Tuesday, July 07, 2009

How To: Apologize

I apologize for missing my weekly Tuesday Personal Faith Experience post this week. (You'll note, though, that I back-dated this post just to make sure it showed up under Tuesday. I'm really writing this at 1:00 AM on Wednesday.)

So inspired, this post is about the act of apologizing.

I did a quick search on how to apologize, and was going to reference some of that material here. There's so much information, though, that I thought I'd just link to the Google search results instead.

With regard to my own views on apology, I've posted in the past that I used to have a hard time with prayers of confession. I think that my ego and fear of being something less than what I thought I was used to get in the way of confessing my short-comings. As if, confessing something out loud would somehow make me more guilty than I already knew I was. Strange perhaps.

Ironically, I am a very apologetic person in other contexts. It is a very important point of contention and position of power for many people, though. I'm not sure what other non-apologizers avoid apologies. Here are some ideas, though.

  • Admitting you've made a mistake announces it to everyone, including those people that wouldn't have otherwise known you'd made a mistake.
  • Admitting you've made a mistake is simply a sign of weakness.
  • Admitting you've made a mistake emphasizes the mistake and makes it worse than it really is.
  • Admitting you've make a mistake is an overt act of asking for forgiveness, when you may not think you deserve it.
  • Admitting you've made a mistake is unnecessary because everyone already knows you've made a mistake.
  • Admitting you've made a mistake opens up the opportunity in conversation for someone else to criticize or scold you for something you already know you did wrong.
  • Admitting you've made a mistake represents a deeper deficiency in your whole self.
I'm sure there are others. As I think through those, one great thing about faith is acknowledgment that many of those things are true in the eyes of God and God is OK with them.

  • We are imperfect.
  • God does forgive us.
  • God knows when we make mistakes, even if no one else does.
  • God loves us, unconditionally.
Amen.

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