On Judging Not...

I had a history teacher in High School. I won't say his name for reasons that will shortly be evident. But, if I were to pick which of my teachers influenced me the most, this man would be high in the running.

He was a most opinionated man but I learned from him that it is possible to be opinionated and open-minded at the same time. He always preached to us about the dangers of communism in class and so, when he spoke of mormons as communists because, at one time, we had practiced The United Order, I stood up and told him that he didn't know what he was talking about.

You could have heard a pin drop.

The teacher eyed me up and down and then challenged me to back up my claim with a debate between he and myself. He allowed me three days to prepare and it was probably the hardest studying I had ever done in my academic career. We debated, he made his points and I made mine. In the end, he conceded defeat and thanked me for correcting his mistake.

His forearms were heavily scarred...a testament of a battle fought long ago with fire. In learning more about him, I discovered that when WWII broke out in Europe, he crossed the border into Canada and enlisted in the RAF before America was sucked into the war. He got those scars while piloting a Hawker Hurricane during The Battle of Britain. One of the most noteworthy features of that plane is that it took damage very well. In fact, it could still fly and fight while it was on fire, something my teacher found out first hand.

Even though he smoked heavily, the school administrators designated him to be the one to check for illicit smoking in the third floor boys restroom between classes. He felt it somewhat hypocritcal that he should turn in smokers when he, himself smoked so heavily. In the end, he figured out a way to do his job and maintain his integrity. He stood outside the boys room door between each period, coughed loudly and kicked the door for thirty seconds, then entered the boys room to see if he could catch anyone smoking...amazingly enough, he never did.

One of the greatest thing he insisted upon teaching us was to think for ourselves. The quickest way to get a mediocre or failing grade on an essay paper in his class was to parrot back an opinion he had offered. facts were facts, but when it came to opinion, you'd better have one of your own because he wasn't about to lend you one of his. I discovered that the best way to get an 'A' on any essay paper was to offer a well-researched and argued opinion contrary to his.

To say that the man was a hero of mine would be an understatement. Perhaps, you'll understand now why I don't mention his name when I tell you that I specifically went back to my high school after I served a mission to thank him and tell him what an influence he had on me only to discover that he was serving time in prison for child molestation.

The revelation turned my whole world upside down for quite some time. Nothing at all made sense and I wondered, for a while, what I could and could not trust. Thankfully, my father and I always had open lines of communication and in telling him my troubles, he wisely counselled me to keep that which was good in my memory and not dwell upon the bad.

"Every man is capable of both good and evil. In fact, a man cannot go very far in one of those directions without having the capacity to go just as far in the opposite".

That advice has stood me in good stead in my life. The thing is, I don't even know if my teacher was guilty because of the following story I am going to tell.

While serving as an Elders Quorum President, I had occasion to observe behavior in a little girl in our ward who exhibited many signs of having been a victim of molestation. I took my concerns to her mother who immediately implicated her husband, the child's stepfather.

The police were called and the man, who happened to be a friend of mine, was accused, tried and convicted and sent off to serve time in prison. I've designed many prisons and have visited all of them I can attest to the fact that the stories you hear about the treatment of child molesters in prison is absolutely true.

The years went by, the little girl grew up and graduated high school. I happened to be at her graduation and made it a point to go up and speak to her. I wanted to tell her how pleased I was that she had done so well through school and then, I don't know why, maybe because her stepfather was my friend, I broached the subject of her earlier life and expressed hope that she was faring well.

She looked at me with tears in her eyes and told me that it was all a lie. Her stepfather, my friend, had never touched her. In fact, she counted the time she spent with him as some of the happiest times of her life.

She had, in fact, been a victim. But the perpetrators were some men that her mother made friends with and had brought around to the house while my friend was at work. They were going through a divorce at the time and, when I asked about the daughter's strange behavior and expressed my fears, the girl's mom seized upon the opportunity to gain some leverage against her husband.

I felt as if ice water had replaced all of the blood in my body. The revelation that my friend had done nothing wrong and had spent the last five years in hell for it was beyond my comprehension. Worse still was the realization that I had unwittingly played a role in all of this by bringing up the matter in the first place.

All kinds of self doubt raced though me. Was I too quick to judge? Had I meddled where I ought not have? In the end, I realized that I was right about there being a problem, I just naturally assumed like everyone else that the source of that problem was the cliche that we all seem to accept.

A few years after the graduation, I was in Lowes and I spied my friend on one of the aisles. He had been released from prison. He is two years younger than me but he looked thirty years older. He had no teeth. His face was lined and scarred. His hair was thinning from malnutrition...

I went to him and begged his forgiveness for ever doubting him. I asked him to forgive me for the part I had played in his life turning out like it had. I half expected him to spit in my face or hit me or, at the very least, turn and walk away.

Instead, he embraced me and for five minutes we were the strangest sight ever seen in Lowes...two men embracing each other in the electrical department weeping like babies.

Given all of that, I hope you'll all understand why I try and give anyone accused of a horrible crime or sin the benifit of the doubt...and why I always try and keep the good things they brought to me and not worry so much about the bad.

I don't know what Michael Jackson did or didn't do. I do know that all of the jokes about what he might have done aren't very funny...and I do like his music.