playing with fire

My mom told me not to play with fire when I was younger or I would wet the bed. Can you imagine anything worse than being 8, on a campout, and waking up with a soggy sleeping bag? I managed to quell any desire to stick inanimate objects in the flames and watch them crackle because I knew the potential consequences wouldn’t make it worth it.

I think this is a good analogy for what’s going on these days.

Think Governor Mark Sanford, Steve McNair. Both caught up in affairs. One infidelity led to disgrace, one led to death. Death!

I heard on the radio yesterday that the rush of a new relationship, of falling for someone, creates a physical sensation of pleasure by releasing dopamine:

Dopamine is commonly associated with the pleasure system of the brain, providing feelings of enjoyment and reinforcement to motivate a person proactively to perform certain activities. Dopamine is released by naturally rewarding experiences such as food, sex, drugs, and neutral stimuli that become associated with them…Dopamine is closely associated with reward-seeking behaviors, such as approach, consumption, and addiction. Recent researches suggest that the firing of dopaminergic neurons is a motivational substance as a consequence of reward-anticipation. This hypothesis is based on the evidence that, when a reward is greater than expected, the firing of certain dopaminergic neurons increases, which consequently increases desire or motivation towards the reward. {wikipedia}

Last night Steve McNair’s murder was classified as a murder suicide. Makes me wonder, at what point if any he paused to think, what the hell am I doing, a married man, running around with a girl 16 years younger than me who just turned 20, who just got a DUI but told the officer she wasn’t drunk but high, when as a former NFL MVP I have a wife and four kids at home. Or did this ever cross his mind.

Metro Police think he was killed in his sleep, two shots to the head and two to the chest. Maybe he never thought twice. But one moment of weakness led to another, when as Taylor Swift sings, he should’ve said no, he should’ve gone home, he should’ve thought twice before he let it all go. Because he did let it all go. He lost his life, his future, his sterling reputation.

People are very quick to defend him, saying, no one is perfect, and let he who is without sin cast the first stone, that he was a great man, a community leader. God’s grace extends to all of us, because we are all fallen and we all are in desperate need of grace. But it cannot be ignored that Steve McNair IS DEAD because of the decisions he made, the lines he crossed, the woman he ran around with behind his wife’s back. Because he strayed, he is in the grave.

One columnist or letter to the editor said that it’s sad if Steve is our society’s definition of a great man, which I agree with, because in order to be great, shouldn’t you have integrity, or is that not as important as how many touchdown passes you can throw?

He wasn’t the first and won’t be the last to stray, but it should taint his image because it is no minor transgression, and people should learn from his mistake and see what DEVISTATING effects straying from the marriage bed can have and does have even if the cheater doesn’t get killed, instead of using the copout “well no one’s perfect.”

Temptation is very real, as dopamine – a chemical reaction in the brain – produces pleasure and motivation to pursue the goal (new relationship, sex, more thrills with this person), but shouldn’t the mark of a great man he who can stand strong against temptation?

Saying ‘yes’ to one person means saying ‘no’ to everyone else.

That’s what I’ve heard Jesus means when he says “let your yes be yes and your no be no.”

The potential consequences don’t make it worth it to play with fire. They just don’t.

You said that you’d take it all back
Given one chance
It was a moment of weakness and you said yes
You should’ve said no
Should’ve gone home
Should’ve thought twice before you let it all go
{Taylor Swift, Should’ve Said No}