide the words. They won’t serve as a spring board for jokes or clever quips nearly as well as some, but then, they are supposed to do that. They don’t need to be recited on national television either, even if doing that helps the ratings.

Here they are:

What I did is wrong. I did it; nobody else, and I was wrong. Please forgive me. I will try to do better in the future because I will try to do what is right.

It’s as simple as that. If you want the advanced course, you might try that from your knees and direct it heavenward after you tell the person   you wronged. I’m not saying that Letterman hasn’t done that; I don’t know, and I don’t need to. At least he didn’t try to cover up what he did; why not go the whole way and admit that what he did was wrong, simply and directly? Then, and only then can he get the forgiveness he needs.