Author and Lutheran minister Nadia Bolz-Weber describes an experience of lapsing into guilt and self-incrimination during a silent retreat:
What am I doing with this openness? Resting? Sending love and light out into the world? No. In the space left from leaving the city, everyone else and all creature comforts behind, my regrets float in and stay like toy boats in a tide pool….
I always [mess] things up eventually. Why didn’t I pay more attention to that one person? I could have been more patient, spent more time with my kids, spent less time at work, asked for help when I needed it, been a better friend, been a better mom, been a better pastor. I should have done better. Never-ending accusations…. This is a toy-boat regatta of self-incrimination.
I’m nervous to say what happened next, because I know how it sounds. Eleven words came to me from … dare I say God? Maybe it was my own mind finding the emergency brake, but it didn’t seem like the words were my own, since what my own mind usually comes up with sound much closer to “Stop being such a crybaby” than the ones I heard that day on the hill. Eleven words: What if you have already been forgiven for all of that?…
The relief I felt was not a result of hearing that the things I accuse myself of are not true, but that they are not the most true thing. Grace is the most true thing.
Bolz-Weber recalls how the prophet Jonah had difficulty accepting God’s grace and forgiveness for all, especially his enemies:
The image that comes to my mind as I am cry-laughing during this “silent retreat” is that of Jonah sitting alone on his own hill, questioning God’s forgiveness…. When Jonah’s enemies repent and are shown mercy by God, Jonah … says: “That’s why I didn’t want this stupid job in the first place—because I knew, God, that you are gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love” [see Jonah 4:2]. And it’s hard to manipulate a God like that….
God’s grace and mercy throws the whole reward and punishment system out the window. So sometimes I want to yell “noooooo” and reach as fast as I can to get it back. Forgiveness can sting when we don’t feel “worthy” of it, when it seems like we are getting away with something…. As if feeling bad for what I have done is the same as being good, when in fact it is not.
What if we’ve already been forgiven for the ways we’ve hurt the people we love? What if we’ve already been forgiven for not being perfect parents? What if we’ve already been forgiven for the [stuff] we haven’t even done yet?… Maybe forgiving myself isn’t something that happens once on a silent retreat but is a daily option. Give us this day our daily forgiveness, even for ourselves.
References:
Nadia Bolz-Weber, afterword to Pastrix: The Cranky, Beautiful Faith of a Sinner and Saint, rev. ed. (Worthy Publishing, 2021), 207–208, 209–210.
Image credit and inspiration: Geentanjal Khanna, Untitled (detail), 2016, photo, Unsplash. Click here to enlarge image. Unearned and unmerited generosity is an element or extension of the divine, revealing itself in our lived experience—spontaneous, unplanned, sometimes messy, as small as a drop of water—requiring open hands to receive it.
Story from Our Community:
I am 96 and still growing. I dedicate each day, each moment, and each second of my life to the wonder of God’s creation. Some time ago, I wrote the following poem:
Now at the end of all my things / I stand outside the camp on shifting sands / Still amazed, still thinking the unthinkable / And still singing in my chains like the stars. / Balanced between the gravity of earth / And the grace of heaven, I patiently wait / Beyond the reach of earthly powers / Still singing in my chains like the stars.
—Tim C.
