“Disarming the Wrong That Has Been Done” by John Salveson, an elder from Pennsylvania

"These are the windows I look at when seated at the organ console"

There are days when despair feels like a neighbor.  At a time when world leaders exchange childish epithets while holding threatening nuclear options, it can be terrifying.  The number of sexual abuse announcements has skyrocketed amid a time when mass shootings leave me numb.  The news of mass killings in schools, churches, and mosques reduces me to sadness so deep I can’t find words to express it.  There are moments I want to scream, “The world has gone mad, let me off!”

But this morning, as I prepare to go to my particular house of worship, I’m wondering, have we lost the art of confession?  Perhaps as a world, we need more than confession with a move to repentance.  These are words that have become quite unpopular in recent years.  Perhaps the church I am part of has been too keen to tell us we need to do this because we were somehow designed as flawed people.  But as I write this, that’s not what I mean.  To repent is to turn.  Am I personally capable of turning? 

Perhaps the energy in all this is that repentance, turning, confession, within our religious traditions are always coupled with forgiveness.  Deep within this paradigm is a spiritual energy that is profound.  In my repentance, I turn.  I see the world at a different angle.  I begin to identify with those affected by my greed, gluttony, and disregard for creation and the people around me.  When I forgive I acknowledge that I have been wronged, but I also disarm the wrong that has been done.  No longer do I allow the offense to continue violence to my psyche. 

In my tradition, there are long lists of people who have repented and forgiven, repeatedly.    St. Francis,  Mother Theresa, Oscar Romero, St. Hild of Whitby, St. Bridgid of Ireland, and a list that goes on and on, beginning with Jesus of Nazareth who, amidst horrible torture, was able to say “forgive them.”

So, today, I will go to worship, I will once again make confession, and pray that I have the grace to turn from the things I do that harm my planet, my neighbor, and myself.  I will hear the words of forgiveness, and then, just maybe, I will have the grace to forgive those who have harmed me.  Perhaps in doing so, I can look at the scars others have left in a new way.  Yes, they will be with me, reminders of damage done, but perhaps I will be able to look on the scars with compassion too. 

Will it change the world?  I’m not sure, but maybe, just maybe it will change me in some small way.

--John Salveson

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