“Repent”
This Tuesday’s Evangelically Departed mentioned a young man who served time in jail for his part in the Stanley Cup riot in Vancouver in 2011. He has written a poem (he completed a creative writing degree at UBC) in which he ended with the expression that he needed to repent.
It was a striking choice of words to express regret over his actions. The word “repent” barely finds usage anymore, even in the evangelical church. The word feels old and angry; associated with fire and brimstone preachers, or doomsayers hollering on street corners.
What if the word “repent” could be recovered?
There is much ado about apology lately. Who needs to say sorry? What is the use of apology? Who is apology for?
It can certainly be the case that religious authorities have abused words like “repent” and “sorry” to the point where they are used as a kind of accusation against people. Many people in the world have the impression that institutional religion exists to tell people how they are wrong. In my experience this is not an altogether unfair impression.
The word “repent” particularly has been used as a warning - “Repent - or else!”
This is not always the way religion has understood the word.
One of my favourite stories from the history of religion is about a Desert Father. Desert Fathers (and Mothers) were monastics who left cities to live in the desert. They are often thought of as “hermits”, but they were actually quite engaged with the world and sought out for their wisdom. Many of them seemed quite eccentric as well. I find the spiritual eccentricity appealing and indicative of knowledge of the human condition.
The story I have in mind goes as follows:
Once there was a meeting of monks in Scete, and the fathers discussed the case of a guilty brother. But Abba Pior said nothing. Afterwards he rose up and went out; he took a sack, filled it with sand, and carried it on his shoulders. And he put a little more sand in a basket, and carried it in front of him. The fathers asked him, “What are you doing?” He answered: “The basket with a little sand is the sins of our brother; and they are in front of me, and I see them and judge them. This is not right. I ought to think about my own sins (the sack full of sand), and ask God to forgive them.”
(Western Asceticism, ed. Owen Chadwick)
Honest apology (or repentance) is sometimes discouraged due to fear of legal recriminations, or for political reasons, or generally for self-protection.
Apology and repentance (not self-hate and not emotional martyrdom) have a beautiful possibility about them, though. They can bring people together.
I have seen apology abused in the church, forgiveness as well. Empty apologies can be exercises of power, and the demand that victims forgive their abusers is another kind of crime. One of the worst effects of abusing apology and repentance is that it can blur and distort the truth that they are actually gifts. It might be necessary to be aware of what others need to apologise for. It is greater spiritual progress to know what ought to occasion our own repentance.
We do have a remarkable capacity to hurt one another. I am willing to guess that among the times when you have felt most free and alive is after you have truly apologised for something, admitted wrong. If the apology is received, all the more, but even before you know if your “sorry” will be received, honestly expressing it can lead to a feeling of coming alive again, emerging from a darkness.
Most of us have heard about the positive impact of gratitude journals. The idea is to note each day that for which you are grateful. This can have an immediate effect on your emotional well being. I am not saying that you should keep a record of your wrongs. After all, we are told in the Bible that God keeps no such record. Maybe try this practice, take some time each day, with the understanding of repentance as a gift, to consider what you might rightly be sorry about. If you have a regard for prayer, you could pray these, offer your sorries up to God. If you don’t believe in God you could still consider them, and think about what it might mean to let them go, or about how you might be better to actually express the remorse.
True repentance is not to make us feel small. True repentance is part of coming together with one another, seeing the humanity of the other. True repentance helps us return to ourselves and to become open again to other people.
Sorry can be a gift.
Abba Pior might have been spiritually eccentric, but he was on to something.