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Sunday, March 07, 2010
Guilt
Third in the Series: Where is God When It Hurts?
By Kyle Lewis
Psalm 51:10-12
10Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and steadfast spirit within me. 11Do not cast me away from your presence and do not take your holy spirit from me. 12Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and sustain in me a willing spirit.
The title of this message is “From Guilt to Serenity.” It is my strong belief that we thrive much more as human beings when we are serene rather than feeling plagued with guilt. I hope this message will give you some ideas for how to deal with guilt when it inevitably comes up. Regarding this issue, I can only speak from my own experience. As an overly sensitive people-pleaser, I know more on this topic than I would care to admit.
In the past week I have been delving into what psychiatrists and ministers have to say about guilt and shame. It is pretty complicated and they have many different ways to language things: from terms such as excessive and neurotic guilt & shame to having a severe conscience.
Most ‘experts’ say that guilt is the uncomfortable feeling we have when we feel we have done something wrong, (whether real or imagined) - while shame is when we feel that we ourselves are bad or wrong. When we feel shame or intensive guilt, we begin to question our worth as a human being. For the purposes of keeping it simple, I am going to mostly use the term guilt, recognizing that it is often intertwined with shame.
I was intrigued by a study that kept being cited on internet articles in reference to guilt. Roy Baumeister, a psychologist and professor, did a study on guilt in 1991 at Case Western Reserve in Cleveland. The study claims that the average person spends approximately 2 hours per day feeling guilty. And for 39 minutes of that time, people feel moderate to severe guilt that may greatly limit their abilities. I don’t have enough information about this study to know how accurate it is, but nonetheless, I have a hunch that guilt is an issue for many of us.
I feel that guilt can be a helpful reminder to us that we may be ‘off course,’ but I would have to say that, in my own experience, guilt often goes into overdrive. When this happens we can become paralyzed and consumed in self-absorption. This kind of guilt is anything but helpful.
Whenever my guilt button is triggered it is often overly sensitive. It doesn’t gently guide me by saying “Honey, you didn’t do so well in that moment. Let’s try and do it differently next time.” No – It says “How COULD YOU? You care about NO one but yourself! You are hopeless and selfish and you will never change. You are a bad person.”
This may sound dramatic, but I think those are often the messages we are sending ourselves. Whether we got these messages from our parents or society, it doesn’t really matter. It may be good at some point to look at how this harsh inner voice developed, but our major job is to find a way to stop berating ourselves every time we make the smallest of mistakes. It would be one thing if this actually helped us to become more loving and joyful people, but I don’t believe that it does.
Guilt can be a signal that we have our priorities ‘off.’ I think we sometimes don’t question why we are doing anything. I rarely feel guilt when I am acting out of wanting to serve God or to be a helpful and loving addition to the planet. But, unfortunately, I often have far less noble intentions. I may be using the situation to feel more secure or to look good or to become successful. And then – OUCH! - Here comes that overwhelming guilt. Rev. Dr. Linda Anderson, a Unitarian Universalist minister, describes it like this, “Guilt often lies there like undigested fried dough, wreaking havoc on the inside and inevitably on the outside as well.”
I just reread Rabbi Kushner’s book, How Good Do We Have to Be: A New Understanding of Guilt and Forgiveness. Rabbi Kushner says, “The question is not whether or not we will make mistakes……Of course we will… The question is, how shall we deal with our imperfection, our sense of inadequacy? How do you relieve guilt? How do you cure shame?”
Rabbi Kushner is asking some good questions. I would also like to ask us this. How do we allow the voice of guilt to be a helpful guide that can show us when we are a bit ‘off,’ so that we don’t become tremendously ‘off’?
It is clear from the psalms that people have been struggling with guilt for a VERY long time. Let’s take a look again at Psalm 51. Prior to verse 10, the psalmist has been asking for forgiveness. At this moment, he is asking to be literally transformed by God.
I was reading a commentary on Psalm 51 by Rev.Dennis Pratcher. He speaks about the fact that, in Hebrew, the "heart" is a metaphor for the seat of the intellect, the center of will and decision-making, along with it being the emotional center. He states that the "spirit" is a metaphor for the entire person in terms of the motives and intentions that lie behind actions. So, the psalmist is basically asking to be made whole in thought, word and deed. In these verses, he is asking God to transform, restore and sustain him. Pratcher says that “The prayer of the psalmist here is for the dynamic and creative presence of God that will bring the change for which he cries.”
In our moments of paralyzing guilt, we can do the same. We can let God know our anguish. I call this “getting real” with God. We may be ashamed to tell anyone else how guilty we feel, but let’s not do that with God. It is my strong conviction that God loves us without any conditions. Sometimes I picture God just waiting for us to share our burdens, so that God can delightfully lift them from us. This lifting may not be immediate. We have a part to play in this too, but, God can help us to heal and grow and transform. Why wouldn’t we want this kind of loving assistance?
It can be very hard to experience any joy when we let unresolved guilt accumulate in our lives. In 12 –Step Programs they have a process to deal with this – making amends. This can be an incredibly daunting, but worthwhile task. I don’t think it is the only way. I think we can also make what is called a “living amend” and decide to do it differently in the future.
Maybe we can start with the little mistakes. When we notice we weren’t as loving as we could have been, we could immediately call the person and apologize, rather than being frozen in our guilt. We could also write about it and then aim to do better next time or we could give it to God through prayer – “transform this unloving moment and help me to respond differently next time, God.” The point is to notice it and deal with it when it comes up and not to stuff it. Dealing with it may mean just recognizing it and being aware of it. Our soul just wants us to take notice. “Hey, hey! Remember me? I am the one who signed on to remind you when you aren’t being as loving as you can be. I am not here to make you feel worthless. I just don’t want you to forget what is important. ”
The Serenity Prayer has been very helpful to many people with addictions who often are plagued with guilt. God – Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference.
When the guilt feeling comes up, we can look at the situation and ask ourselves “Am I able to change anything right in this moment?” If we can, then let’s do it. If we can’t, then let’s accept that fact. Some of our guilt can be irrational and it is good to notice if we are taking on someone else’s stuff. If that is what we are doing, then we can pray for the willingness to let it go.
Part of this process is accepting that we are not perfect people. We are people progressing on a path. Sometimes this progress is messy and ugly and painful. The guilt can be a reminder that we want to do better, but let’s not allow it to paralyze us. What if we were to accept our imperfections and give ourselves incredible leeway to make mistakes and learn and then aim for being a little better? We are often so hard on ourselves. We want to go from being completely self-absorbed to being a Mother Teresa - in one day!!
Can we accept that through some helpful friends, a supportive faith community and an immensely loving God, slow and steady progress can be made? Do we have the patience to see ourselves through this messy maze of life? I believe that God has infinite patience, but we may not want to infinitely postpone our joy.
I’d like to close with another Rabbi Kushner quote:
“To be whole before God means to stand before God with all our faults as well as all of our virtues, and to hear the message of our acceptability. To be whole means to rise beyond the need to pretend that we are perfect, to rise above the fear that we will be rejected for not being perfect. And it means having the integrity not to let the inevitable moments of weakness and selfishness become permanent parts of our character.”
God – Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference.