Forgiving Myself

“Am I a bad kid?” He stopped on the stairs and stared up at me with honest, but sad eyes.  As a member of the “emotional support” class, he probably voiced a thought held by many of his peers. This  was his second classroom of the school year and I was the fifth person who had been assigned to work with him one on one.  I bent down, looked him directly in the eyes, and said:  “No, you are not a bad kid.  You are a good kid.  You just find it hard to behave appropriately at times.”  

For me the biggest obstacle to forgiving myself is that I think that I am “bad.”  I think that my actions, my sins, are what I am, and determine what I am worth.  However, I am more than the sum total of my acts.  It can be hard to accept that God sees me differently.  God sees that I am a broken, hurt, hurting, and hurtful child of God, and forgives me and loves me in spite of myself and because of myself.  How can I not forgive myself, if I have already been forgiven?

-- Kathleen Knaack

Forgiving Myself

(Today's celebrity guest writer is Trinity parishioner Kathy Johnson. She is a lifelong Episcopalian and an avid member of Red Sox Nation.)

                                                                                                                                           Psalm 103:8-9.

The LORD is full of compassion and Mercy, slow to anger and of great kindness.

 He will not always accuse us, nor will he keep his anger for ever.

            Having been an Episcopalian for over seven decades, I have always believed in a loving and forgiving God. This is what I was taught in Sunday School as a child and had reconfirmed in the life long journey of my Episcopal faith.  A resentment is anger that "is kept forever'.  It is a calcified anger in my soul. It has been said that holding on to resentments is like striking oneself with the hammer of anger aimed at others. As an adult, I learned that I must practice forgiveness in my relationships with others. A very wise Roman Catholic nun, Sister Maurice, says "Who am I to tell you that the other person is deserving of being forgiven? I tell you that if you cannot forgive them for their sake, forgive them for your own sake." As difficult as forgiving someone else is, forgiving oneself is significantly harder. Deeply felt regret, guilt and shame stand in the way. We aim that long-held anger or resentment at our selves and cause ourselves continued harm.

            I imagine everyone has committed sins of commission or omission that make forgiving oneself difficult. I know I have. But occasionally I have a little inner voice that says "and who are you to forgive yourself?" So how do we practice self forgiveness? If we ask, God will certainly forgive our sins. So if I ask, He will help me learn to forgive myself.  But in no case does He render me white as snow and keep me that way without my cooperation. In other words, I must do the hard work. Yet, refusing to do the work necessary for self forgiveness stands in the way of peace and I would dare to say, doing the will of God. But what is the work I must do to attain self-forgiveness?

            The first step is to become aware for which of my behaviors (or sins if you prefer) in the past or present do I need to forgive myself. It is important to think only of my behavior, not of what someone else did or didn't do. I need to clean up my side of the street. Do I accept responsibility for my actions regardless of what caused them? It also is unimportant whether the behavior was intentional or unintentional. Then how and to whom did I cause physical, emotional or economic harm? Anytime I harm someone else I cause harm to myself because harming others is clearly not God's will. Why else would I be feeling regret, guilt or shame. It seems easier to apologize or make amends to someone than to forgive myself. But if I am sorry for the harm caused, then I have repented. Of course, repenting and making an amend is useless and might even be called hypocritical unless I change that regretted behavior in the future.

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            Once I have identified the behavior for which I want to forgive myself, have tried to make amends to the injured party and am ready to forgive myself, how do I do it?  I cannot do it on my own. I cannot do it by sheer willpower. And I cannot do it by my own intellect and reasoning.  I must pray to God and ask Him to help me forgive myself. God is the source of all forgiveness and grace. For surely, grace will be necessary. Especially since guilt and shame will tell me I am unworthy. But since grace is an unmeritted gift from God, it will be given even if I don't feel I am worthy. Again, as Sister Maurice says, "If God has forgiven me, who am I to not forgive myself?"

Psalm 119:25-28

My soul clings to the dust; revive me according to your word. 

I have declared my ways, and You remembered me; teach me Your statutes.

Make me understand the way of your precepts; so I shall meditate on Your wondrous works.

My soul melts from heaviness; strengthen me according to Your word. 

Lord, I am full of the dust and heaviness of regret and shame.. Hear my prayer that I may learn to forgive myself as you have forgiven me.

            

Knock it off!

(A slightly different perspective on this week's theme, "Forgiving Myself," comes from the pen of Percy Dearmer, an English priest and activist of the late 19th century. This text, which appears at no. 145 in The Hymnal 1982, is set to the French tune Quittez, Pasteurs. It reminds us that self-flagellation is not all there is to life during this season of Lent.) 

Now quit your care and anxious fear and worry;
for schemes are vain and fretting brings no gain.
Lent calls to prayer, to trust and dedication;
God brings new beauty nigh;
reply with love to Love most high.

To bow the head in sackcloth and in ashes,
or rend the soul, such grief is not Lent's goal;
but to be led to where God's glory flashes, his beauty to come near.
Make clear where truth and light appear!

For is not this the fast I have chosen?
(The prophet spoke)
To shatter every yoke, of wickedness the grievous bands to loosen,
oppression put to flight, to fight till every wrong's set right?

For righteousness and peace will show their faces
to those who feed the hungry in their need, and wrongs redress,
who build the old waste places , and in the darkness shine.
Divine it is when all combine!

Then shall your light break forth as doth the morning;
your health shall spring, the friends you make shall bring God's glory bright,
your way through life adorning; and love shall be the prize.
Arise, and make a paradise!

Self Forgiveness

(Today's celebrity guest writer is Bonnie Lynch. She is retired from the faculty at St. Joseph's University in Hartford, Connecticut.)

Self Forgiveness

Psalm 19 “..then shall I be whole and sound..”

The journey to spiritual wholeness is filled with roadside attractions that can easily become detours, and dead ends; often the responses to these distractions are marked by regret “why did I let myself [fill in the blank]” and guilt “I can never forgive myself”.  Road weary and with our spirit running close to empty, we wonder if and how we will be forgiven by those we have hurt, and by the God who is Savior and Redeemer. 

I have experienced the forgiveness of those I have hurt by my words or actions/inactions.  And too many times, the grace of the forgiver far exceeded the humility with which I accepted their gift.

I experience, but too often forget the ever-present compassion of God.  The petitions of Psalm 51 “Create in me a clean heart” and Psalm 19 “Cleanse me from my secret faults” are reminders of how effortlessly I may deceive myself and others - but not the One who knew me, named me, and loved me before I was born.   

 I confess my sins, acknowledge my failures, ask for mercy, and state my desire to walk in God’s way.  The real obstacle to undertaking this path is me.  Do I forgive myself?  Dare I live with a forgiving and compassionate me?  C S Lewis¹ writes “If God forgives us, we must forgive ourselves” to which I reply “Easier said than done, CS.”  

As a second half of life person, I state, without equivocation, that the process of letting go, learning to love myself and allowing myself to be loved is not for the faint of heart.

How do I/we put the past to rest and begin “…straining forward to what lies ahead.”  [Philippians 3:13]?  At the risk of appearing glib and oversimplifying its psychological complexities, we must let the past be the past.  Or, to use the more common phrase, we must - Let It Go.  This is not to imply that this is nod to the past and we blithely move on.  Would that forgiveness only involved our intellect! 

We all know people for whom past transgressions, real or perceived, become protectors from an uncertain future.  Theologian, Anthony de Mello² compared resistance to letting go of the past and the repeating self-defeating and sinful behaviors to living in a self-made prison cell without realizing that it is a prison.  We decorate it, embellish it, and invite people in all the while failing to recognize the prison bars that enclose us.  According to de Mello we don’t realize that we have locked ourselves in but trusting in God we have the key to unlock it. 

Some of us build prison cells; others of us erect monuments to shame and self-blame.  I’m learning that tearing down my pseudo-altars is a wrenching, necessary, and on-going part of self-forgiveness.   But in the open spaces, there is spiritual freedom and communion…as long as I move forward and not look over my shoulder.

Psalm 19

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight,

O LORD, my strength and redeemer

¹  CS Lewis Mere Christianity.  MacMillan Publishers, NY.  1952.

² Anthony de Mello.  One Minute Wisdom.  Doubleday, NY.  1986

 

The Journey

A number of years ago, I wrote a poem entitled "The Journey".  While I thought of it then as a statement about my overall spiritual journey, I realize now that it also expresses a lot about my ongoing experiences of God's forgiveness--the realization that I have sinned, the confusion it has caused me, the act of repentance, and finally the joy of knowing that I am forgiven, loved by God, and able to move on in my journey on the Way of Christ.  I share it below as a Lenten meditation on the personal experience of God's forgiveness and on God's unfathomable love for each of us.


Oh Lord, I fall, I leap, I fall again,
afraid to let Your Spirit draw me in,
too tired to drink, though standing at the well,
too proud to cry, "Your will and not my will."

Oh Lord, I weep, I laugh, I weep again,
too self-absorbed to let you take my sin;
so caught up in this web of indecision
that I prefer my blindness to Your vision.

Oh Lord, at last, I leap, I laugh, I see,
and know the Way that truly sets me free;
for to my brokenness Your Spirit brings
the gift of Love, and in that Love
my spirit finds its wings.

 - Stephanie Stover

Forgive me, for I have sinned...

Sin is a difficult subject, and it amazes one how widely it is used without hearing a sermon, at least once a quarter, on the subject.

The sense of sin is the one we may trace to Paul’s letters, amplified by Augustine. According

Rembrandt, "Prodigal Son"

to Augustine’s writings, every human, lives in a state of sin, due to being born of the flesh. And, while we are alive on this earth, we cannot escape the sinful nature of flesh. We can only escape it in the life of the Spirit, and it is the Spirit which is cleansed by baptism. An example of how devastating that sense of sin can be found in some biographies of great religions leaders, who were burdened with a strong sense of sin. Two who stand out are Martin Luther and John Wesley, both of whom were “rescued” from depression over the subject by passages from Paul’s letter to the Romans.

If that is the meaning of sin, then what does one mean when, in the confessional booth, one says “Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned.” That statement suggests that one may walk the earth free of sin, until you fail to exercise charity toward a beggar. Upon reflection, you realize your misstep, and feel remorse. (It is important to distinguish between remorse and regret. I may regret losing my temper, because it will create bad feelings between me and another, and I am liable to get a foot rule on the fingers for doing something which, to me, was almost an involuntary reaction, like the hiccups. I regret incurring those annoyances. But I feel no remorse.) I submit that, in general, when you feel remorse, it is the result of having sinned, as when you lift a dollar from your parents’ stash, in their bedroom chest of drawers. Experience has taught you that you will not be caught, or even detected, but you still feel remorse, even though you really wanted that Dinky Toy which just arrived at Glaziers, downtown. Regret is simply not that closely connected with sin. You can regret not going to see a particular movie, but that’s only because you were just too lazy to tramp through the snow and ice to get to the theater. All this means is that to the lay person, who has never had the urge to read, sinning is the result of a particular act, for which you generally feel remorse, such as the remorse (and regret) felt by the prodigal son.

So, does that mean all sins are immoral acts? The answer is clearly no, but a few examples should make that clear. Let’s consider this absurd picture. On a Sunday, when the confession of sins is being read from the Book of Common Prayer, we hear 80 people confessing their sins, do we imagine we have a sanctuary full of people who have, each and every one of them, committed an immoral act. No. Aside from a scattering of innocent white lies, there is not one broken moral rule in the house. But it is probably dripping in sin. The discrepancy lies in the heart of how Christianity measures virtue. The world at large will take not a moment’s notice if one happens to admire the attractive wife of a friend. But not Christians who are committed to the sense of Christian sin. Consider the Sermon on the Mount Matthew 5:27 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ 28 But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” Even more to the point, check out what Jesus says about anger Matthew at 5:22.

A good Christian life requires more from you than to simply avoid breaking a moral law (The 10 Commandments is as good a list of the moral laws as any.) A good Christian is virtuous, and that means more than being moral. Methodism takes this very seriously, and emphasizes that congregants make the effort to increase their virtues throughout life. But, according to one story I’ve heard, John Wesley said he only found a single person who mastered what is meant by Christian virtue. So, even in Methodism, forgiveness is necessary.

Consider the prodigal son. On the face of it, when he sets out, he asks for, and takes only what is rightfully his. He squanders his property by dissolute living. Then, he is in no position to recoup his losses due to a severe famine in the land. This second son claims that he has sinned. Here comes the important line Luke 15:19 “I am no longer worthy to be called your son.” The story attributes nothing immoral to the second son, yet he feels remorse (and not a little regret) at having failed in virtue, especially the virtue expected of scions of wealthy land owners.

We come to another word in the lexicon of sin. That is guilt, in the psychological sense. One may feel guilt about a world of different things, usually, but not limited to that for which we feel remorse. One source says guilt is when we violate our standards of conduct. I believe that works, as long as we realize that it includes personal standards, which may have nothing to do with Jesus, the Bible, or Luther’s Small Catechism. We may feel guilt for no good reason, for a slight which no one notices, and which everyone dismisses, when you describe it. In the pharmacopeia of the emotions, confession, and the granting of absolution, is the tonic to relieve one of guilt.

Pay close attention to the Confession of Sins from the Book of Common Prayer. It covers all those little guilts, including that feeling of unworthiness, which you cannot isolate or explain. God can forgive that which no one else can see or feel or understand.

-- Bruce Marold

Green Guilt

We moved into our new home just a little more than a year ago and I have yet to set up my compost heap.  I grew up with a lovely garden and orchard, begun by my grandparents and continued by my own parents.  Apple, cherry, peach, and pear trees.  Grape vines and a strawberry patch.  Vegetables too many to list.  And the bee hives.  I loved to sit quite close to the bee hives, not too far from the compost pile, and absorb the hum of the bees in the hive and feel the breath of wind as they flew home at the end of the day.  It was where I felt most alive.  

The compost never smelled bad.  All that decomposition was in balance and my father made sure to turn it regularly and add leaves to keep it from getting too wet with kitchen scraps.  A good compost piles smells warm and comforting and is full of all kinds of great creeping things and teeny microbes. 

Before we put the "For Sale" sign on that home. I made sure to dismantle the compost heap.  People in the market for a new house don't necessarily want to see a pile of decomposing vegetation.  It actually hurt me to through all the rich soil into a bag and put it in the trash, but I consoled myself with the promise to the earth to begin one at our new house.  

To date I have not begun to compost.  This new yard is tiny compared to the Eden of our last home.  There is one tree, a giant brick patio, and just a small path of green around the edges, in the shadow of the fence.  There is no out-of-the-way corner to stick a compost heap in.

So I throw away my kitchen scraps and I take my garden waste to the municipal compost center.  There is no end to the guilt I feel for the amount of waste we make and I imagine, as I throw away another tea bag and apple core, the landfill growing ever larger.  But it’s not just the greenhouse gases produced by my kitchen waste; it is the waste from packaging, even when I recycle.  It’s the oil used to transport the food I buy from South America to my convenient grocery store.  It’s the waste of a too large meal that doesn’t get eaten at all.

So, forgive me good green earth, for my sin of neglect and laziness.  I will, I promise, work harder this coming season to grow more of my own food, use all of it, and build a compost pile.  I will use all the gifts I’ve been given and “live simply so that others may simply live.”

Ellyn Siftar