Hypocrite

I overheard a story a guy was telling in class a few days back. In P.E. class at our school they were scuba diving and in the last class a girl almost drown. She was swimming 12ft underwater when her harness slipped off and around her ankle. The air tank weighed her down as she struggled franticly to get to the surface and she had also inhaled some water. A kid on the side of the pool saw what was happening. He quietly mentioned to the person beside him (the person telling this story in class). Hey, is anyone going to do something? That girl is drowning. She finally got up and was sobbing horribly, she was blue, and was choking on water when the teacher pulled her out and got her medical attention. All was well and everything turned out ok. The person telling this story in my class started to rant about how much of a loser the guy was for just sitting there not doing anything or even bringing notice to the fact she was drowning.  Personally, I was upset with the guy who was telling the story. He didn’t do anything either.  A little later he said that he was thinking about going over to see if she was ok, but it was cold in the pool room and the water was warm. He didn’t want to get out of the water.

Now, this would normally outrage me and move me to write about what hypocrites the storyteller and the other one watching were. But something happened to me before class that day that made me view this from a slightly different perspective: Before I got into class, I was walking through freshman hall and right in front of me, this guy shoved a girl passing by into a locker. She hit the locker and almost fell down holding her head. I stood in shock and watched as she stood up punched the guy in the stomach and then they both laughed. Apparently, they were friends but I still felt horrible. Why didn’t I do something? Why did I just wait around to see what would happen instead of intervening and protecting her? Why didn’t that enrage me immediately and cause me to act?

Now, I started to get angry about the girl in P.E. class, but I started to realize that I was the kind of person that I despise the most. I’m the bi-stander with plenty of excuses not to get involved; I’m the one not to bring attention to the problem, and not stepping out of my comfort zone. I think a lot of us fall into this category. We don’t act because of several reasons:  either we don’t want to “get out of the warm pool” (our comfort zone) or we don’t want to have other people’s problems become our problems. Maybe it’s because we just don’t know what to do... that cannot be our excuse. What integrity does our Gospel have if we don’t back it up with our actions?

 Thoughts to ponder:  Am I a bi-stander or a defender of those who cannot defend themselves? Am I an on-looker or a rescuer? Am I someone who stands up for what’s right or am I only concerned about what’s right for me? I’ve been proven guilty and am ready to change. Are you?