GIVE ME SOME MORE TIGER WOODS DIRT?
Posted by Mike Foster:
I’m always conflicted when talking about the latest scandal involving some celebrity, sports star, pastor, or friend.
It feels so opportunistic to me and sadly revolves around our insatiable appetite for personal destruction. Too often it is based on media outlets looking for ratings, bloggers looking for hits, magazines trying to increase sales, and our stale conversations looking for some fresh meat to gossip about.
Tragically all this adds to the pain for this person and throws salt in the wounds of the families and friends.
I have personally walked with leaders and friends who have gone through a very public crisis. These times are raw, emotional, painful, devastating, and fragile. I’ve also had the “privilege” of being in a few public things myself.
As People of the Second Chance, here are a few of my suggestions:
1. You have so many words that you can share in a day. Decide whether they will be about blessing or cursing someone.
2. When someone is caught in a scandal, I visualize two buckets that I can fill. I can add to the “Shame Bucket” or the “Second Chance Bucket.” Sometimes my first/easy/fun/human nature response is to fill the “Shame Bucket” so I have to work harder not to do that.
3. For all you online peeps…write your articles, blogs, tweets, and comments as if the person in crisis (and their family) were reading it. Why? Because they do! And the jokes, snarky comments, sloppy facts and flippant remarks hurt people. Instead, devote your computer keyboard to the restoration of people.
4. Refuse to participate in the gossip session around the water cooler. Or better yet, jump in and turn the conversation towards grace and second chances. Btw, just plan on being called a “buzz kill” and not invited back to any more social functions.
5. Realize we are either part of the judgment problem or the grace solution. But we can’t be both. So choose wisely.
Do you have any other suggestions or things that you do?
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Thanks for this post, i had tried to put into words how i was feeling about the TIger thing & you have just done what i was trying to get for a blog post!
Anyway, i dunno about suggestions but a while back i posted a few times re: celebs and how we react, what we do when we heap judgement on them etc
This one about Robbie Williams got the most discussion going
http://supersimbo.com/2009/11/robbie-protest/
Blessings, i love the site
Something I’ve been trying to focus a little more on is all the peripheral people in the situation. The spouses, parents, children, etc…who continue to live in the situation despite not being given an option. The fact that they remain as both victims and possible support for recovery. This too should also move us to grace as they need healing and not more reasons for hatred.
As someone who has majorly stepped in it, I always cling to the hope that people in these deep dark holes will quit digging, drop the shovel, and look up for the hand that offers us all a second chance.
One thing that I often try to remind myself is that I am capable of that.
I am more then capable of doing what Tiger did or what ministers have done.
To think that I am above them in any way means that I am worse then them and will fall even farther.
good words Mike
I see being negative in much the same way I see comedians who use profanity to get a laugh. It’s the easiest thing to do, the laziest, and the most irresponsible. Sometimes it’s even funny…for a second. Then we’re left with the grimy feeling of having participated in something beneath us all.
Brilliant post Mike. I couldn’t agree more.
The times I blog about situations like this I try to look at it through the lens of what can be learned from it. How we can watch ourselves to see if we’re doing the same things that brought trouble to the famous person…and how we can take steps to avoid it.
thanks mike! you always help us think better about situations and how we can show radical grace!
Social comments and analytics for this post…
This post was mentioned on Twitter by scotthodge: @mikefoster has some good thoughts on Tiger Woods over at POTSC: http://tinyurl.com/ydzhudm…
Oh dear. I’m gonna have to show some grace to a certain photo printing company who sent me really awful prints of my South africa photos I guess, huh?
But I do agree. I had the ‘privilege’ of finding a hate website against my Dad last summer and many sarcastic humour articles in numerous newspapers and news blogs when he got given a prison sentence this summer. People forget….that my Dad, my sister’s Dad and my brother’s Dad. And we have been really hurting, those articles hurt us as they were encouraging people to laugh at someone else’s pain.
@kenyon great idea. focus on the others involved too
@kyle so true. great point
@michael wow! love it! i might have to steal that idea. great nugget
love the comments on the laugh or fun part at someones expense..it is certainly something that i have to gaurd..
I can’t say it better than Paul David Tripp did in his book War of Words. Our words come from our heart and express our submission to the Lord.
“Every word we speak must meet to standards. First, all of our words should bring God the glory he deserves. And second, our words should bring redemptive good into the lives of the people God has placed around us. This is a heart calling for all our words – worship and redemption. But this is also why there is of great war of words, for the enemy fights to keep us from fulfilling this calling. The deceiver wants us to claim the world of words as our own, to speak out of our own will, to speak for our own glory, and to speak our selfish heart is committed only to what seems best for us. Here again, the war of words is really a war of sovereignty. Whoever rules our hearts will control the words we speak. The clear message of Scripture is that we are called to speak out of a thankful heart of submission to God, in every circumstance and situation.”
Great post on how we should address situations. I like the fact that you pointed out that when we post on this stuff try and put ourself in the situation.you post convey’s what I was trying to get across as well. Thanks for the transperancy that you write with. You can check out what I had to say here…
http://georgetallmagetalks.wordpress.com/2009/12/11/tigerwoods-and-my-two-cents/
In these cases I try to respond the way I would want others to respond if it were me. What if I were in Tiger’s shoes. What if I were in his wife’s shoes. We often say because they are a public figure we have the right to know and to treat in such a manner. I disagree.
Good post Mike. I think we should also use Tiger Woods and others like him who have stumbled as examples of why we should never pin our hopes to any human being. No matter how good they are, there is always the chance they will let us down.
There is only one that we can put our hope in and that is Jesus Christ. He will never fail. He will never let us down. He will never disappoint us.
Appreciate your words Mike. I am personally tired of seeing Tiger dragged through the mud. Did he “make his bed?” Yes. Should he “lie in it?” Yes. But does it have to be kept being up over and over, ad infinitum, ad nauseum? No. Especially by POTSC. I just keep telling myself “there but by the grace of God go I.” Not the wealth or notoriety.
But my sin can become headline news also and then how would I feel? I have chosen not to say one word of negativity about Tiger on my blog. Much more important things to blog about. My .02 worth.
Mike…I TOTALLY AGREE!!!!!!
That is also why I wrote this post about tiger:
http://thoughtsaboutnothing.com/tigers-drive-that-got-away/
@bill totally seems like they are just heaping it on.
@kyle cool post.
Well said! Also, I find that taking to ask the One who has given me the ultimate second chance for the wisdom He wishes to express is a gr8 guide.
I just posted on facebook (http://www.facebook.com/dbuckham) yesterday about my desire to see the companies that he has contracts with neither dump him or endorse him but rather, help him. Yeah he has money, but money won’t fix the problem. If a company like Nike were to step in and show a little care for he and his family that would speak volumes. I don’t expect it to happen. But some of them appear to only see Tiger as an investment (not as a person) so why not step in and protect that investment…and if they see him as a person, why not step in and help? Yeah, he screwed up, but so have I.
all about Christ,
David Buckham
Lets welcome Tiger to the POTSC…extend that hope to him that we all know.
Wonderful post!
My daughter and I were just talking about this driving in to work this morning after hearing yet another “news” item about Tiger Woods and his family. We were wondering why, just because someone excels at something, just because they find themselves in the public eye, where does the general public get the idea that they own that person and their life? What if we all had to deal with cameras shoved in our faces, having our private lives shredded over the airwaves, and stalkers going through our garbage cans? How would we like it then? It just burns me that it’s acceptable to treat real people like they are made out of cardboard and have no feelings!
Ok, rant over. Sorry…
[...] Feelings of rage, denial, anger, self loathing, jealousy, and mistrust all come in to play. On the People of the Second Chance blog wrote, they note that our fascination with knowing the details and the ‘dirt’ [...]
This brings up a question for me. Why do we tend to beat up on someone when they are down??? Every one of us has done something that we are not proud of, we have all made mistakes. Tiger is no different than any of us (other than the fact he is a great golfer and is a billionaire). He will have to answer to his family and to God, not the rest of us. We as a society would be much better off to show support to Tiger and his family. We as Christians need to show the world that we support each other when we fall and we as Christians do not judge, that job belongs to God…
Mike,
Thanks for the great insight as always. I personally don’t know the first thing about Tiger’s belief system or his heart, but when this story broke and continued to snowball the first thing I thought about was People Of The Second Chance. With all the power and media draw that Tiger Woods has internationally how great could his influence be if he turned to Christ through this and and was restored through his own second chance. Tiger if you are reading, there is hope and there are people who believe in second chances including the ultimate source of second chances, Jesus. The Bible and the history of Christianity is filled with people who “didn’t deserve” it, but still received second (and third, and fourth) chances and went on to achieve great things for humanity that impacted countless lives.
Thank you for helping me understand that I need to be more a part of the GRACE SOLUTION! Great writing!
Nibby Priest
http://www.nibby.net
Henderson KY
A good challenge not just jump on the band wagon and “say look at you”
[...] I thought I’d re-post Mike’s thoughts here. Christmas is just a few days away, and this season always reminds me of the importance of [...]
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