As the fascination with the illicit love life of Tiger Woods winds down, I thought I would weigh in with a few brief thoughts on how these sorts of things happen.
For those of you who do not know, apparently Tiger Woods barreled out of his driveway early one morning, chased by his wife, and plowed into a fire hydrant before he crashed into a tree. In the following days a handful of women came forward with admissions and evidence to show that they had been extra-marital lovers of Tiger Woods.
Tiger later dropped out of a golf tournament he sponsors. At that tournament most of the golfers were asked by the media for their opinions on the breaking news about Tiger’s personal life. Most of them gave the diplomatic answer — “That’s none of our business”.
I think they’re right. I think there are certain matters that need to be kept within the family. Still, keeping things in the family does not mean keeping them in the dark.
It is certainly true that the personal life of Tiger Woods is not my business or yours. However, Tiger’s personal life needs to be someone’s business besides his own. Surely Tiger’s choices to find intimacy outside the home affected his life and his demeanor in ways that someone close to him could have or should have noticed. I would even be willing to wager that Tiger’s unhealthy behavior started before he strayed.
We all need someone, or some people, close enough to notice the unhealthy behavior when it begins. Someone close enough to challenge us to deal with the issues in our life that drive us to unhealthy behavior.
Authentic community means living in the light. We are called to live in such a way that we would never be embarrassed to have a stranger parse through our text messages and internet history. But we are not meant to live that life alone. Integrity is not easy. It requires help.
Sometimes we need the whole world to see our mistakes before we can allow our closest friends to know who we are enough to hold us accountable to being the person we are meant to be. Tiger’s personal life may not be my business, but it needs to be someone’s business besides Tiger’s.
