This theme concerns that often murky subject of guilt and shame. So often it is difficult to know who is really guilty or innocent. This story illustrates a pretty clear conclusion on that subject: The San Diego police were staging a safety contest—at a certain intersection— the first driver who made the correct stop and was wearing a safety belt would be given a cash award. So the police officer stops a car that conformed to this test to tell the driver that he has won $500 in a safety contest. He then asks him, “What will you do with the money?” “Well,” he says, “I guess I better get my license.” “Don’t listen to him,” says the woman in the passenger seat, “he always talks that way when he is drunk.” Meanwhile a fellow in the back seat wakes up from a nap and says, “See I told you we couldn’t get away in a stolen car.” Just then, comes a knock from deep inside the trunk, asking in Spanish, “Hey, are we over the border yet?”

Well, here’s a clear case of guilty as NOT charged. The subject of guilt and shame is one rarely delved into in many conversations and yet it is a feeling we grow up with, especially if we come out of the more orthodox religions. Our parents and teachers probably gave us at least a mild dose of it on the way to socializing us. Goodness knows there are enough opportunities for wrong-doing to make us Americans feel some remorse if not guilt—things like smoking, dieting , safe sex, misuse of alcohol, lack of exercise, irresponsible consumerism, or not saving money for retirement or not giving enough money to all the worthy charities that abound. Liberals can have well-honed guilt and shame too!

And as if that’s not enough, there are the messages from the Christian right. I was at first put off and then amused to see a tee shirt on a young blonde woman one night at the Rancho Cucamonga theater. It said, “I am the Christian the devil warned you about.” I wanted to say to her, “That’s funny, the Devil always speaks well of you,” but she wasn’t the type to engage in light-hearted dialogue.

It has been my experience and probably yours, that religion induces as much guilt as it cures. Although my Jewish friends tell me they have the corner on guilt, those of us who come out of the Roman Catholic religion can give them a run for their money. Anyone who has read the book Angela’s Ashes knows this—Frank McCourt tells us the worse misery of his Irish childhood was not so much the poverty but the church. The overarching power of the priests, family, and neighbors to make you feel deep pangs of guilt for things you do, or even things you didn’t do, no matter how natural or how trivial, it was enough to kill any spirit of joy a child might have in growing up. The punishment for wrong-doing in their eyes from teachers and other so-called grownups was physical and humiliating—evidently respect for the innate worth and dignity of every human being was not their guiding principle.

When you read Frank McCourt’s story, so engaging and so heartbreaking have your handkerchief handy: it’s the sad plight of a mother who is sick and hungry and poor, the victim of an alcoholic husband who can’t hold a job, who loses young children to lack of care and attention and yet is still expected to do her wifely duty and have yet more children. Or simple as this—she will burn in hell.

Such dogma gives religion a bad name, at least for those of us who have heard such stories over and over, and in many cases, been the casualty of them. We shudder at the dogma of Hell: we shun the doctrines of salvation that force us to buckle under to any churches’ orders, all man-made and man-dictated. These dictates do not come from any God we can dream up—the Universalists taught us about a different kind of deity by prescribing for us a more benignant doctrine of universal salvation. Heretical it was at the time. They preached of a loving God who made us in His image, a fatherly God who would not want to see his children punished throughout eternity. We may be sinners sometimes in our lives, probably are, but our punishment and chances for atonement should come here on this earth not in the afterlife.

That is the legacy our Universalist forebears leave us with. Thanks be to whatever powers that be for their concept of a forgiving and all-inclusive Parent in Heaven.

The first week of my ministry I was told by one of the leaders of my congregation that we should never have any unison readings of confession such as they have in Protestant churches. We have gotten away from that, I was told. So I never have even suggested such an element in the service, but still I wonder: Is it possibly because we do not want to acknowledge guilt as a whole congregation, not as a routine part of our service. Although we may not be motivated by the subject of collective guilt , we know we are not perfect, far from it. And so, here I am grappling with this subject because I think it nibbles away at our equanimity and at our psyches and haunts us always.

The Irish writer, James Joyce, has a term I have always remembered, from the Celtic language or Old English, I am not sure—it expresses how susceptible to that feeling we humans are wont to be—he calls it the agenbite of inwit. The agony of the conscience. And yes, the conscience is very much a part of our make up and part of many ethical guidelines. Along with “A free and responsible search for truth and meaning;” the Unitarian Universalists promote “The right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our congregations and in society at large.”

This matter of conscience can get us in trouble. It can find us, yes “Guilty as charged.” Our Unitarian and Universalist history is full of martyrs, heretics whom society pointed an accusing finger at and or executed, or forced them to leave their countries. There were Michael Servetus who wrote a book on the Errrors of the Trinity and paid the price by having Calvin order him to burn at the stake, his books tied around his waist, the theologian Francis David of Transylvania who was imprisoned for his outspoken ideas on religious freedom (“We need not think alike to love alike”); there was the scientist and discoverer of oxygen Joseph Priestly who had to escape to this country after his laboratory and church were burned, there was the founder of Universalism, a heretical faith, John Murray who had a rock thrown at him through a window when he preached from a Boston pulpit. “Guilty as charged” because they were not satisfied with the received wisdom of their day. They became our heroes and martyrs and exemplars of our faith in their time and ours.

I wonder, if such a witch hunt were to reoccur, a modern inquisition directed toward those of us of a liberal religious persuasion, how many of us would have enough evidence against us to convince our persecutors that we too are guilty? God forbid that would ever happen. Meanwhile we follow our reason, and our sense of justice with no fear of future punishments nor rewards when the roll is called up yonder..

We know that what is considered shameful varies from age to age and from one culture to another.And speaking of shame—the word is often used interchangeably with guilt. But they are not exactly the same thing—The difference has never been made precisely clear. I see shame as more internal, as part of the frailty in being human, with biological needs and bodily processes we all share. Whereas guilt is more external , more subject to being reacted upon by those close to us, or the law, or society. Usually when we are guilty we feel shame, those rare people who don’t are often labeled sociopaths— they don’t know the difference between right and wrong, don’t care, and often get away with murder.

There seems to be something in our human makeup that causes that agony of conscience every time we do something wrong. For a moment or perhaps a lifetime. Perhaps it’s because of parents who expected too much of us or teachers or ministers who expected us to do what they thought was the right thing all the time. Perhaps it is good for us to feel that way sometimes—it makes us more responsible and sensitive to what is right or not right, it can move us to repent and grow our souls. But it may also lead to our setting unrealistically high standards—for ourselves, our children, and everyone.

A healthy religion can set certain standards to live up to. It can tell us “You could do better, you can do better.” Wholesome religious values encourage people to stretch their sympathies and actions. I want such a healthy spiritual life for us—one that leads to responsible action and feelings of self-worth and expansion of our hearts and imagination. I especially like what the humanist psychologist Carl Rogers has said about how to approach a therapeutic encounter: “There is something I do before I start a session. I let myself know that I am enough. Not perfect. Perfect wouldn’t be enough. But that I am human, and that is enough. There is nothing this person can say or do or feel that I can’t feel in myself. I can be with that person. I am enough.”

When I first read these words in pastoral counseling class I was surprised. Some fear I had of not being good enough, experienced enough, skilled enough, came to a sudden end. It felt so true to me. I am not perfect, far from it. But I am enough. When I knew that, when you know that, then healing can happen. You are enough. And so am I right now.

It was also Carl Rogers who came up with the phrase for how we approach and treat people—Unconditional positive regard. Another way of saying love. Another way of acknowledging the intrinsic worth and dignity of all people. If we all could be givers and receivers of that kind of approach, perhaps we would not be so plagued with guilt and shame in our world.

Meanwhile, the history of Judaism and Christianity emphasizes Original Sin. A weird paradigm actually. Matthew Fox, a silenced Roman Catholic priest, asks us to look again at the far-reaching contra-indications of that mindset. What about original virtue instead? How different Frank McCourt’s life would have been if the priests in Limerick, Ireland, had gotten up in their high pulpits and preached from the gospel of Original Virtue, how about that? Yes, we are all born in goodness and perfection, all creation is alive with beauty and blessings! Too bad—but then he never would have written a best selling autobiography on the oppressions and sins and cruelties of a Catholic boyhood.

A few years ago the saying going around was “I’m okay, you’re okay.” I preached on that at the Methodist seminary I was attending in 1975. A fellow student took me to task for that idea. He said Christian doctrine dictates the opposite: “I’m not okay, you’re not okay but that’s okay.” Perhaps the truth lies somewhere in between. I am sometimes okay, sometimes not, you are sometimes okay, sometimes not, but perhaps together we can help make ourselves and each other okay.

I have had to look again at that “everyone is okay” judgment—it calls on a feel-good approach to religion which carries the risk of moral and spiritual smugness. And unreality. In refusing to come to terms with our own wrongdoing we might locate evil some place out there, blame others—our parents, teachers, our religious upbringing. We do not need to flagellate ourselves but we cannot avoid moral judgment However, morality should be an affirmation rather than a denial of life.

Shame and guilt are not automatically bad things. They are a mark of our humanity. Guilt raises consciousness, it is a partner of our awareness of values. Its very occurrence arises from the fact that we are valuing animals. It pushes on to do better, to think again, to rearrange our lives. It’s when it becomes toxic that we are alienated from ourselves, that we are dehumanized, spiritually bankrupt.

M. Scott Peck, psychiatrist and author of The Road Less Traveled has a healing prescription for the guilt trip that keeps us in bondage: It is the willingness to suffer continual self-examination. Looking inward is no walk in the park. His definition of laziness is the unwillingness to extend oneself. Laziness is love’s opposite. Spiritual growth takes effort.

Just ask anyone who is in an Alcoholics Anonymous program. Their twelve steps to recovery make them aware of the guilt and shame of addictive behavior and they are encouraged not to wallow in it but to do something about it. They are asked to become aware of whom they have hurt because of their behavior and then as far as is practical, to make amends, to ask for forgiveness, to pledge to do better in their relationships. It’s called taking a moral inventory. Tough stuff. All of a sudden one has to shine that keen light of conscience on one’s past and present behavior. We don’t have to be substance abusers to look at our inner life. To heal we must first come out of hiding.

This can cause emotional suffering but avoidance of that is the basis for more suffering, more illness. Dealing with shame by oneself is very lonely if not impossible. We need someone to talk with, a non-shaming intimate network, like a group, because shame is usually caused by others and in part at least, healed by others.

The author of a recent book called Holy Clues: The Gospel according to Sherlock Holmes¹ is by the Unitarian Universalist minister Stephen Kendrick; he knows a lot about mystery stories and also delves into the theological implications of guilt and innocence. He offers this: “A little haunting by guilt is not only good for you, but utterly necessary for us to see ourselves honestly. It is a necessary spiritual tool if we are to see ourselves as bound to others, as beings imperfect and equal to others in pain and confusion. The Church has, almost but not quite, given guilt a bad name. But without a sense of guilt and an awareness of the fragility of our inner moral equilibrium, we will find it very hard, perhaps impossible, to ever grow in responsibility and spiritual maturity. I have heard many chilling confessions in my time, but the worst is, “I’ve got nothing to feel guilty about.”

Bill Moyers once asked Joseph Campbell on a TV program if what people wanted from religion was eternal truth. He replied, “I don’t think that’s what we’re really seeking. I think what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive ... so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive.” Part of feeling “fully alive” is to experience both the fragility of existence and the reality of sin that dwells even on the gateway of joy and wonder.

How good can we expect a person to be? Yourself to be? Myself to be? Is there any cure for guilt or shame or sin? I’ve spoken of some possibilities in terms of taking responsibility, being in a supportive group, finding a good non-judgmental friend or a therapist. Deeply ingrained guilt probably cannot be gotten over totally, we are only human. One can consciously begin to replace the fruitless emotion of guilt with the constructive behavior of self-responsibility. For some of us prayer helps. It is an alternative to blame or self reproach. It is a spiritual catharsis that helps us show a higher power how painful our feelings are, to talk them out, to come to terms with our own conscience and then get on with our lives.

Although I started off this essay with criticism of the Catholic Church, I would like to end with a compliment for its profound insight into human nature. Priests for centuries have known the value of confession—which brings me to acts of contrition. (By the way, they no longer call it confession but a ceremony of reconciliation.) Contrition means to be conscious of your guilt, a remorse that can lead to repentance, a kind of cleaning up one’s act.

I find this comment from my favorite art critic and Catholic sister, Wendy Beckett, very helpful to us.

I don’t think being human has any place for guilt. Contrition, yes, Guilt no. Contrition means you tell God you are sorry and you’re not going to do it again and you start off afresh. All the damage you’ve done to yourself, put right. Guilt means you go on and on belaboring and having emotions and beating your breast and being ego-fixated. Guilt is a trap. People love guilt because they feel if they suffer enough guilt, they’ll make up for what they’ve done. Whereas, in fact, they’re just sitting in a puddle and splashing. Contrition, you move forward. It’s over. You are willing to forgo the pleasures of guilt.

So my friends what I offer you today is contrition—not guilt or shame. In the Catholic confession one brings one’s sins to the priest and then he requires acts of contrition in accordance with the degree of wrong doing—for example—for talking back to your mother—five Hail Marys, two Our Fathers, something like that. For us non-Roman Catholics our contrition can be more relevant. I think more difficult. Whether or not we speak out loud of guilt, we can never do away with it, we are too responsible for that, too aware of right and wrong. So as a remedy, or as what might be called an act of contrition we can do certain things—we can do what we need to do to take care of our own health, to nurture our relationships, to slow down, smile and show concerns for the check-out lady and be patient with everyone we see today. On a broader scale we can work to heal the injustices and poverty and racism and homophobia in our society. We can clean things up, say we are sorry, show up, grow up. We can forgive ourselves and others. Over and over.

I would like to end with a story of ultimate contrition from the life of Mohandas Ghandi. A raggedy man of the streets, a Hindu, came to Ghandi one day distraught.

He and his family had been caught up in the Hindu-Muslim wars. Members of his family had been killed. His son had died in that war. He confessed that he had killed a young Muslim boy. He felt tormented by this memory, what could he ever do. Gandhi looked at him sympathetically and said simply, “Find a boy the age of the one you killed who has no parents. Adopt him … Raise him as a Muslim.”

So be it.

 

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