If no mortal can ever be perfect, should we even try to be good?

The company next door to my office moved last week, so I had to say goodbye to some people I’ve gotten to know pretty well.

When I arrived back at the office late in the day last Friday, I stopped to see how their move was going. Laura was the only one left in the office and she was loading her car with the last things from her desk. She was exhausted and she stopped to chat. Then I told her something I hadn’t planned to say.

“I’m going to miss you,” I told her. “Of all the people who’ve worked here over the years, you’ve been my favorite. This might sound strange, but it’s because you’re a really good person. I just want you to know that I can tell that about you.”

She was flattered and happy. She thanked me for telling her. The rest of our conversation just confirmed what I already thought about her. I walked away feeling glad that I had admitted what I’d seen in her.

I’ve been thinking about that conversation ever since then. What about Laura struck me strongly enough that I felt like telling her that I saw her as a “good person”? I wasn’t sure at first. But then it hit me.

It’s not that she’s perfect. She’s a pretty ordinary person. It’s simply that standards of morality, ethics and decency have fallen so far that a “good person” really stands out by comparison.

And that’s alarming to me.

I’m not sure popular culture even defines “good” as I do anymore.

I’m not talking about perfection. I’m certainly not claiming that people used to be perfect — or even that they used to be better people.

People have always lied and cheated. People have always treated each other badly. Churches have always had hypocrites. I’ve known plenty of them.

The difference I see is that people once seemed to understand that there was a standard they were supposed to be trying to meet. That distinction matters to me.

I’ve always wanted to be a good person. I’ve never thought that meant I was perfect. I struggle to love everybody. I get incredibly angry — in my head — at the “idiots” around me. I don’t always live up to my own standards for myself.

But I’ve always known what I thought was right and I’ve tried to live up to it. When I’ve failed, I’ve known that I failed.

I grew up around people who mostly seemed to understand morality that way. That was especially true in the church culture which influenced me so much. We knew we were imperfect, but we also knew that imperfection wasn’t an excuse to stop trying.

I’m not sure we still understand that distinction.

I see it in something as ordinary as cheating in school. Students cheated when I was young. I knew people who did it. But they knew it was wrong. They didn’t brag about cheating in a way that suggested the only people who didn’t cheat were suckers.

Among some of the teens I know today, there seems to be little stigma about cheating. If you can get away with it, why wouldn’t you do it? If somebody else refuses to cheat because he thinks it’s wrong, he’s the fool.

The cheating itself isn’t what interests me. People have always cheated. What bothers me is the loss of the idea that we ought to be better than that.

I see something similar in churches, and that bothers me even more.

Churches have always been full of imperfect people. They’ve always had hypocrites. My observation has been that if you look at the dominant religious group in any area, that’s where you’ll find most of the hypocrites.

But there’s a huge difference between failing to live up to a moral standard and deciding that human imperfection makes the standard meaningless.

Every day, there seem to be new stories about pastors and other church leaders who have done terrible things. In too many cases, the people around them seem more concerned with protecting the leader or the institution than with doing what’s right — rooting out what’s rotten and taking care of the people who’ve been hurt.

And when someone demands better, the response sometimes amounts to, “We’re all sinners.”

Of course we are. But that’s not an excuse.

Jesus said that no one is good except God alone. I’m not going to get bogged down in theology here, because that’s not the point I’m trying to make. I’m not talking about earning our way into heaven or pretending that any of us can achieve moral perfection.

I’m talking about how we choose to live around each other.

If I know I can never be perfect, does that mean I shouldn’t try to be good? If I know I’m going to fail sometimes, does that mean I shouldn’t have standards for myself?

I can’t accept that.

Being a good person has always been aspirational for me. I want to treat people well. I want to do what’s right even when nobody is watching. I want to be honest. I want to be decent. And when I fail at those things, I want to recognize that I’ve failed instead of changing the standard to excuse myself.

Maybe that’s what I saw in Laura.

I don’t know enough about her life to judge her character in some grand sense. I certainly don’t think she’s perfect. I know she isn’t, because none of us is.

But in all the little interactions I’ve had with her over the years, she has consistently struck me as someone who cares about treating other people well. She’s kind. She’s decent. She seems to have a moral center that guides the way she deals with people.

That shouldn’t be remarkable. But it has become remarkable enough that I felt compelled to tell her I had noticed.

A decent culture doesn’t require perfect people. It couldn’t have them even if it wanted them.

It requires ordinary, imperfect people who still believe they ought to be better than they are.