Thomas Merton wrote some wonderful prayers that are collected in his little book Thoughts in Solitude (1956). As much as I endeavor to maintain contemplative disciplines and devote myself to caring for my wife on her Alzheimer’s journey, the cacophony of noise in the world that right now seems to be politically amplified, intrudes on my silence and rankles my peace. I am preparing my worship messages for King of Glory and Spirit of Peace Lutheran Churches this coming weekend and Milwaukee Mennonite Church on September 30 (my 72nd birthday). Yet, the noise in my mind cries to be organized and articulated so it can be released, enabling me to focus on not just these messages but on my true priorities – walking with Jesus and caring for my wife. I have tried relinquishing my thoughts in cacophony in centering prayer through Psalm 31:5, “Into your hands I commit my spirit.”
Much of the current noise arises from contradictory voices about the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to be a Supreme Court Justice and the allegations of Dr. Christine Blasey Ford. This is not just in the news, it is the dominant discussion among friends with whom I communicate via the internet, who hold widely varying opinions. I have no way to know which, if either, of them is telling the truth. I have my own concerns about anyone being nominated for the Supreme Court that have nothing to do with this current chaos nor with Row v. Wade. I have personal opinions that I hold loosely since I do not have access to sufficient information, nor perhaps do I have sufficient discernment to make such a crucial decision. I am not a US Senator with the opportunity and responsibility to make such judgements, for which I am indeed thankful.
Even as this current cacophony crashes into my contemplative rhythms and caring for my wife, with whom I can no longer discuss my inner turmoils, Two themes seem to recur and compel me to articulate and relinquish them. One is how to understand and handle youthful indiscretions. The other is how to respect and hear victims of abuse and sexual harassment, especially women and the young.
In my prayer rhythm on the 25th of every month for 48+ years, I have been encountered by Psalm 25:7 and prompted to pray, “Do not remember the sins of my youth.” Though not quite 25 years old when I began my monthly rotation praying through the Psalms, once past that age I mentally regarded my embarrassing memories from before 25 as sins of my youth, which I hoped to have left behind as I matured. With a sort of spiritual tongue in cheek, I took this cue from the number of the Psalm. In a certain sense, I felt I became a real adult when I turned 40 and smiled internally about making that the new boundary for sins of my youth. Now in my 70s, I even quip publically about how high I might be able to legitimately raise the limit on sins of my youth. While I might ask God not to remember the sins of my youth, I must seriously ask myself how rightly to deal with them, which has implications for what I expect of others when the sins of their youth intrude on them in later years.
I readily confess to ambivalence about this. I have plenty of memories from my high school days that continue to evoke embarrassment, shame, and even guilt feelings. I would not have wanted to have to explain them when being interviewed by a congregation’s pastoral nominating committee. The passing of time, by itself, does not address the issue. Regrets linger; patterns persist; anxiety about accounts resurfacing loom; just retribution threatens. To say “that was a long time ago” or worse yet “boys will be boys,” does not excuse or dismiss responsibility for past indiscretions. For a long time our society seems to have accepted these sorts of illusions without acknowledging the wounds they keep inflicting. For those who have slipped past the consequences of their youthful misbehavior, letting go of that mentality is uncomfortably painful. But for those who have been victims, letting go of complicit “statues of limitations” for people in power is essential to healing and reconciliation.
One of the reasons for not dismissing our youthful indiscretions too easily is that they are often the seeds of persistent patterns. We may get more sophisticated as we get older, and more skillful and covering our tracks. Dishonesty in youth undermines the integrity needed to be trustworthy in maturity. Unchallenged sexual indiscretions in youth become serial adultery and sexual harassment in adults, which seems all too commonplace among those (especially men) in positions of power today. Bullying in youth becomes abuse of power to oppress and intimidate those who are perceived as weak. Without some definitive intervention, the sins of one’s youth become the lifestyle of the adult. While single slips of momentary weakness do occur, significant violations are seldom one-off occurrences. Because the barriers and costs for victims to come forward are so high, when one does quite often many others lurk in the shadows. For this reason, to dismiss an accusation with “just once, long ago” does not ring true and should not allow evading the consequences of even long past misbehavior.
So if wishing the sins of my youth could just fade away is unhealthy and maybe even unjust, how can they be addressed in honest, positive, and restorative ways? Even if they were not public, I do believe that face to face confession to a person is healthy, powerful, and often essential. I have heard Protestants object to Roman Catholic confession by saying, “All they do is tell the priest, say their ‘Our Fathers’ and ‘Hail Marys’ and keep on going.” Conversely, I have heard Catholics object to Protestants keeping their confession secret between them and God as being too easy to fool ourselves into evading real responsibility for our behavior. James 5:16 instructs us to “confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, so that you may be healed.” Something healthy and powerful happens when we acknowledge our culpability to someone who will assure us of God’s forgiveness in Christ and actually pray for us in our weakness.
When John the Baptist saw Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism, he refused and said, “Bear fruit worthy of repentance.” (Matthew 3:8; Luke 3:8) Fruit worthy of repentance is not some sort of penalty or compensation for a wrong but is the sign of an authentic change of direction and even character, which is implied in the understanding of repentance. It is much more than being sorry for what was done (or getting caught for what was done), it is a personal turnaround. For some that might mean counseling, or involvement in an addiction recovery program, or restitution, or withdrawal from leadership temporarily or permanently, or forgoing a cherished opportunity. While the fruit worthy of repentance will be different for different people and situations, it will always be proactive pursuit of a new direction with viable accountability.
Though I have pursued fruit worthy of repentance, not just for sins of my youth but also for my ongoing failings, I can’t claim perfection here. For the last 25 years I have had a personal spiritual director almost all of the time. They have been people whom I trusted not just with my confessions but to hold me accountable to follow the path ahead. Sometimes people or circumstances are so remote I am unable to access them, and in those cases regret persists. I take seriously the prayer of Psalm 19:12, “Clear me from hidden faults.” The problem with hidden faults is that they are hidden, maybe more from me than from others. I need the probing grace of God to deal with this reality. I have found what Thomas Keating wrote in Intimacy with God (Crossroad, 1995) to be both challenging and helpful. I quote in part. (pp. 88-89)
“What is most disconcerting for souls who have been on the journey for twenty or thirty years is that each time we make the transition from one level to the next, we are likely to encounter the same temptations we had before we started the journey, and we think, ‘I’m not getting anywhere; I’m just the same old stick.’ … We encounter it again because there is a circular structure to a spiral staircase and hence horizontally we seem to meet the same old problem. But vertically we are now dealing with it at a more mature level. Hence, we are capable of making a more complete surrender of that attachment or that aversion.”
So the fruit worthy of repentance is not an event or accomplishment that can be achieved and abandoned. No, it is a lifestyle, a lifelong journey. If I am bearing fruit worthy of repentance for the sins of my youth, I will not deny them when they poke up, perhaps at unexpected and unwelcome moments, and I will not protest that I have handled that and don’t need to be reminded, and I will certainly not protest my innocence or righteousness. Rather, I will invite transparency into the journey I am on. There is a certain paradox here, that those who proclaim their qualifications for something, whether political office or pastoral calling, are almost certainly disqualifying themselves, while those who present themselves with humble vulnerability and accountability are likely better qualified.
I readily acknowledge that as a Christian I have framed this in biblical terms, as that is who I am. I want to be crystal clear that I do not expect those who hold public office to be my brand of Christian or any type of Christian to serve well. The US Constitution specifically forbids religious tests for holding public office. Not only is this wise for a pluralistic democracy, I believe it is healthy for authentic Christian discipleship. We don’t need some sort of diluted, generic civil religion masquerading as Christian faith. People should not have to pretend to be religiously something they are not. What is needed is integrity, accountability, character, competence. When it comes to fruit worthy of repentance for youthful indiscretions, I think the kind of honest transparency and intentional pursuit of trustworthy character that I seek in myself as a follower of Jesus are possible for someone who does not share that faith, even if they cast it in somewhat different terms.
Before moving on to my second concern, with some reluctance I think I should make a personal statement, maybe more for my wife than for myself. Since much of the current cacophony and the implications of youthful indiscretions revolve around sex, I think it is important to put to rest any wild imaginations about my own youth. My reluctance is that I don’t want to seem to be evasive or dismissive of my own youthful indiscretions or somehow come off as self-righteous. Nevertheless, I can say that in high school I did hold hands with a couple of girls I dated, but nothing more. I did not kiss or hug a girl or woman romantically until I was sure that Candy was the one I would marry. During engagement, we did grow in expressions of affection, but our first sex was on our wedding night. Now almost 50 years later, I can say with joy we have been each other’s only intimate partners.
Having said this, I assure you I am not a pious prude and would acknowledge some of my high school sexual rectitude was motivated more by timidity than morality. I still grimace at how I handled some of my early puberty curiosity. I would also confess that some of my interior imaginations and fantasies don’t match my exterior actual behavior. Though with a fully satisfying marriage, I am not always happy with how I inwardly manage my sexuality. Despite both this track record and pastorally having witnessed too many disasters from out of control sex and power, especially among my clergy colleagues, I know I am not immune and need vigilance and accountability as well as faithful tending of both my relationship with Jesus and my wife.
As far as I am aware I have never been inappropriate with a girl or woman (or boy or man for that matter) in the realm of sex or power. That doesn’t mean that I may not have been perceived that way or inadvertently behaved that way. This is not some declaration of innocence. But I well recognize that my youthful indiscretions have been in speaking and even writing hurtfully and demeaningly to and of other people. I saw a lot of life through “us vs. them” lenses and all too easily assigned unsubstantiated and tainted motives to “them.” I did not exercise appropriate discretion in speaking my critiques of “them” whether they were people in my school or community or even church. As I matured, I have endeavored to make right with those I could and learn to appreciate that other people don’t have to see things the way I do. In fact, I have changed what I think considerably since high school, since turning 25, and am still in process. While I do hope I have endeavored to yield fruit worthy of repentance, I know I am not and never will be finished.
This finally brings me to my second concern, that I will not examine in such depth as I have already explored it elsewhere, and it is more tangential to what prompted me to write. That is how to respect and hear victims of abuse and sexual harassment, especially women and the young. The #MeToo movement brought to public consciousness just how widespread sexual harassment is. It has encouraged many who have been victims of sexual predators and oppressors to speak out. It has been a source of courage for many who hid in fear for years. Yet, the reality is evident in the cacophony around Dr. Christine Blasey Ford’s allegations about Brett Kavanaugh. Again, I am not going to wade into deciphering the she-said – he-said or political machinations around all of this. Rather, I want to again raise the important of a change of cultural consensus so that power people (most but not all men) no longer have tacit permission to use sex and gender as weapons of oppression and dominance. I want to see a cultural consensus that rallies around a woman or child (or man) who speaks out and give them a fair chance to be heard and believed. Of course, I believe in due process, but that has to start with respecting victims and those who perceive themselves to have been victims.
My prayer Psalms today brought me to Psalm 140:12. “The Lord maintains the cause of the needy, and executed justice for the poor.” As I chatted about this line with God, the kinds of thoughts I have set down here were rumbling around in my head. Through the Psalms, the Hebrew Prophets, and Jesus’ teaching and relationships, the needy and the poor include a wide scope of those who are written off by much of society. If I am going to be in harmony with The Lord, I need to advocate for the cause and justice of those who are weak.
Now that I have plowed through all of this, maybe my mind can clear enough to get back to preparing my sermons. Also, I have been writing short stories for reading aloud with my wife, and I’ve got the starter idea for the next one. Maybe it will come together this weekend too. I just got word from Tom Irwin (my “literary agent”) that my Ripples book is ready for release, and we’re planning a book signing in Dallas on October 14. I haven’t decided yet if I will post this to my Pilgrim Path blog, but I do hope for release that will let me go on to these other more wholesome and important things unencumbered mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.
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