Over the past six days the life of Tiger Woods has been on display for the whole world to see and weigh in on. What would normally be a mostly private matter between a husband, wife and children, has been turned into a spectacle for the public and media to pass judgment on like parent to their children. All because of who he is, Eldridge aka Tiger Woods. Possibly the greatest golfer the world will ever know when his career is over. Many of the media outlets and columnist that have written about the “transgressions” that Tiger has admitted to, are calling his life a charade or a façade. Christine Brennan of USA Today, said “the image that Tiger so carefully presented on his website as a family man with pictures of his wife and beautiful children was a charade. We know this now because he cheated on his wife and those young children” My question is this, did Tiger paint that picture of himself, or was this the media and fans looking at him as this great “family” man. Also does this mean that he is not a family man, or that he loves his family because he made the stupid mistake of cheating on his wife? The fact that he cheated on his wife does not mean that he does not love his wife. It may simply mean that he fell to the temptations of his lust, and acted on it. So I think that it is totally a matter of passing judgment of his feelings and heart from the outside looking in. That seems to be the pattern whenever there is a celebrity or famous athlete that commits the same sins or transgressions that the everyday man may commit. We in society have made a point of putting these people on a mantle, and live our lives through them. This is why it is so hard for us to accept when they make the same mistakes that the average person makes. We place them in a status that causes us to worship them with god like affection. These people make millions of dollars because of the way we worship them. We buy the products that they endorse because their name is on it or they wear them. Because we see them on the commercials saying how great the product is, we pay more attention to them. But then we act as if they owe us something. Why do they owe us anything, we are not forced to buy the things we buy, or do the things that we do. That is strictly our decision because of the worship that we have for them. Living our lives through these people, so much that we totally forget that they are human! I am not justifying what Tiger Woods or any other celebrity or athlete has done that is legally or morally wrong. Wrong is wrong and sin is sin. We are not given the right to rank or qualify either of them. But we cannot continue to put these people on a pedestal to the point that we don’t believe they will do anything wrong. They are still human as we all are, which means they will make the same mistakes that Joe the butcher or Sam the bus driver. The only conviction that will dictate what they should or should not do is what is in their heart. Just like many normal people, this may dictated by what they feel they can get away with. But the thing that stops them from doing what is wrong is the reverence they have for the One that created their heart and fills it. Not by the people that place them above all others because of their talents or abilities…………