Reading: "Wild Geese" by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting--
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.[1]

Meanwhile Saul was still breathing murderous threats against the disciples of the Lord. He went to the High Priest and applied for letters to the synagogues at Damascus authorizing him to arrest anyone he found, men or women, who followed the new way, and bring them to Jerusalem. While he was still on the road and nearing Damascus, suddenly a light flashed from the sky all around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying, 'Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?' "Tell me, Lord,' he said, 'who you are.' The voice answered, 'I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. But get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you have to do.' Meanwhile the men who were travelling with him stood speechless; they heard the voice but could see no one. Saul got up from the ground, but when he opened his eyes he could not see; so they led him by the hand and brought him into Damascus. He was blind for three days, and took no food or drink.[2] [The story goes on: Jesus appears in a vision to a disciple, whom he tells to go heal Saul. Saul is healed and baptised, and then begins proclaiming Jesus publicly in the synagogues. Saul becomes the great apostle Paul.]

On many a Monday my son Ian and I go to McDonalds after his morning kindergarten class. We eat and talk for awhile, then he runs off to play in the playland, coming back to the table periodically for a quick graze of leftover french fries and a gulp of Coke. Usually I read the morning Milwaukee paper while he plays.

One Monday at McDonalds not long ago, something quite extraordinary happened. At first it seemed like any other Monday at McDonalds. Ian ate most of his lunch and ran off to play. I picked up the paper. Then, almost without noticing, I stopped reading the paper and stared out the window into the bright winter sunlight. I was daydreaming. Suddenly, out of nowhere, these thoughts popped into my mind as loud and clear as a bell: "There is too much guilt in my life. I need to get rid of a whole lot of it!" I looked around. Wow! Where did that come from? Visions of a life nearly free of constant guilt danced through my mind. A smile came to face and I vowed to take this strange McDonalds vision to heart, to get rid of a large dose of guilt in my life. Okay, okay: it's not exactly St. Paul on the road to Damascus, but it was a pretty powerful experience. Things haven't been the same in my life since. I would call it at least a little conversion.

Guilt. I wonder how many of you are plagued by almost constant, nagging guilt feelings: mostly about the little things in life. Petty Guilt, I call it. Today I'm going to break guilt down into three types. The first is the most common: Petty Guilt. I often feel Petty Guilt most powerfully on Monday, my day off, a day that so often gets hijacked by "shoulds" around the house. Monday's lack of structure seems to invite in the "Shoulds." Sitting at McDonalds, Ian playing in the Playland, these thoughts typically flash through my mind: You should not be sitting here reading this newspaper, wasting time. You should be home cleaning the bathrooms. You should be cleaning the kitchen. You should be filing the papers and doing your taxes. You should be working on those inexcusably late thank you notes. What would Martha Stewart think of me sitting here reading this newspaper while dirty dishes and bathrooms fester at home? Martha Stewart haunts me still when I actually do the work: What would Martha Stewart say about how well I'm cleaning this toilet? What would Martha Stewart say about how I'm setting this table? Into the picture comes Petty Guilt's closest ally: perfectionism.

Sitting at McDonalds on Mondays before my little conversion experience, even hobbies become shoulds: You should go home and start brewing beer. It's been almost two years since you made beer! You don't even have enough discipline to do your hobby! What's the matter with you?? Or I dwell on what I should have done or should have done better at work the past week. The coming work week, now a mere twenty hours away, starts to loom. What won't I get to this week? What will I feel guilty about because I haven't done it as well as I could? (Perfectionism again!) We leave McDonalds and go home. Usually Ian asks to play a game the minute we walk into the door. Before my conversion I would snap "No," the shoulds from McDonalds echoing in my mind. "I've got way to much work to do." He looks at me incomprehensibly, contemplating whether to throw a fit. Or on good days I say, "Just a quick one and then Dada will have to get to work!" Talk about modeling to my son how to be on a day off!

I've heard many Unitarian Universalists attribute Petty Guilt feelings to traditional Christian upbringings. Well, I grew up in a liberal church much like the Fellowship. Your church of origin doesn't matter. I think Petty Guilt is at least as much embedded in our American culture as in our religions. The Puritan influence remains pervasive in cultural as well as religious matters. Most of us have the not always small voice within telling us what we should be doing and what we should NOT be doing and what we should be doing better. Nowhere is this Puritan influence more manifest than in the Protestant Work Ethic, an ethic that can be applied at home every bit as effectively as at work. In the world of the Puritans and the Protestant Work Ethic, pleasure is inherently suspicious. Experiencing pleasure must mean that something important's being neglected. Pleasure's bad; work's good. It's a pretty simple ethic, as American as apple pie.

There are, of course, some guilts which seem bigger than petty. A parent dies precisely when we leave their death bed to take a much needed break, leaving us plagued with guilt: How could we let our mom or dad die alone? We did our best to support our parent. It just happened Mom or Dad died when we were taking a break to take care of ourselves. Or maybe--as often happens, I believe--Mom or Dad preferred to be alone when they finally let go of this life. I call this second kind of guilt Undeserved Guilt. Here's another example: a good friend commits suicide, leaving us with guilt-ridden questions about what we could have done to prevent the suicide. Sometimes Undeserved Guilt visits us when we harm somebody or something, but there is no way we could have avoided it. A child runs out in the street. We are driving alertly but have no chance to miss the child, and the child is injured or killed.

So what should we do with this Petty Guilt and Undeserved Guilt--whether procrastinating on cleaning the bathroom or failing to be present when a parent takes his or her last breath? My McDonalds vision was mostly right, I think: get rid of it! Throw it out! It's not doing you or anybody else any good! Such guilt is destructive, sometimes devastating. There's nothing redeeming about it.
You might object: but what about getting the bathrooms cleaned? Are we to accept and tolerate dirty bathrooms? Is this not an excuse for utter sloth and lethargy? For most of us, I don't think so. The work that has to be done around the house will get done--perhaps later than sooner, perhaps imperfectly. (Sorry, Martha Stewart.) What must be done will get done, but with a lot less guilt. And maybe, if guilt is not our main motivation, we can even muster some appreciation and enjoyment and focus and mindfulness in our tasks around the house and at work. Even better, take away the guilt and maybe we can better and more freely choose what's most important. Maybe playing a long game with Ian is more important than cleaning the bathroom at this precise instant.

Okay, with my McDonalds conversion I've dispensed with Petty and Undeserved Guilt quite handily. But what about guilt that isn't petty and that comes directly from something we did or said or didn't do or didn't say? What about guilt that might come from killing or injuring someone or cheating on a spouse or intentionally killing or harming an animal or standing by silently as co-workers demean and even threaten another co-worker who they think is gay? I call this Big Guilt: my third category of guilt. Big Guilt arises from our actions which bring significant harm to ourselves, to other human beings or to other organic and inorganic parts of the great web of life. Big Guilt can flow from actions we do individually or actions we in one way or another participate in collectively. Sometimes Big Guilt arises from intentional acts and words; other times it arises from unintentional acts and words.
Big Guilt is a whole different kind of guilt--a kind of guilt that we should not simply try to get rid of. Big Guilt arises from actions (and non-actions, for that matter) we humans should feel guilty about. Traditional Christians might call such actions "sin." While many of us UUs shy away from this traditional term, and although it is frequently misused, "sin" is a word that is so descriptive and powerful that it still has a place in my spiritual and moral vocabulary.

I am a universalist when it comes to sin. I think from time to time we all do sin against ourselves and other members of the great web of life. We religious liberals are sometimes good at denying this reality. Not us! So we put a little asterisk in our new hymnal for "Amazing Grace": if you are more comfortable singing "that saved a soul like me" instead of "that saved a wretch like me," please do so. Some other liberal hymnals suggest that we sing "that saved someone like me." Someone...else: not me![3] We don't want to admit we could be wretches--only other, less enlightened people can be wretches. Well, I've got news for you: all of us, sooner or later, commit actions that bring significant harm to other parts of the web. As the writer Kathleen Norris dryly observes, "It seems to me that if you can't ever admit to being a wretch, you haven't been paying attention."[4]

Because I'm a universalist when it comes to sin, I sing "wretch." I also sing "wretch" because I remember John Newton's story. Newton, the writer of "Amazing Grace," converted to Christianity after serving as the captain of a slave ship. He realized that his sin--transporting fellow human beings into the evil institution of slavery--made him a wretch. While you and I mostly do not commit sins as egregious as John Newton's, at least every once in awhile there are things we do that qualify each of us for the title "wretch." If we are paying attention, we will know this to be so.

Big Guilt is deserved and helpful guilt. Helpful not as an end in itself--but as a nudge to doing the right thing. The worst thing we can do with Big Guilt is wallow in it, like a bison in mud. Wallowing in guilt leads to shame, despair, hopelessness and paralysis: a dead-end that is not constructive in any way. John Newton's realization that he was a sinner and the resultant guilty conscience would have been useless if all he did was wallow in it, all the while continuing his work on the slave ship. And it would have been useless if he wallowed in hopelessness and despair, paralyzed by the belief that his individual decision to quit the slave-trading business would not have any significant impact on ending the evil trade.

I remember a time I wallowed in guilt until I dug a deep hole of shame and despair for myself. After being unceremoniously dumped by the first true love in my life, I embarked on a series of destructive relationships--destructive for me, destructive for my partners. I wallowed in horrendous Big Guilt. But I didn't use it to change my behavior. For too long, I left one destructive relationship only to launch right into another one. My guilt was useless.

Mere words in the face of Big Guilt don't suffice, either. My apologizing to a person whom I hurt in a destructive relationship was worthless if I embarked on yet another destructive relationship. In the same way, it would have been useless if John Newton had uttered words of apology or confessed his sin to God and then right on with his work in the slave trade.

In the face of Big Guilt, there is only one way to truly resolve the feelings of guilt: repentance. This is what we must do with Big Guilt. Let it go by changing the way we act. Embody the Hebrew sense of the word repent: turn around and stop doing the harm! This is how real change, real transformation happens. This is what John Newton did. He stopped being captain of a slave-trading ship. He spent the rest of his life working for the abolition of slavery. And he shared the story of his repentance and conversion, inspiring others to join him and offering hope to others guilty of Big Sins. Saul had the same type of conversion. He didn't wallow in his guilt or merely mouth words of apology for his persecution. He stopped persecuting. He changed his ways. This was the heart of his conversion.

What should I do with Big Guilt? Learn from what I did and change my ways. Repent! Convert! Act differently! While most of our conversions in the face of Big Guilt are less dramatic and spectacular than Newton's or Saul's, they really are of a piece with these more famous conversions. We live our life well and ethically when time and time again we turn our inevitable feelings of Big Guilt into repentance and conversion--when we turn around and stop doing the harm.

And then we must let the guilty feelings go. They have performed their useful function. If they linger even though we have repented, they will do us and the world no good--just as Petty Guilt feelings do no good. Let the guilt go, and remember that sin is universal. Even Martha Stewart sins.

There is one other thing I should say about Big Guilt: we do best by focusing on our own guilt and not that of our lovers, children, parents, colleagues, friends, or enemies. Focusing on everyone else's guilt usually is a rank evasion. It is seldom ever very useful.
There is an excellent road map for dealing with Big Guilt: the Twelve Steps of AA and other recovery programs. The Fourth and Fifth steps bring one face to face with his or her Big Guilt. All the efforts to hide oneself from Big Guilt wither in the face of an honest Fourth and Fifth step. And then the Sixth and Seventh steps prepare oneself for changing, for turning around, for repenting. Steps Eight and Nine focus on making amends to all the people one has harmed, where to do so would not cause further injury. The Tenth Step instills in one the discipline to deal with the inevitable further occurences of Big Guilt quickly and effectively. Dealing with Big Guilt is at the heart of the Twelve Steps: the focus of more than half the steps. Its important place in recovery comes from the wisdom that unresolved Big Guilt is powerful fuel for an addiction.

So in Roger Bertschausen's analysis of guilt there are three kinds: Petty Guilt, Undeserved Guilt and Big Guilt. How do we know which is which? This might be the toughest question of all. How often what is really Petty Guilt masquerades in our minds as Big Guilt! And how easy it is to mistake Undeserved Guilt for Big Guilt! And how tempting it is to dismiss Big Guilt as Petty Guilt! Which is which? I don't have any easy answer here. All we can do is try as honestly as possible to be attentive to and contemplate our guilt feelings, striving to hear the wisdom from within. We can strive to share honestly about them with others, listening to the wisdom from others. And those of us who have spiritual practices can use our practice to help us contemplate this question. A Buddhist meditating on compassion, for example, may find his or her discernment about guilt sharpened by the practice. So may a person who practices prayer. For those who pray, I suggest using a variation of the Serenity Prayer: "God, grant me the courage to repent of my actions that create in me Big Guilt, the serenity to get rid of my Petty and Undeserved Guilt, and the wisdom to know the difference."

Another help in understanding and processing one's guilt is to be open to the amazing grace that so permeates life--the grace that is as near as a walk in the woods or a beautiful sunset or the wild geese flying overhead or a hug; the grace as near as the realization of self-forgiveness or the gift of forgiveness from someone we have harmed; the grace that flows from the understanding that we all do sin and that we do not have to walk on our knees for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting; the grace that comes from the realization in our hearts that we do have a place in the family of things.

Copyright 1999 by Roger B. Bertschausen. All rights reserved.

[1]Mary Oliver, New and Selected Poems (Boston: Beacon Press, 1992), p. 110.
[2]from the New English translation.
[3]Kathleen Norris, Amazing Grace: A Vocabulary of Faith (New York: Riverhead Books, 1998), p. 166.
[4]Ibid., p. 167.