A recent editorial in the Trenton Times praised the Pope's actions and noted, "The inherent power of an apology ... (is) to heal perpetrators as well."
I began taking account of the number of times that I apologized to people in the past few weeks: to my husband, to my colleague, to a member of the board, to a team of teachers, to three teenagers, to a set of families in the church, to three parents in the RE program, to fellow staff members. The more I thought about it, the more I connected my sins of commission and of omission to being on a pell-mell course at top speed. And I observe so many of us living at speeds that produce stress and anxiety and make it very difficult to live as we would like to live -- and as we believe we ought to live. If my experience is anything like yours, the speeded-up existence is conducive to focusing on the demands of my own life and work, rather than being open to the needs and desires of others.
The impact of the Pope's apology and the ache of feeling my own failings brought me to the choice of today's service topic. I invite you to explore with me the dynamics of regret and remorse; to provide a sounding board for me and for others who are seeking vehicles for confession and absolution; and to be open to anything that may be here for your own nurture.
Why is there a need for expressing regret and remorse? There are at least three reasons for giving expression to these difficult emotions: one is better health; one is greater justice; and one is growth in spirit.
In his groundbreaking book Emotional Intelligence, Daniel Goleman writes in a chapter on "Mind and Medicine" about an experiment in which people were told to write, 15 to 20 minutes a day for a week, about an event that troubled them:
"The net effect of this confessional is striking: enhanced immune function, significant drops in health-center visits in the following six months, fewer days missed from work, and even improved liver and enzyme function. Moreover, those whose writing showed most evidence of turbulent feelings had the greatest improvements in their immune function."
As the fields of psychology and psychiatry have known and practiced for years and as Goleman writes: "Helping people better manage their upsetting feelings -- anger, anxiety, depression, pessimism, and loneliness [and I would add guilt] -- is a form of disease prevention." It is not just a good idea, or something we should do; giving voice to our remorse actually makes us healthier persons.
May Sarton speaks in metaphor:
Such voices speak when sleep and waking blend,
The cold bleak voices of the early morning
When all the birds are dumb in dark November --
Remember and forget, forget, remember.
The regrets we hold from the dark days must always be remembered, put away for a time, and then remembered. We cannot get rid of them; we can only manage to gently lay them down.
Writing from the perspective of forgiveness -- the flip side of apology -- are two remarkable leaders of our times: Bishop Desmond Tutu and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Tutu, in his book No Future Without Forgiveness, argues that true reconciliation cannot be achieved by denying the past. King proposes in Strength to Love that forgiveness must always be initiated by the person who has been wronged -- not ignoring an evil act, but giving it up as a barrier to relationship. Further, he adds that an evil deed never expresses the whole of a person and that the goal is to win the other's friendship and understanding.
These views -- that justice requires both forgiveness by the persons wronged and expressions of apology by the persons who have committed wrong acts -- requires huge generosity of spirit and a deep, abiding faith in the essential worth and dignity of each soul.
As I have been contemplating these issues, I have asked myself: How are these two actions, apology and forgiveness, linked? If an apology is needed, I am the one who has done wrong. If forgiveness is to be offered, I am the one who has been wronged. The common bond seems to be anger: In an apology, I may fear another's anger; in forgiveness, I let go of my own anger.
I do not deal well with anger -- nor, I suspect, do most of us. Thus for justice to be possible, both the afflicted and the perpetrators must wrestle with their anger and come to terms with what it takes to move beyond its iron grip. We are enthralled, enmeshed, interdependent.
May Sarton again:
Tell me again, while the last leaves are falling:
"Dear child, what has been once so interwoven
Cannot be raveled, nor the gift ungiven."
Great as are the health and justice benefits of expressing remorse and regret, I believe the spiritual benefits are even greater. I believe the spiritual part of each of us is that aspect that can go beyond the physical limitations of our bodies, be attuned to another or to the wonders of the universe -- something greater than the perceptions of the senses -- that something-more-than that we call serendipity, fortuitousness, or even God.
We learn the basics of this spiritual discipline in infancy, at our mother's breast, or with a bottle in loving arms. This early learning is of empathy; training in empathy is provided by the caregiver's attuning him- or herself to the baby's emotions. Empathy, learned early, is absolutely essential to the exercise of regret or remorse in relationships; for sensing the feelings of another is a prerequisite to understanding them, to sharing their pain, to experiencing sorrow at one's own part in causing that pain, and therefore to wanting to apologize.
What I know of the spiritual realm is from relationships; as John Foord would say, it is here that we do our "spirit training." I picked May Sarton's poem on death because without remorse, relationships die.
May Sarton again:
Mother and child, lover and lover mated
Are wound and bound together and enflowing.
What has been plaited cannot be unplaited --
Only the strands grow richer with each loss.
Thus there are benefits of health, justice and spirit to expressing remorse and regret. But how do we get there? How do we express remorse and regret? I believe there are two paths: one is empathy, and one is non-attachment.
As I mentioned before, empathy is learned in our earliest relationships. Jean Baker Miller, in The Healing Connection, states: "Mutual empathy is the great unsung human gift. We are all born with the possibility of engaging in it. Out of it flows mutual empowerment."
Mutual empathy is the basis of reconciliation, the building block for the expression of regret and forgiveness, the quintessential element of lasting justice and peace. The experience of empathy is liberating and empowering. It allows people to move forward in their lives when they feel they have been truly heard and understood.
If we believe, as we say we do, that our lives are intimately interconnected with all living things, then the highest goal must be the repair of broken relationships. For "connection" has replaced "self" as the highest operating concept. We are nothing as a solo entity; together we are everything. Opening one's self to another is a path to regret.
Strangely, the opposite approach -- that of non-attachment -- is also an effective avenue to the expression of regret.
Attachment to an idea, a cause, a concept can blind us to seeing a different point of view, to admitting another may have a legitimate reason for doing as they do. Being able to distance ourselves from closely held beliefs, to hold them up to scrutiny, to let them be in the world -- in this way being able to detach allows us the freedom to express regret for consequences we do not desire and did not intend.
I believe there is a deep human need to acknowledge falling short of our goals or of others' expectations of us. This need is addressed in many faiths. And many religious traditions provide avenues for expression of remorse and regret.
In Judaism, there is Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. This whole new-year period invites self-assessment, then righting of wrongs, and finally the opportunity to start a fresh page in the book of life.
Roman Catholicism has a long tradition of oral confessions to a priest, who prescribes penance. Once the penance has been performed, the slate is clear; one can try again to live a life of righteousness.
Various 12 Step programs require each participant to do a rigorous assessment of his or her life and to make amends wherever possible and to clean up regrets.
Every Sunday of my childhood in the Episcopal Church, we prayed a general confession:
"Almighty and most merciful Father; we have erred and strayed from thy ways like lost sheep. We have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts. We have offended against thy holy laws. We have left undone those things which we ought to have done; and we have done those things which we ought not to have done; and there is no health in us."
Many of us have come to Unitarian Universalism from one of these traditions, and some may have found these expressions oppressive or inauthentic. I no longer believe the assertion that "there is no health in us." However, there are times when I crave a vehicle for expressing my regret.
One of the great gifts this Unitarian Universalist faith has to offer is its affirmation of the worth and dignity of each and every human being. We do admit that human beings can upon occasion perpetrate dreadful wrongs, but we choose to see basically good people making mistakes, rather than basically evil people occasionally rising to goodness.
There is an underbelly to this affirmation, however: that is a myth of perfection. Sometimes we create a climate of success that implies everything is OK here. One can feel very out of place if things aren't going well, if we are sad or depressed, if we are not living up to our potential, if we are feeling guilty or remorseful.
There is another great gift this Unitarian Universalist faith offers us: the freedom to create our own liturgy and rituals to meet our needs. We can create rituals together; and we can offer the possibility for individuals to create their own. This morning, I invite you to participate in a ritual that I hope speaks to your needs. It is something you can take home and practice on your own. If it strikes a chord, it is something we could repeat here in this sanctuary.
This is how it will work: Find the rock you were given as you entered and hold it in your hand. We will read the unison Reading No. 477 together; it is a confessional. We will maintain silent meditation for three minutes while you have the opportunity to invest your rock with all of your remorse and regrets. Continue your meditation enhanced by a musical selection. Then, as you are ready, gently lay your rock on the table in the center of the sanctuary (or on the balcony rail if you do not want to descend the stairs) and with it your remorse. Then we will read responsively No. 637, an atonement. And we will sing Hymn No. 126 and hold hands for closing words.
No one has to participate. No one has to speak their regrets. No one has to let go of their rock. I do invite you to try it in a spirit of adventure, as a step toward health, justice and spiritual growth.
The sermon in a Unitarian Universalist setting is never the last word on any subject, but rather an invitation to further dialog.
You may want to read other visitors' comments on Rev. Carol S. Haag's "An End to Love and Mourning" .
If you wish to add your own comments on this sermon, please enter your name, e-mail address, city, state or province, country, and of course your comments into the following form: