Lance: Forgiven

I took a few days to let the smoke settle after the Lance Armstrong interview to give my final assessment.  I had many productive and informative discussions with a variety of individuals regarding Armstrong.  Nearly everyone saw this day coming and throughout the whirlwind, no one seems to be surprised.

The final stages of the "unconstitutional witch hunt," as Armstrong called it, resulted in mountains of eye witness testimony that slowly changed the minds of American sports fans last summer and it became only a matter of time for all of the wheels fell off the proverbial wagon, and now they finally have.  It wasn't a sudden event that broke the news (like the Tiger Woods scandal, for instance), so Lance's fall from grace was gradual and his supporters drew their conclusions over time.  This allowed for people to cope with this mess and put everything in perspective.  Then, he did the interview with Oprah.

It's difficult to understand why Lance took the opportunity to do this interview.  Was it to be forgiven?  To start forgiving himself?  To make money?  To move on?  To control the narrative?  No one really knows.  Oprah asked him directly, however, his answer didn't reveal much.  I can only speculate it was a combination of many of those things.  Regardless of the motive, I believe it is time to move towards forgiveness.  Not because Lance Armstrong deserves to be forgiven, but because we've been forgiven (and we didn't deserve to, either).

It is possible to forgive Lance Armstrong for what he did.  And we all should.  He made a series of mistakes, admitted to them, [half-heartedly] has asked for forgiveness and is apparently moving in the opposite direction of those mistakes.  It meets the checklist, forgive him.

I had been wrestling with the idea of what it might look like if we all forgave Lance Armstrong.  Then I was humbled by the child-like faith of my 4-year old son Isaiah and realized what it ends up looking like is irrelevant.   During an overdramatic scene in our kitchen that involved two boys interested in the same wooden train, Isaiah was adamantly pleading his case to me when I explained to him that everything was going to be alright and that he needed to forgive his brother.  I'm sure he doesn't fully understand this concept, however, I explained to him that when someone does something that is 'naughty,' then admits they were naughty, says they're sorry and that they won't do it again, then we should forgive them because Christ has forgiven us.   It was text book parenting and an opportunity to teach one of life's precious principles, even if he's too young to grasp it.  Then, I remembered: more is caught than is taught and if my children are going understand how to forgive others, then they certainly need to see their dad demonstrating those words.

Is it any different when it comes to pre-school kids taking toys from each other and world class athletes breaking the rules?   I can just see the conversation taking place:

"Daddy, did he say he was naughty?  Did he say he was sorry and won't do it again?  Then you should forgive him, right, Daddy?"

"Right, son.  I should forgive him."

Forgiveness doesn't mean we dismiss accountability or that there aren't consequences for our actions.  Lance Armstrong is, and should be, banned from competition - probably for the rest of his life.  He will never carry the respect or platform of a champion athlete and will likely never get the opportunity or privilege to be a role model ever again.  In fact, Lance Armstrong is done.  He's over.  He'll always be a celebrity, but his fame is finished.  His legacy as an athlete has ceased to exist.  People won't tell their children about this once great champion.  We'll move on and forget about him entirely, much the same people have done about other scandalous figures in sports like Danny Almonte, Clem Haskins, Ben Johnson, Tonya Harding, etc.  There aren't many teenagers who recognize those names.  My children will know very little of Lance Armstrong 10 years from now because I'm not going to be talking about his greatness.  There are consequences for what he did, but he is forgiven.