All of my life, I have been jolted into seeing that I am sometimes blind, and ignorant and arrogant. I am getting older, and I know now that few of us really see the world clearly, or know as much as we think we know. We live in delusion and hubris.  This awakening, this realization, has led me to the path of self-awareness and discovery. But the shocks and the jolts keep coming.

In the last two weeks several people I know well, a colleague and a close friend, have been named by former employees as the crudest and most malignant kind of sexual predators, people who use their power to expose themselves in front of  women, touch them in abusive and unwanted ways, pressure them for sex in exchange of work, stick their tongues down their throats, and more, I can hardly bear to list all of the accusations.

This were men I knew, worked alongside, respected, even revered,  as honest and truth-telling journalists, people I admired, emulated, wanted to be, people who taught me. They were the kind of people corrupt and greedy politicians always hate. They were, to me, incorruptible and clear-headed.

But today, they stand for something different.

They have admitted  to the truth of the accusations against them, left their jobs or been driven from them in disgrace. I won’t pretend I know what to make of it or how, really, to respond on a personal level. Are they still friends? Can I still respect their work and honor their lessons?

How is it possible I thought I knew them so well and didn’t really know them at all? Is their just punishment ruin and banishment from the workplace? Should they go to jail? I have made many awful mistakes in my life, but never one like that.

I value loyalty very much, but I value decency and compassion more. Hannah Arendt has no words or thoughts to guide me this time, this is something new for me to sort out by myself. I have to like what I see in the mirror.

Using one’s power to dominate a weaker or more vulnerable human being is one of the lowest things human beings can do, not something for me to shrug off as one of life’s odd experiences, or as something men of a different generation learned to do, or that everybody did. Not good enough.

On top of everything else, they were extreme hypocrites, the lowest form of life, they exposed and ruined people again and again for lesser crimes than this.

It wasn’t as if everybody thought sexual predation was right.

I knew it was wrong, and so did many other men and women I knew.

It was not something everybody did, or knew about or condoned. Yet I am not sure how the same person who abuses people in this way can be an ethical, perceptive and honest journalist. I just can’t put it all together in a way that make sense to me.

I hate to run away from people running from a mob, even a righteous one, but something inside of me keeps me from going to them either. They have betrayed many people in a profound way, me least of all.  The young men and women who came to me looking for work were a sacred trust, futures and lives depended on treating them fairly and honestly.

But I don’t care for life sentences, and never trust a mob.  it is also true that compassion only goes to the worthy and the good? I have written otherwise many times. Can my money find my mouth?

A reader named Alison sent me a message this morning reminding me of one of my favorite Thomas Merton quotes, she said my life and Maria’s life reflect Merton’s words “and I am always grateful to you both for sharing your process and the resulting gifts.”

I appreciated those words this morning, my faith in own perceptions and values was a bit shaken.

“It is true,” wrote Merton, “that we are called create a better world. But we are first of all called to a  more immediate and exalted task: that of creating our own lives.”

I have been creating my own life for a long time, and I still have a good and long ways to go. I do not aspire to a perfect life, a good and meaningful one will do. I wonder if sometimes a human being has to shed their skin like a snake and give rebirth to themselves over and over again. I used to think we would get there one day, now I know we are always on the way.

Life calls me to keep learning and keep changing, to see new experiences as a gate rather than a door, something to walk through to the other side, not a locked door to keep me out.

I wonder if those friends wish to speak with me, if they are lonely and frightened, if the good parts of them have survived. If they are truly ashamed and regretful. I believe that I will go to them, when I can,  and ask if there is anything I can do to help.