I would like to veer off my normal route for a moment, and talk a bit about former tennis champion Andre Agassi and his recently released book, Open. In it, he addresses his ambivalence about playing tennis, his failed relationships, his use of methamphetamine, and how he lied to get around a drug test failure so that he wouldn’t be suspended from playing. I’ve watched casually from the sidelines the reactions to the revelations in his book, with many people saying they are disappointed in him, and even going so far as saying he should give back some of the titles he won.

I will admit that I am a huge Andre Agassi fan. I think he is one of the greatest tennis players I have ever watched; I would go out of my way to tune in if he was playing in a big match. He is one of the fiercest competitors I have ever witnessed, up there in Michael Jordan territory as far as determination, grit, and ultimate will to win. I once happened to stand behind him in a security line at an airport, and I still kick myself for not shaking his hand (I tend to be shy, and I didn’t want to bother him). He remains, in my eyes, a true champion.

What gets lost in all this recent judging of him is that he is very happy: happily married to former champion Steffi Graf, and a happy father, and a happy person. When asked by a TV interviewer how he justifies his behaviour, his answer was quite simply (I’m paraphrasing), “Well, I don’t.” Notice the use of the word ‘justify’ by the interviewer: same prefix as judge, judgment, jury. It’s like the interviewer is saying to him, “Please explain to the court how you managed to be so human!”

I applaud Andre for having the courage to tell his truth his way. He is free. Notice how the world fears a free man? Because if a man like Andre can be free, one of you might get the idea that it’s a good idea too. Freedom of the heart is the most dangerous thing in the world.

Sure, they’ll attack him for how he won; that assumes that the guy across the court wasn’t on any number of things. Sure, they’ll attack him for making money, while they charge for commercials in between the interview segments. Sure, they’ll say he is a fraud, a charlatan, inauthentic. Yet, ‘they’ forget it is they who are inauthentic in feeling it is their right to judge.

Measure this man, Andre Agassi, by the total of his deeds, and, by the way, he has not stopped creating who He is in this world. I do not believe in moral absolutists, for they try to play God with the so-called ‘facts’. Let God judge us all while we judge how one man has made it from Here to There.

I for one am happy for him.