Penitence

On July 8, 1838, the seventh president of the United States, General Andrew Jackson, informed his minister, the Reverend Dr. John Edgar, that he wanted to become a member of the Presbyterian Church and receive Communion. Dr. Edgar asked the president about his conversion and convictions, and gave his approving nod with each satisfactory answer. But Dr. Edgar felt the need to probe the president's soul more deeply. "General, there is one more question which it is my duty to ask you: Can you forgive all your enemies?"

The question stunned General Jackson. He stared at his minister for a moment while he gathered his thoughts. He then broke the silence: "My political enemies, I can freely forgive," Jackson confessed. "But as for those who abused me when I was serving my country in the field, and those who attacked me for serving my country—that is a different case."

This was an honest answer, but Dr. Edgar wasn't satisfied. Christians must forgive all, Edgar insisted to America's seventh president. President Jackson wasn't anticipating that he would be probed and questioned in this way. And yet when the time came for him to respond, he knew he had to embrace the claim of the gospel on his life. One of Jackson's biographers gives us his response:

There was a "considerable pause." Then Jackson spoke again. Upon reflection, he said he thought he could forgive all who had injured him, even those who reviled him for his services to his country on the battlefield. He was at long last prepared to grant amnesty to all the scoundrels and poltroons who had ever crossed his path.

On July 15, 1838, General Andrew Jackson, seventh president of the United States, was admitted into the Presbyterian Church. He was seventy years old when his battle-weathered soul and tired body knelt to receive Communion for the first time. And as he did, his biographer tells us, "tears of penitence and joy trickled down his careworn cheeks." Meekness had triumphed.

A Florida judge handed down an unusual sentence to a husband who had a domestic dispute with his wife.

During the courthouse hearing, Judge Hurley told Mr. Bray that he would he would need to figure out a plan for marriage counseling, but then Hurley added the novel part of the sentence:

[Mr. Bray] is going to stop by somewhere and he's going to get some flowers. He's going to get a card, he's going to get flowers, and then he's going to go home, pick up his wife, get dressed and take her to Red Lobster, and after that Red Lobster they're going to go bowling.

An attorney jokingly asked the judge, "Does he have to let her win?"

"No," Judge Hurley replied, but he also stressed that he wasn't joking. If Bray failed to follow through, he would be back in court.

The judge acknowledged that it was a very minor incident, but he didn't want to let Mr. Bray off the hook. So after checking with Mrs. Bray that she did not felt safe enough to invite her husband back home, Mrs. Bray said, "I love my husband and want to work things out." Then the judge turned to Mr. Bray and said, "Flowers, birthday card, Red Lobster, bowling. You got your work cut out for you, do you understand?"

'Yes sir,' Bray replied.

Psychiatrist Scott Peck wrote of meeting with a depressed 15-year-old named Bobby, who was increasingly troubled after his 16-year-old brother killed himself with a .22 rifle.

Peck tried to probe Bobby's mind, but got nowhere. Searching for ways to establish a bond, he asked what Bobby had received from his parents for Christmas. "A gun," Bobby said. Peck was stunned. "What kind?"

"A .22."

More stunned. "How did it make you feel, getting the same kind of gun your brother killed himself with?"

"It wasn't the same kind of gun." Peck felt better.

"It was the same gun."

Bobby had been given, as a Christmas present, by his parents, the gun his brother used to kill himself.

When Peck met with the parents, what was most striking was their deliberate refusal to acknowledge any wrongdoing on their part. They would not tolerate any concern for their son, or any attempt to look at moral reality.

Two decades later and after his conversion to Christianity, Peck wrote about this encounter:

One thing has changed in twenty years. I now know Bobby's parents were evil. I did not know it then. I felt their evil but had no vocabulary for it. My supervisors were not able to help me name what I was facing. The name did not exist in our professional vocabulary. As scientists rather than priests, we were not supposed to think in such terms.

Interestingly enough, although Peck often worked with convicted prisoners, he rarely found evil there. He finally decided … "The central defect of evil is not the sin but the refusal to acknowledge it." This definition is reflective of Jesus' far greater severity in dealing with religious leaders than with prostitutes and tax collectors.

The authors of the book Mistakes Were Made (but not by me) argue that our tendency to justify our actions is more powerful and deceptive than an explicit lie. They write:

[Self-justification] allows people to convince themselves that what they did was the best thing they could have done. In fact, come to think of it, it was the right thing. "There was nothing else I could have done." "Actually, it was a brilliant solution to the problem." "I was doing the best for the nation." "Those [jerks] deserved what they got." "I'm entitled."

[For example], when researchers ask husbands and wives what percentage of the housework they do, the wives say, "Are you kidding? I do almost everything, at least 90 percent." And the husbands say, "I do a lot, about 40 percent." Although the specific numbers differ from couple to couple, the total always exceeds 100 percent by a significant margin. It's tempting to conclude that one spouse is lying, but it is more likely that each is remembering in a way that enhances his or her contribution.

Over time, as the self-serving distortions of memory kick in … we come to believe our own lies, little by little. We know we did something wrong, but we gradually begin to think that it wasn't our fault, and after all, the situation was complex. We start underestimating our own responsibility, whittling away at it until it is a mere shadow of its former hulking self.

On the same day, Rebecca Pippert attended two very different events: a graduate-level psychology class at Harvard University and a Christian Bible study adjacent to Harvard. She offered the following observations on how the two groups addressed (or failed to address) their faults, problems, and sins:

First, the students [in the graduate-level psychology class] were extraordinarily open and candid about their problems. It wasn't uncommon to hear them say, "I'm angry," "I'm afraid," "I'm jealous" …. Their admission of their problems was the opposite of denial. Second, their openness about their problems was matched only by their uncertainty about where to find resources to overcome them. Having confessed, for example, their inability to forgive someone who had hurt them, [they had no idea how to] resolve the problem by forgiving and being kind and generous instead of petty and vindictive.

One day after the class, I dropped in on a Bible study group in Cambridge. [The contrast] was striking. No one spoke openly about his or her problems. There was a lot of talk about God's answers and promises, but very little about the participants and the problems they faced. The closest thing to an admission [of sin or a personal problem] was a reference to someone who was "struggling and needs prayer."

"The first group [the psychology class] seemed to have all the problems and no answers; the second group [the Bible study] had all the answers and no problems."

How do you handle criticism? Is it an opportunity to take offense? Or is it a chance to grow in honesty about our faults and our need for God's grace? In his article titled "Welcoming Limits," Dave Goetz explores these questions through a personal story:

On a fly-fishing trip, with still an hour in the truck before arriving home, my fishing buddy off-handedly observed that I was overly sensitive to criticism. He listed a couple of instances, including my response to some reviews of my writing. Suddenly, the truck felt cramped. I snapped back that simply debating what others say about me or what I do isn't being overly sensitive. I asked him to give more specific examples, which I debunked. Hurt, I withdrew from the conversation and nursed my new wound from an old friend. How could I be sensitive to criticism?

In the years since, I've come, glacially, to another layer of insight: Not only am I oversensitive to criticism, I also likely to play consultant to others about how they can advance their lives. … [In the past], I saw myself as much more large-hearted … . I now see why humility comes on the heels of self-knowledge: I cringe when I think of how unaware I've been.

Goetz also cautions that this kind of honest self-knowledge, which leads to humility, isn't acquired in one lesson. "It's a slow, agonizing progression as the soul makes its way toward God."