Do You Know A Holy Man?

Do you know a holy man? Of all the men in your acquaintance, are there any you would describe as holy?

Here is an incomplete picture of what a holy man is like:

He cannot lie. He does not exaggerate or deceive. He will not shade the truth to gain an advantage, or make himself look good, or make you feel good.

He welcomes you with grace and good cheer.

He takes care to remain in control of himself at all times. You have never seen him drunk or high.

He does good things, but you never hear about it from him. All reports of his good deeds come from others.

He will act heroically as the occasion calls for it. He will run into a burning building or dive into icy water to save a victim. If a crazy man with a gun appears, he will try to disarm him, or if he can't, he will step in front of you to take the bullet himself.

You never even knew he had a doctorate. Or that he won a medal of valor in the military. Or set the sales record for his company. Or played in the NBA. Or wrote a best-selling book. Or was elected to state-wide office. He celebrates all your achievements but remains discreetly quiet about his own.

He is chaste: celibate if single, faithful to his wife if married. If he had to work all day every day alone with your lovely wife, sister or daughter, there would be no danger of him trying to seduce, flirt with, leer at or mistreat her. If, as a single man, he courts a woman, he does so honorably. He would never exploit a woman for the sake of sexual pleasure, but would only take her to himself physically as part of a life-long, exclusive covenant. He protects all women from himself.

He drives safely and with courtesy toward other drivers.

He won't let you bully anyone. He will intervene as softly as possible and as strongly as necessary to stop you.

If he once said, "Till death do us part", he meant it. He cannot abandon a spouse, even if she becomes difficult, contemptuous, lazy, or "doesn't take care of herself". If she develops Alzheimer's, he cares for her as best he can until she dies.

He does not indulge in needless luxuries. If he is poor, he does without instead of racking up debt. If he is rich, he gives it away.

He is very hard to offend. If you poke fun at him he will laugh at himself. If you accidentally insult him he doesn't even notice. If you deliberately insult him he is quick to forget it. He does not regale you with stories of how he was wronged.

He lets you talk too.

He refrains from promising what he cannot deliver. What he has promised, he does, even though circumstances have rendered it inconvenient for him.

He assigns to your actions the best motives that wisdom, prudence and honesty allow.

He is not vain. The idea of getting Botox injections makes him laugh out loud.

He treats people as equals. Weak people gravitate toward him, because they know he will not look down on them or ignore them.

He will read this and say, "I am not that man. But I wish I were."

Graciousness 7: Extolling The Goodness Of Others

(A continuation of an occasional series: Graciousness 1-6 are the posts on March 24, 31, April 7, 21 of 2009; May 6 and December 19 of 2011).

A homiletics teacher once noted my tendency to go negative when I wanted to make a positive point. If I were illustrating some feature of humility, for example, I was more likely to tell a story about a proud person and say, "Don't be like that" than to extol a humble person and say, "Be like him." It was a smart observation. I don't think my teacher cured me of this tendency, but he made me aware of it just enough to encourage others to laud more than they scorn. (You can leave the scorning to me. I'm gifted at it.)

Gracious people laud. They tell you about the good deeds of others, and regale you with stories of kindnesses done to them. If they must tell you, "Here is how I was mistreated," they are quick to add, "But here is how I was helped." Grace-filled people notice grace in others, and open curtains to let light illumine acts of kindness that otherwise would not be known.

Years ago I heard a black preacher addressing a mostly white audience. He had grown up in the Jim Crow South. He talked about the time he was in the army and a white soldier friend asked him for a drink from his canteen. He handed him the canteen and the soldier took a sip straight from it. The preacher was nearly moved to tears. All his life he had had to drink from the "colored" water fountain - the whites he knew would not have drunk from the same cup that his lips had touched. But this white soldier treated him as a man, a peer, a brother.

It was not till later that it occurred to me that this preacher must have had thousands of stories of indignities and injustices he had suffered. But he didn't tell us any of those. Instead he remembered, related, and celebrated with us the kindness he had known. He was a man of uncommon grace.

I once tried to encourage a woman who was mildly estranged from her mother to reach out to her, to give her a call. But the woman replied, "When I call Mom, all she does is talk my ear off about people who have treated her badly." Later I had occasion to verify that that assessment was pretty accurate. The older woman could not seem to remember any good deed, only the bad ones where she was the victim. Good things done for her went unacknowledged and were quickly forgotten. Eventually I made a mental note: be like the old black preacher, not the bitter old lady.

If you would be a gracious person, then try to do this: where you see examples of goodness, relate them to others whenever you can do so appropriately. Instinctively gracious people - like my lovely wife - seem to be able to do this without even thinking about it. But natural-born oafs need to put effort into it, like the klutz who learns to dance by mechanically planting his feet on construction-paper cutouts on the floor. It may be awkward at first, but you'll get better at it.