Apology
My Dear People,
Umpire Jim Joyce apologized for the bad call he made. Tony Hayward apologized for the oil spill. Congressman Joe Barton apologized to Tony Hayward and BP. Then Joe Barton apologized for his apology. And the latest is General Stanley McChrystal, offering an apology for remarks he and his staff made about the President and other civilian leaders. Apologies are a part of the fabric of life, and thus a part of the fabric of the news cycle. Some are of more import than others, and some are more convincing than others.
We sometimes speak of a "non-apology," the sort of apology that often begins something like, "I'm sorry if I hurt your feelings..." Real apologies, however, can have profound power, life-changing and even world-changing power.
British Prime Minister David Cameron's apology last week, in no uncertain terms, for what happened on January 30, 1972, in Derry, Northern Ireland, during a civil rights rally, when members of the British Army's Parachute Regiment fired on unarmed, innocent civilians, leaving fourteen dead, was just such an apology, a moment of great power and beauty and grace, all of which you could see on the faces of the 10,000 people gathered in Guildhall Square in Derry to watch the Prime Minister's speech, on large out-door screens. As Bono described, "Joy was the mood in the crowd. A group of women sang 'We Shall Overcome.'"
We know the power of a genuine apology. We have experienced it, on both the giving and the receiving ends. And yet, if we listen to our own hearts, we know that there is something in us that resists making an unapologetic apology. And none of us is immune to this. None of us is rid of it.
Mortifying. That's one word for it. It's mortifying to apologize; literally, to apologize touches our death. Our mortality. Our imperfection. Our lack of control; that we can't make it all happen the way we want it to happen. In a word, our egos (surprise, surprise!) are threatened by the need to make an authentic apology.
On the other hand, as Jesus taught us, to live is to die, and to die is to live.
The healing and joy and grace unleashed in the British Isles on Tuesday of last week is the same healing and joy and grace available to each of us, every day of our lives, when we're willing to die to self, and when we're willing to say "yes!" to hard truth, in the name of a healing, reconciling love.
Your brother in Christ,
Wallace+
