A number of years ago I was told to meet two “money guys” at an expensive social club in Philadelphia. I was earning money in politics at that point. I’d started off just writing press releases and speeches but I got in pretty deep pretty fast and I’ll admit I liked it. High stakes at high speeds can be addictive. I can’t remember how long ago this particular night was but I know I was still drinking so it was at least six years ago.
I knew my job. It wasn’t to walk out of the meeting with money but it was to make sure that the guy who called or met them the next day would. I would laugh at their jokes but not too loudly. I would drink but not enough to lose control. I would tell stories because if there’s one thing people love it’s a little inside dirt. It makes them feel part of it all. And when the moment was right I’d tell them how grateful we’d be for some help. Half the job was picking the right moment. So I drank and laughed and waited.
While eating dinner the two money guys, who’d been strangers before that night, learned of an acquaintance they had in common. They both knew the same girl. From their description she sounded young, beautiful and kind. They described her with a kind of awe. One said he’d been “chasing” her for weeks and added, “I finally took her down last week.” Then they high-fived. Two men in suits high-fived and then they laughed the kind of laugh that made me want to run for an emergency exit.
He meant “took her down” as in a National Geographic documentary. The strong preying on the weak. I sat there stunned. I think that moment scared me more than anything I’d ever heard before or even read. In history books you can read about wars and infamous acts of man’s inhumanity towards man but it’s hard to feel it. This scared me more. Two normal successful men talked about a girl as prey.
As a father of daughters it scared me. As a father of a son it scared me even more. Would my son who is trying to balance a soccer ball on his head talk about women as prey? Was that accepted? Expected?
I was horrified at these two men. But I didn’t say anything. I probably even smiled. And drank and waited.
When I left them that night I congratulated myself for closing the deal. We’d be getting checks the next day. I was sure that I’d get high fives the next day in the office. Why? Because I waited until the right moment…and then I pounced. I took them down. I left after one of the money guys left because you never leave them together talking. Too much can go wrong. You don’t want them talking about you. You wait until at least one leaves. That night I left one guy at the club, knowing he was drunk, knowing he had his keys in his pocket, and knowing that he’d been arrested for DUI’s in the past. I walked out because the job was done. I still don’t know how he got home. But I know we got a check the next day.
It didn’t hit me that night that I was guilty of the same thing that horrified me-using others for my own gain. I’ve always been a slow learner that way. But eventually it hit me and I look back on that night often. That night had an impact on me that I’m still sorting through. I was a Christian already but I guess not much of one. It changed my life not all at once but in that way where you at least suddenly realize you’re lost. You don’t necessarily turn around right away but at least you slow down and start wondering how the heck you got where you are and start thinking about where it is you eventually want to be.
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Wow, what a powerful story. Definitely something to ponder in our own lives.
Glad you found your way. God must have wanted you very badly-you were so close to the edge, the darkness was surrounding you-yet by His grace you were pulled back. A miracle. Even if it took a while to see the light, it is a miracle. Thanks for sharing.
Thank you, Matt, for helping us all to relook at ourselves by the light of Christ. Only then can we truly see ourselves as we really are. God bless!!
Matt, that was a great lesson for all of us. Yes, you confronted evil face to face in the person of those two, seemingly sophisticated and normal fellows. I hope I always remember that all forms of such dirty dealing is truly evil and not just clever business.
I been in your shoes, having worked in sales and a brief stint in State politics. I know what you mean and I also regret all those years where already a Christian I participated in that awful environment. The gossip, the backstabbing, the mockery, the lack of charity, the ambition that makes people step over others and yes the sexual predator mentality of many men (and some women too). The Lord found me too and now am in the process of changing my life.
Thank you for sharing that powerful story,
Rudy
No doubt the check was for a Republican cause - the party of greed and corruption.
Matt, thank you for this post. It’s a beautiful offering to us, your readers, on the Feast Day of Our Lady of Fatima. She holds the hand of each penitent as we pray, “Forgive us our trespasses….”
Thank you for sharing that with us. It is a scary truth about the world we live in.
I think if we are honest, we can all see ourselves in that story. I know I can. That’s why we have the need for continual conversion.
Awesome sharing, Matt. Thanks!!
Excellent, Matt. Very powerful. Thank God for the grace to see what was happening to you and allowing you to turn around and go down the path toward home.
Matt - You and I would be good friends if we ever met in person. We have some similar experiences and moments of grace.
This really impacted me….I have seen men do that….I used to be young, considered beautiful and cared for the poor….
Coming out of the ‘60’s…I was told by a college tutor in our program, when I turned 18 to renounce my virginity and the Catholic Church….always the put down on my faith…men, if they couldn’t lay you, atleast mess up your mind…..the guilt trips….
These creeps are now running the world…..
Passing this on to my husband and daughters….
May Jesus bless you all and may this Feast of our Beautiful Lady of Fatima watch all over us now and always. God bless you.
W O W!!! Thank you for writing this letter. Through your witness my eyes have been opened. Thank you!
I wonder if Democrats, especially Catholics, will ever see themselves in that light - using others for their own self-aggrandizement.
I know what you mean. I’ve heard college-educated men talk about hookups as “search and destroy missions”. Yeah, sexual freedom has increased respect for women so much. </sarcasm>
Sometimes you just have to break with some things and trust in the promises of God.
<<<>>
No group has the exclusive on bad behavior. I was thinking more along the lines of: Well this isn’t just about men and women and predatory behavior. This also is a HUGE statement about our culture….whoever has the funds to pay (however it is acquired) gets the message out….....Boy do we EVER need a SAVIOR.
My earlier comment was in response to this but it didn’t print———
No doubt the check was for a Republican cause - the party of greed and corruption.
It is ad that some bring politics into this beatiful life coversion. It doesn’t matter who the checks were written to, it’s the fact it changed the author’s life and that is a good thing!!!!
Thank you for this post. May all parents protect their own modesty and that of their children for, in this culture, women are just meat. God help us!
Very thought provoking, my brain is still mulling this over. Sad that people have to act this way—trying to use one another for selfish gains, but to wake up to and change is to bring good out of evil.
@ Rose Anne Bolfing
Your comment printed twice. Do you think that Democrats don’t raise money in similar or even more underhanded ways?
Sometimes the Diogenes in each of us is suprised to see, by the light of our dim lamp, an honest man - a man who can see evil in himself, name it, and leave it behind.
Rose Anne Bolfing=Rick=troll
Please do not feed the troll.
I’ve had similar experiences where an event grows in importance and winds up causing a profound change over time. God is pretty busy in situations like that, huh?
I read blogs too much & this is one of the most outstanding posts I’ve ever read. Really. I wish it would get wider circulation because it speaks to the heart about Conversion, which we’re all in need of…very inspiring!
But I knew before I even read the comments that someone somewhere would miss the point & try to turn this into a political statement. Sigh.
That still small voice…come Holy Spirit, fill the consciences of the faithful.
Jesus Christ took up the cause for Justice with Mary Magdalene. Mary was prey. Mary’s life was now in the hands of those who lusted for it. Where was the man taken in adultery with her as required by Mosaic Law? Male predators live as though their own virginity and sexual integrity and moral virtues do not exist, as though their own soul does not exist. Socrates said so many years ago: “The unexamined life is not worth living.” Having discarded their own sexual integrity, viginity and decency, these demons roam the world seeking the ruin of souls.
@Rick, May 13 9:56AM (EDT) Please stop campaigning. Justice is giving every person what he deserves. Every person is entitled to proclaim his love for God in the public square. Every person is entitled to be born after he is begotten through the will of God and the actions of the two who become one. Every person is entitled to be acknowledged for his sovereign personhood and every person is entitled to be recognized as a sovereign person by the state. Every person is entitled to have his unalienable civil rights held in trust for him by God, by his parents and by the state, in that order. The Catholic Church is a legal sovereign person, registered and ratified by the secular state as a non-profit organization, a legal trust for all future generations, all future generations who will be communicants of the Body of Christ and constituents of the state. A politician is an individual who takes the opportunity to serve himself. A statesmen is a person who takes the opportunity to serve the common good and bears witness to our founding principles. Democrat or Republican who deny, repudiate or ignore our founding principles are not only not leaders, they are not citizens.
A statesmen is a person who takes the opportunity to serve the common good and bears witness to our founding principles. Democrat or Republican who deny, repudiate or ignore our founding principles are not only not leaders, they are not citizens.
Amen, Mary! Very well said!
MaryDeVoe raised a valid point: this isn’t a moment for “campaigning” or scoring partisan/ideological points at the expense of the “other side” we don’t care for. This was a contemporary parable, meant to teach us all of us something.
It’s one thing for us to snicker at the major sins and foibles of Gingrich, Schwarzenegger and most recently, that French politician picked up for attempted rape in NYC. The tragedy of those events, however particularly and deeply painful for the immediate victims involved, they also spread much wider and last longer than most of us can possibly realize.
Not being a keen student of EURO finance politics, I’m not one to comment on whether or not this Frenchman who headed the IMF was the best man for the office he holds and/or better suited to be France’s next president, where his Socialist Party was counting on him to run against and defeat Pres. Sarkozy. But think of the previous victims that are now talking. Add to this the millions of disappointed fellow party members now left with a gaping hole in their top ranks, not to mention one in their hearts and guts. It matters not a whit if you’re a socialist or whatever-ist, when a person holding on to a position of significance and trust betrays that trust so many others have placed him him, not only does this become a loss for that party and country, but the necessary business of representative democracy everywhere free people are able to exercise their rights to vote.
What’s next? More cynicism and disillusion, followed by massive apathy and who knows, one day the electorate might just decide to allow a discretely fascist or politburo style of government take over the running of their respective countries, just so long as the government’s coffers are filled, people are equally taken care of at birth and in their final days, there’s a healthy respect and spirit of cooperation between the public sector and religious institutions, free health care, education/job training is free, all cultural events are free and the arts are fully supported w/o censorship, strong industrial, agricultural and commercial bases, jobs aren’t outsourced to foreign nations, the environment is properly cared for, hardly any crime, “trains run on time,” jobs are available, the streets are clean and stores stocked with affordable items and everybody gets to live the “good life.”
Lest I forget, those who l ove their television shows sans interruptions from politicians telling you so and so is a creep and can’t be trusted with a thin dime or your daughters…don’t worry, they’ll be replaced by plenty of pet food commercials and blaring ads paid for by local auto, furniture, etc., to take up the slack; not to mention those other blaring “house ads” promoting the next “hilarious” episode of “Three and a third women.”
A wishlist of sorts for all: liberals…moderates…conservatives! Correct? Well, why not? So long as everybody gets their way and no obstacles such as good taste, never mind moral objections and standards to wrestle with or tax one’s ever-sensitive minds/souls, we’ll all get along fine. Looks great, doesn’t it?
But ... what if I’m wrong, and this isn’t so heavenly, or even so humanly well-thought out, what happens then after we’ve scrapped the very apparatus for making changes through clean and peaceful means?
This is what [personal] corruption does not only to people, but to local, state, regional, national and international politics. It used to be said that while Tammany Hall, notorious for its corrupt ward heelers who were reputed to have snagged every cut they could on public contracts ... had a code of conduct that was inviolable. If a ward boss cheated/beated or in other ways mistreated his wife; likewise harshly mistreat and neglect their children, not to mention risk earning the ire of the Church for neglecting their kids spiritual formation, they were out pounding the pavement. Their wives and kids would be protected, but they were on their own and their sorry reputation would follow them to other city bosses. This wasn’t a Mafia style mob. Nobody was killed or maimed for life. But they were scarred for life because it was held…and rightly so…that if they couldn’t be trusted with their own families’ welfare, how could the Hall entrust them to care for so many needs of all the many other needier men who’d take their places in a heartbeat; and deservedly so?
Hopefully nobody will suspect I’m advocating for an acceptance of economic corruption just because it appears on the surface to be less sordid or “messy.” Let’s never forget what a crooked inspector can do to undermine the public’s trust when buildings collapse and the buildings they were supposed to inspect weren’t and it turns out they were paid off to ignore the deficiencies. Experience food poisoning from a bad meal while dining out? Undoubtedly others find more egregious examples of corruption and its lasting negative effects; and perhaps do an even better job of pointing out where the personal/familial corruption spills into the official kind.
We all suffer when the personally and financially greedy sides of people overtake their “better angels” and become their predominating modus operandi. Sometimes that suffering can come in psychologically scarring events such as what happened to a Federal Courtroom in Boston almost 40 years ago when a top state engineer was found guilty of federal corruption charges, only to pull a pistol out of his briefcase and blow his brains out. I saw the aftermath the following day, little circles around where brain matter was picked up by forensic experts. It fell to loving family members, friends, co-workers, understanding acquaintances and greater Boston’s respective clerics, psychiatrists/psychotherapiststo pick up the rest of the pieces.
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