Taking the easy route

"There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are
the ways of death."

– Proverbs 14:12

As human beings, each of us at times finds our moral compass looks more
like our ceiling fan on a hot day.

We are subject to powerful emotions,
to half-thought-out plans, and to open and outright rebellion against
others. This internal "guidance" generates enough difficulty when there
is only one of us. But add wives, husbands, children, the workplace –
each with their own internal "compass" – and you're talking serious
disagreement. Your truth has suddenly collided with my truth – and there
will be casualties.

Expediency is our natural human tendency. It's the "no-brainer" choice
between great and good, fun and boring, bad and awful. It gets us to work
each morning with the lightest traffic battle scars. It helps us choose
cheese, crackers, soda pop and soap at the grocery store without wasting
time thinking about the brand. It keeps us focused on what's good for us.
Expediency gets us through the day.

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But expediency also explains why Congressman Condit lied about his
relationship with intern Chandra Levy to the police, to his staff, his
family and us. Expediency explains why Bill Clinton lied about Monica.
And expediency is why your teen-age son or daughter probably didn't tell
you where they really were until two in the morning when you last loaned
them the car.

Expediency can easily cross the line, becoming our master – not our
servant. Suddenly we find ourselves drawn deeper and deeper into a moral
quagmire as we seek to justify its employment in our service, until we
enter the phase where we deny that it has become our master. As time goes
on, we become ever more insistent in our denials that we are now fully in
its employ.

Where is the line? When does expediency transform itself from our humble
servant, the one who plots the best and safest route to work each
morning, to our new master – who rams another vehicle blocking our path
in a fit of road rage?

Defined bluntly, expediency is a tool to get what I want. As such, it has
a very narrow focus. The way we employ it reveals little about the tool
– but a great deal about our character and judgment – or if you will,
our heart and mind. Thus when a president or congressman lies to protect
national security, we feel well-served and safe; when he lies to spice up
his sex life – we feel dirty and used. In the one case our trust was
well placed; in the other it was abused for another's personal gain.

As a chauffeur in our lives, expedience mercilessly obeys whatever rules
of the road we choose to give it. But as anyone who has ever suffered
from fits of emotion or flights of fancy knows – self designed moral
guidelines are subject to frequent and flagrant fits of rearrangement to
accommodate lust and economic self-interest. Your truth and my truth
quickly becomes nobody's truth, backed up by the self-serving claim, "I
ain't done nothing wrong!"

Once such a claim emerges, the damage has already been done – both to
ourselves and to others. From then on, we're just along for the ride.
Such claims quickly identify others with no moral compass as they join in
with their pleas that we "give the person a break" or "everybody's doing
it (at least everybody they know)" and "it's their private life – it
doesn't affect the way they do their job!"

But it does. No man or woman chooses to lead an orderly public life while
enduring a personal life that is in shambles. The guardrails for an
effective life have to exist outside the car we're driving, or they can't
– and won't – prevent us from driving over the cliff as we negotiate
life's dangerous twists and turns. Congressman Condit and intern Chandra
Levy, along with friends, family, constituents and fellow congressmen and
women would have been much better served by Mr. Condit following the
guardrail of his marriage vows than the yellow line of his lust that
veered from the centerline and over the cliff.

It is the job of parents, churches, and yes – the public school system
– to point out the guardrails to all of us early in life. This requires
the knowledge that such guardrails exist outside of ourselves. Those who
don't recognize and respect the guardrails will crash and burn. It is not
a question of "if," but of when and where. Such individuals have no place
in public life.