“Reconciliation does not erase what
happened. It simply refuses to let what happened have the final word.”
The word reconciliation came to me yesterday
while I was on my morning conference call to heaven. I was halfway through a
Hail Mary when that word started bouncing around my noggin like a loose hubcap
rolling across Cermak Road.
Reconciliation. Reconciliation.
Reconciliation. Reconciliation.
I told the Virgin Mary, “Reconciliation is
tomorrow’s Chalkboard.” She did not object, so here we are.
We Catholics are lucky that we have the confession booth in the back of the church. We can drag our sorry asses into a confessional carrying enough guilt to make Saint Basil shake his head.
We
tell the priest what we did, express our sorrow, accept our penance and receive
absolution. Then we walk out feeling as if we just enjoyed a spiritual spa
day. Only without the cucumber water and some
stranger rubbing seaweed on our backside. Just some Holy water and a couple
decades on our rosary beads.
God gives us a road back to a guilt free life. Though it isn’t a free pass for every jagoff with a clever excuse. You can't take the liberty of bullshitting Papa God.
We must examine our conscience, confess honestly and own what we did. Mercy
does not pretend that the sin never happened. Mercy tells us that our worst
moment does not have to become our permanent identity.
Once we get done with that, we are square
with God.
It gets tougher when the person we hurt has
died. We can’t just call them on the telephone or sit with them at the kitchen
table or buy them a beer at the tavern. We cannot look them in the eye and say,
“I was wrong, I am sorry” and expect to hear them answer back, “I forgive you.”
The dead leave us with silence, and silence
can be a lousy conversationalist.
We can
always bring our regret to God. We can also try and speak to the person through
prayer. We can honor them by living differently, and then the reconciliation is
no longer with the person who died. It is now between who we are today and the
version of ourselves that hurt them when they were still kicking.
Then there are the living who we must
reconcile with. Reconciling with them takes balls and isn't easy.
You
must approach the person you jagged over and admit what you did. A sincere
apology cannot contain the word “but.” The minute “but” shows up, the apology
puts on a cheap suit and starts selling used cars in Melrose Park.
You also can’t apologize simply because you got caught. That is not integrity, that is damage control. That is what famous people, the rich and the Smiths out in California can get away with....
Grabowskis stuck in Cook County don’t
have that luxury. A middle class guy has to strap it on and face the problem.
The person you wronged may forgive you, but they could also tell you to go pound sand. Forgiveness is theirs to give, not ours to demand. Once we have spoken honestly, asked to be forgiven and stopped kicking the can down the road…
...that is when we can
wash our hands of the matter.
Now we have come to the hardest reconciliation of them all, the one
with ourselves.
A priest can tell us God has forgiven us.
Another person can tell us they forgive us. Yet we continue punishing ourselves and don't take time to reconcile our own guilt.
Remorse should teach us. It should humble
us, it should change us and make us less likely to repeat our stupid mistakes.
Guilt was never meant to move into the spare bedroom in our heads and spend the
next thirty years eating our groceries and drinking our Old Styles.
At some point, we must accept the mercy we
keep asking God to provide.
Reconciliation does not
change what happened yesterday. It simply prevents yesterday from stealing
tomorrow.
Forgive yourselves Chalkheads, you are too
magnificent to muck up your journey with guilt and pain.
Consider today’s Morning Chalkboard your
confessional. For your penance, I want you to look at the Buck full moon
tonight and know someone who loves you is looking at the same damn thing…..
