Where did we get this idea that to be admirable, you must never have erred?

That to be respectable, you must never have stumbled?

That to be honorable, you must never have been shameful?

I know people who reject even their own mother for holding “backwards” views on one issue. People who will deny anyone even a modicum of respect because of one mistake or slip of the tongue.

How sad.

All have sinned. And the magnitude of our sins is often directly proportionate to the magnitude of our efforts to improve ourselves and the world around us.

Our highest moral calling is not to find reasons to “cancel” each other, or to uncover every impure motivation behind each other’s convictions. Rather, it’s to purge our own hearts of these motivations, and to regard others as more important than ourselves.

“Fire and water do not mix. Neither can you mix judgment of others with the desire to repent. If a man commits a sin before you at the very moment of his death, pass no judgment, because the judgment of God is hidden from men. It has happened that men have sinned greatly in the open but have done greater deeds in secret, so that those who would disparage them have been fooled, with smoke instead of sunlight in their eyes.”

St. John Climacus