“World-acclaimed illusionist” Roy Horn goes to work on Friday evening, October 3, 2003, amid a “celebrative atmosphere.”
It is his 59th birthday, and more than a thousand friends have just thrown him a huge party.
And now an audience of fifteen hundred people “waits excitedly” inside the Mirage Hotel for a show – Horn and his partner are about to give.
Since the late sixties, Siegfried Fischbach and Roy Horn’s high energy performances with “wild animals” have earned them such an “international reputation” they are known simply by their first names—Siegfried and Roy.
About halfway into the performance, Horn appears in the spotlight with a six-year-old white male tiger in a routine he has performed hundreds of times.
Suddenly, “Horn slips on stage.”
His “loss of footing” startles the 600-pound animal, causing it to lunge at him.
In self-defense, the illusionist attempts to beat the animal away with his hand-held microphone.
The audience “gasps” as the tiger grabs Horn by the neck, and drags him offstage like “a limp rag doll.”
Stage-crew members use fire extinguishers to distract the animal and free Roy.
Rushed to a local hospital, Roy undergoes emergency surgery to save his life.
In thousands of performances over 35 years, Horn evades the dangers of his trade.
Yet, one night, “in an unexpected loss of footing,” his career (and nearly his life) is lost.
A few nights after the tragic accident, Larry King interviews Horn’s partner.
As Siegfried Fischbach attempts to explain what went wrong, two little words stand out as the primary cause.
“Roy slipped”. “Roy slipped,” and it cost him dearly.
We sometimes use that kind of analogy to explain our response to temptation. “I slipped.”
Or, “I fell.”
I didn’t mean to; I can’t help myself.
God knows I’m weak in that area of my life; why does he allow me to be tempted?
Did you catch the “deflection?”
To “deflect” something is to “divert it,” “avert it,” “sidetrack it,” to “fend it off,” to “distract” from something else…
“Why does HE allow “me” – to be tempted?”
It is not “my fault.”
It is “his” fault.
Blame God. Blame someone else. Deflect that sin, that error, that “fall from grace.”
I am, after all, “only human.”
“I can’t help myself!” is another common deflection of sorts!
I can’t be responsible for everything!
Do I look like I am all powerful?
I do not control the world.
Why are you playing the “blame game?”
I wish I had the “strength,” the “ability”…I wish I were “more capable”…it must be “a flaw” in the “original design!”
When in doubt, deflect!
Sometimes you just get “swept away.”
…“Caught up in the moment!”
Temptation you know, happens to us all…I cannot be the ONLY ONE!
Tell me that you never “gave into” temptation! Tell me that you never slipped and fell…
(More deflection)
Isn’t it God’s fault didn’t he start this whole temptation thing – way back in the garden of Eden?
After all he is the one who told Adam and Eve that they could not eat of the fruit of that one tree.
It is a natural human response. A natural human reaction. You say, “No!”
And I say, “Why not?”
Don’t we often say that one little time is not going to hurt anything?
I’d bet anything that the guy with the “six-year-old white male tiger” was probably wearing “new shoes.” Good shoes. Leather shoes. The bottoms on new shoes like that can be very slippery.
I hope they sue the shoe manufacturer. It probably wasn’t his fault either!
People slide, people slip, people fall, it happens, it does…
Giving into one little temptation doesn’t make you a bad person does it?
Come on man, what’s the big deal, here, temptations come and temptations go, sometimes we get caught up in the moment and sometimes we do not.
It’s no big thing, really!
We’ve all had our moments of weakness when trying to control ourselves; eating that donut on your diet, losing your temper with your kids, becoming upset when you’re doing your best not to. It isn’t like we plan on these lapses in judgment. It’s more like they just sort of happen.
It’s not MY fault! Amen.