honesty: a contrite step back from the abyss
As a young girl, I had free-rein in my neighborhood. There were no fences around backyards, and all the kids would roam from house to house at will. But we had to be ever vigilant to our mothers’ calls. One day, my mother called and called and called for me. I vaguely heard her voice, but ignored it, thinking it was the parrot belonging to the ladies next door, that often made a squawk imitating my name. Finally my mother’s patience grew thin and she hunted me down, dragged me home and washed my mouth out with soap. It seems like an extreme punishment for a small transgression. I can only assume that she thought that I was lying when I told her that I didn’t realize that the voice calling was hers. But I was innocent…..this time.
On another occasion my sister had gotten a helium balloon from the local shoe store when they were having some special promotion. Previously I had watched a friend let go of a helium balloon and catch it by its string before it could get away. I thought that looked like fun, so I tried it with Nancy’s balloon. But the string wasn’t long enough or I wasn’t fast enough. The balloon soared away, and I was so guilt-ridden that I went to bed for a day, inconsolably punished by my own guilty conscience.
My mischief-making days were far from over. Our suburban tract of homes had been carved out of fields and woods, and there were still cornfields all around us. In the fall we loved to hide among the shocks and play Pilgrims and Indians. One day we got the idea to chuck ears of corn across the road under passing automobiles. I did not have a pitcher’s arm, and one of the cobs struck a car. It pulled off the road, and the irate driver got out to find me. He told me that he was going to take me home and tell my father about what I had done. I begged him not to. I promised that I would tell my father myself…which I actually did! I can recall the excruciating pain of that confession, but, for the life of me, I cannot remember the punishment.
Lately I’ve reflected on the lessons learned from these three events. I think many of us feel like we have not really done anything that bad, justifying our small deficiencies as errors or innocent mistakes. The idea of punishment for anything we’ve done seems harsh or unjust. OR we might be one of those people wracked by guilt, unable to come out from under the covers of our own self-imposed remand to feel any pardon, some even resorting to addictions that make us feel less pain from our psychological exile.
But what if true and righteous judgment is like the third story? In that case, sin would be confessed and enveloped in a father’s love, not a love that condones, but one that looks at the transgressor as his own beloved child. There may have to be recompense, to be sure, but the punishment is not what we remember. What stays in our hearts is the love that is not destroyed by the sin committed.
C.S. Lewis wrote: “One moment even of feeble contrition…will, in some degree, head us off from the abyss…” How true! How true! Thanks be to God!
Love, Liz
