One of the challenges of living in Chicago, especially if you’re raising children here, is trying to figure out where your child will go to high school. I won’t bore you with all the details of how this works, but we attended a high-school fair a few weeks ago to look at the possibilities. Our son loves theater so we were particularly focused on schools that have strong arts programs. We were talking to representatives from one high school from the north side of the city and they were sharing about the various artists and musicians who have visited the high school in recent years, including the cellist Yo-Yo Ma. It’s hard not to be a fan of Yo-Yo Ma and so when the representative said, “Let me tell you about Yo-Yo Ma,” I was afraid something negative was going to be uttered next.
Instead, he said, “He’s as gracious and warm as you’d hope he would be.” Whew, I thought. I pondered that response later. What if the person said that Yo-Yo Ma was a jerk? Would that affect how I felt about his music? Would I still be able to enjoy one of our favorite Christmas albums? Would his persona affect the beauty of his music?
I was reading Psalm 146 last week and one verse kept sticking with me: “Don’t trust leaders; don’t trust any human beings–there’s no saving help with them!” (from the Common English version).This was particularly poignant during the week of the elections, but I also thought of people that I’ve looked up to, but who have also disappointed me because, well, they’re human. And I realize too often that I put too much stock in the acceptance and approval of leaders and, as the psalm says, human beings.
The psalmist gives us a better plan: “The person whose help is the God of Jacob–the person whose hope rests on the Lord their God–is truly happy!” No other person, no matter how talented, beautiful, funny or inspiring they are, no other person is our saving help. God can work and show love through them, to be sure, but my faith should not be significantly altered because someone else disappoints. It’s not always that easy, of course. It’s tempting to put all our hope in another person. But I find when I truly believe that my saving help is the One who was with me when I was born and who will be with me when I die, I’m able to see the spark of the divine in every failed and fractured person I meet.