A Time to Grow Up!

Cartoonist Bill Keane, the creator of Family Circus, had a long running gag about how children often try to escape blame with the words, "Not me!"  Who made this mess?  Not me!  Who ate the last cookie?  Not me!  Who broke this vase?  Not me!  Keane even drew a little ghost figure that would appear in the comic with the words "Not me!" inscribed on its chest.  Sort of a Caspar the Blameless Ghost.

The one panel comic found its humor in the everyday issues of family life, and as a result often brought a smile to the face of readers.  And almost every parent can identify with the truth of the "Not Me" ghost.  Children will do most anything, it seems, to either escape blame or pass it along to someone else.  I know as a kid, more than once I said, "I didn't do it--Bob did it!"  Or, "it's not my fault, Mark made me do it!"  But I was a child--just like Billy and Jeffy and PJ and Dolly in Bill Keane's cartoon.  And so such behavior can be understood, and sometimes

even excused.  But a time does come when such behavior is no longer acceptable.  A time does come when you need to grow up and take responsibility for your actions--good, bad or otherwise.

I must admit, I don't always fess up when I've made a mistake.  Sometimes, in much subtler ways, I still conjure up the "Not me" ghost.  But for the most part, I have tried to be honest and have taken responsibility for my decisions, or lack of decisions, for my actions or lack of action.  I'm not perfect, but I am constantly working on it, and trying to own up to who I am and what I have done.

That said, I wish I saw more of that in our governmental leaders.  Some are indeed handling things well.  But not all.  I wish I saw more willingness to own up to the mistakes that have been made in handling the pandemic. I'm not going to point fingers.  I am just saying, it's time to grow-up.  It's time to live by what St. Paul models in his famous chapter about love in First Corinthians.  "When  I was a child," writes the apostle, "I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways." (13:11)