An Example?

Looked up the word 'example' from the online version of the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary.  Two of the definitions provided were:

a person or their behaviour that is thought to be a good model for others to copy

a person's behaviour, either good or bad, that other people copy

I looked around my life, people who are supposedly are above me, superior to me; and I am sad to see that often time, I don't see much of 'behaviour that is thought to be a good model'.  I used to have a health science teacher who was a chain smoker.  He would taught us about the danger of smoking, and then said to us, 'do as I preach, not as I do'.

The fact is, that was a hard-sell from my health science teacher, especially when he was 'preaching' to a class of eager-eyed 13-year-old who look up to their teachers as the wisest men and women in the world (now that I am an educator myself, I realised, sadly, that educators are often time the least sensible people, sigh.)

St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) in his Summa Theologica (circa 1266) propounded that built into ma's nature is a group of God-given 'inclinations' which allows us to differential between 'good' and 'bad' - which I read to mean that each of us, as God-created being, would be capable of knowing fully well whether each of our actions is good or bad.

Many a time, I find people whom are supposedly superior to me exhibiting behaviours that are obviously 'bad' (lie, cheat, fabricate, distorting truths, back-stab, bad-mouth... the list goes on and on), which as leaders, led to others copying and mimicking them.  After all, if my leader is doing so, why can't I, right?  Surely a leader couldn't say,' do as I expected you to, but not as I am doing', right?  How could a leader be bad and expect the followers to be good?

And what I see strikes fear in me.  In a way, I am a leader too.  I have been (at least professing to be) mentoring a relatively large group of teenage boys.  They (I hope) look up to me as their role model; they consult me when they face problems; they ask me for advise when they are confused; some of them even invite me to functions as stand-in of their parents (in the absence of their parents).

What kind of role model am I?  Are my behaviours, which my boys are copying, good or bad?  I can't say I have learnt a lot from people whom I look(ed) up to - though I do (still) have a handful of good role models and mentors of my own - and often time, people who I thought were great example of the fields that I am involved in have proven not to be good examples to follow.  So, what do I know about being an example?

Oh Lord, may it not be me that my boys are seeing, but You living through me that show forth.  May you block out all the bad thoughts, and botch out all the bad behaviours that come from the bad thoughts, so as not to let me be anything less than the role model these children of yours deserve.  In the glorious name of Jesus Christ I pray, Amen.