Eliot Spitzer

Well, it looks like the Eliot Spitzer events are wrapping up.

I don’t know about international readers, but those of us who live in the United States have been flooded with news about the scandal revolving around former New York governor Eliot Spitzer.

Of course, when I say news, I mean constant analysis and opinions of the events, not updates.

For those of you who haven’t heard about this, the story is that the governor of New York, Eliot Spitzer, was “linked” to a prostitution ring, causing a public outcry.

One phrase that I’ve noticed being used frequently is “fall from grace.” I want to examine this. True, Eliot Spitzer was a man with a bright future, maybe even with plans to run for president someday. None of that will be realized now. He has effectively thrown his future away for fleeting pleasures.

He has lost the office of governor and has turned public opinion against him. However, he has not fallen from grace. God’s grace is not for when we are on top of the world, and everything is going right. It’s not for the high-and-mighty, holier-than-thou ruler who ruthlessly crusades against corruption. It’s for the weak, the sinful, the fallen. It’s for the small, willful child we all know ourselves to be, deep down inside.

None of us are better than Eliot Spitzer. He has thrown away his a promising political career and his reputation for a pleasure so brief as a prostitute. We, in our own, personal sinful acts, throw away eternal life. Thank God He has grace; even though we keep throwing his gift away, he keeps giving it back to us.

Not that I’m implying that, by using the phrase “fall from grace,” the media is seriously suggesting that Eliot Spitzer lost the divine forgiveness of God, instead of merely using an overused cliché. However, it does lead to some interesting thoughts.

I think C. S. Lewis said it pretty well:

“If we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”