Part 1:
When I was a child in Ozone Park, Queens, one of my favorite things to do on a Saturday afternoon was to bake brownies. While they were cooling I would go and hang out in the Catholic church up the street–St Mary Gate of Heaven. I know you’re thinking, “How weird.” It gets worse. I would watch people move in and out of the confessionals. Nervously, with resignation, they would approach only to emerge a short or long while later, somewhat relieved. Having been raised Episcopalian, such ritual was unknown to me. Our method of confession was a general prayer in which we all agreed we had sinned and asked for forgiveness. It was somewhat impersonal and as such, pretty much let me off the hook. Which I liked because, to speak honestly, I never appreciated the doctrine of original sin; that humans were sinners. Born sinners because human, and in need of saving. That may sound like the highest arrogance on my part, but really it comes out of a need to affirm and love myself; to believe in human goodness. I need to believe at least in the possibility of human goodness in order to have some measure of confidence for living in this world. I believe that humans are neither intrinsically good nor bad, but that we hold all the potential within us. We do terrible things; we do wonderful things, and everything in between. My hope and confidence lie in the potential and the power that is ours. No one else will bring goodness into this world. It is ours to do. That belief liberates me. Because I have seen us do it. Because I think we can. Because it is one of our most important tasks in this life.
To cultivate and harvest our potential for goodness requires that we honor the interconnections between us, and live according to them. It requires that we remember one another’s humanity and respect the unity that moves in and out of our diversity. To cultivate and harvest the potential for goodness that lies within each one of us requires that we have some measure of understanding of one another and understanding requires that we listen to one another with as open a mind and heart as we can muster. To cultivate and harvest the potential for goodness in us requires that we forgive one another. Before that, it requires that we forgive ourselves. Confession is a path toward forgiving ourselves. “For many people, the term ‘ confession’ conjures images of a dark wooden booth and whispering one’s sins to a priest through a screen. However, confession is really just an expression of remorse about the past and hope for the future – the process of telling our story.” (Aaron Murray-Swank) Through telling and hearing the story, we begin to make sense of ourselves and each other and even make meaning in our lives. We move ourselves along into more of who we want to be. My brownie cooling excursions of a Saturday afternoon come back as I realize, not only that a process of confession exists in many religious traditions beside the Roman Catholic, but why it exists; what purpose of forgiveness it serves. Often confession contains these steps: *A mindfulness of regret for what we have done. I say regret and not guilt because we can easily become caught in cycles of guilt and self-blame and thereby short-circuit the healing process of confession. William Sneck, a Jesuit and a psychologist, makes a distinction between what he calls healthy guilt, (what I call regret), and what he calls toxic guilt. He points out that “ healthy guilt is felt in proportion to the harm done. Healthy guilt is not fixated on the self, but reaches outward to address the harm that one has caused. Toxic guilt, however, ‘shifts the interior dialogue from actions to self-image: a person will harrangue himself or herself as blameworthy, bad, evil . . . emotions churn in self-destructive ways leading to depression and sometimes despair.’” (Aaron Murray-Swank) We get so fixated on how bad we are that we get stuck in it. Does any of this feel familiar?
*If and when we express regret, we take the next step of refraining from the action we regret. This may sound simple, but it isn’t. Have you ever found yourself well aware of something you regret, and then stop at the awareness, as if saying “Oooops, I messed up” was the end of it? For example, if I tell you some outrageous story about myself, like I’ve been scouted by the NY Yankees to play first base next season and it becomes clear to both of us that it cannot be true and I confess, “There I go, lying again; I have a tendency to do that.” but make no effort to stop lying, I cannot fully forgive myself.
*In order to refrain from the actions we regret, people, over the centuries, have taken remedial steps through rituals or practices or making amends. Incas practiced confession while bathing in a river, believing that the water would wash away their sins. Jews practice tashlich on Yom Kippur– emptying their pockets into moving water as a way of removing sins. A Catholic might be given penance by a priest. Someone in a 12 Step program works a moral inventory. This takes a great deal of courage.
*Finally, confession leads us to practice a gentle, non-judgmental resolve not to repeat the action. This is the transforming part. Feeling guilty and fixating on that guilt can actually keep us from accepting responsibility for changing ourselves. How could we ever change, we’re so bad? How would we know ourselves if we changed? Guilt keeps us wishing the action had never happened rather than honestly looking at the consequences. Imposing a standard of perfection upon ourselves and/or others also has this effect. If we expect ourselves never to do it again; if we demand goodness, capability, intelligence, whatever, all the time, and nothing short of that will do, we’re perpetuating a cycle of failure. We’re giving ourselves no way out of the mind set that we have to be perfect or we’re no good. Non-judgmental regret, on the other hand, makes it more possible to honestly see what we have brought about through our words and actions, to pay attention to what’s in front of us and try most sincerely to learn from it.
The process of confession that begins with regret, refraining from what we regret, taking up some practice or remedial steps to do differently and non-judgmentally coaching ourselves in the new behavior, the new way of thinking, is a process of self-forgiveness.
Did you see the movie Ordinary People? In it two brothers have a boating accident and one of them dies. The family is thrown into turmoil and the son who survived becomes suicidal. His mother grieves by expressing her sorrow that he was the one to make it, the other son was her favorite, and he blames himself for his brother’s death. As he unravels his own pain he has to relive the episode in order to remember and let go of the heavy burden of guilt he was carrying. He begins to understand that what happened was an accident and that he couldn’t hold onto his brother in the water because his brother couldn’ t hold onto him. He forgives himself for punishing himself. He comes to see that he is worthy of love. As we all are.
Let’s have a meditation with music. If you will, reflect on those areas where you might want to forgive yourself. Think about confession: regret, refraining, doing differently with compassion for yourself.
Musical meditation.
Part 2:
Desmond Tutu said: “To forgive is not just to be altruistic. It is the best form of self-interest. It is also a process that does not exclude hatred and anger. These emotions are all part of being human. You should never hate yourself for hating others who do terrible things: the depth of your love is shown by the extent of your anger.” And I would add that forgiveness does not exclude protecting oneself; does not mean forgetting; does not mean everything goes back to the way it was as if nothing ever happened. He goes on. “ However, when I talk of forgiveness, I mean the belief that you can come out the other side a better person, a better person than the one being consumed by anger and hatred.” It’s like the person who, to punish the one who harmed her, drinks poison and wonders why that person does not suffer. “Remaining in that state locks you in a state of victimhood, making you almost dependent on the perpetrator.” While there is no timetable regarding when one should or could or ever forgive, “If you can find it in yourself to forgive, then you are no longer chained . . .” (Desmond Tutu) To cultivate and harvest one another’ s potential for goodness; to live freely now, in the present, we must find a way to release ourselves from the past. Forgiveness is a way.
Forgiveness of another person requires an ability to forgive ourselves. In this sense, forgiveness resides with compassion. Thich Nhat Hanh says that “ Forgiveness will not be possible until compassion is born in our heart. Even if you want to forgive, you cannot forgive. In order to be compassionate, you have to understand why the other person has done that to you and your people. . . . You have to be very compassionate in order not to get angry when you listen to the other person, because their speech may be full of condemnation, blame, judgement, and so on. . . . With compassion you can relate to other people. Without compassion you are cut off.” This even when the other person does not ask for your forgiveness, does not want your compassion. How do we grow compassion in ourselves? It has to do with an intention, a desire to let go of our need for revenge; to let go of our need for the wrongs committed to be acknowledged; it has to do with working through our own pain, our own fear. It has to do with remembering we are interconnected. It has to do with listening open-heartedly, even with empathy, and genuinely trying to understand. If we think or believe that the potential for good and evil resides within the human spirit, then we too may be capable of doing to others the harm that was done to us. It’s a humbling acknowledgment. Growing compassion has to do with letting go of the stories we tell ourselves that perpetuate our sense of being wronged and being separated.
I have been deeply offended by judgments that people have made about me, unjust and ill-informed judgments I think. I imagine any number of us have found ourselves in that place. We tell ourselves stories of all we have done, of how little we have deserved these judgments. At those times I have felt no desire to forgive, only anger and grief. An apology, or even revenge, coming in the form of a justification of me, would not have been unwelcome. At the same time these feelings brought estrangement. I’ve felt cut off and I don’t like to feel cut off. In my self-interested desire for freedom from such a state, and in my desire to restore an appropriate sense of trust in the people around me so that I can proceed with confidence and energy, I have tried to understand the other person’s point of view; to see what there is to learn from it, painful as that may be. I have tried to see beyond what looked to me like arrogance, insensitivity, immaturity; to see a person behind those traits. When I can do that, and when I can see my own arrogance, insensitivity and immaturity and can treat them with compassion and work with them non-judgmentally, then forgiveness has found me.
Forgiveness ripples out. A process of confession, forgiveness of self. A growing of compassion, forgiveness of others. To cultivate and harvest the goodness that is inside us, forgiveness must be understood as not only something personal, but a continuous process that envelops whole communities, whole peoples. Martin Luther King, Jr., whose birthday we celebrate this weekend, laid out principles of non-violence. They are the principles of compassion and forgiveness, applied to a society at large. He said, “I am quite aware of the fact that there are persons who believe firmly in nonviolence who do not believe in a personal God, but I think every person who believes in nonviolent resistance believes somehow that the universe in some form is on the side of justice.. . . nonviolent resistance is also an internal matter. It not only avoids external violence or external physical violence but also internal violence of spirit. And so at the center of our movement stood the philosophy of love. The attitude that the only way to ultimately change humanity and make for the society that we all long for is to keep love at the center of our lives. . . Agape (love) is understanding, creative, . . . goodwill . . . “ (June 4, 1957 from a speech in Berkeley, California) Understanding, creative goodwill flows into and flows out of compassion and forgiveness. Let’s take a moment to meditate again. If you will, think of someone who has harmed you, or a people who has harmed your people. Does agape, understanding, creative goodwill come up? Are compassion, understanding and forgiveness possible? If not, so be it. There’s no right or wrong, only a time to be with whatever is inside us, working non-judgmentally to touch that which is the best of us. That potential for goodness inside everyone.
Reinhold Niebuhr said, “Nothing worth doing is completed in our lifetime; therefore, we are saved by hope. Nothing true, or beautiful, or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore, we are saved by faith. Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore, we are saved by love. No virtuous act is quite as virtuous from the standpoint of our friend or foe as from our own; therefore, we are saved by the final form of love which is forgiveness.” May it be so.
Closing words: Tim Haley Amid all the noise in our lives, we take this moment to sit in silence– to give thanks for another day; to give thanks for all those in our lives who have brought us warmth and love; to give thanks for the gift of life. We know we are on our pilgrimage here but a brief moment in time. Let us open ourselves, here, now, to the process of becoming more whole – of living more fully; of giving and forgiving more freely; of understanding more completely the meaning of our lives here on this earth.