“The truth is that our finest moments are most likely to occur when we are feeling deeply uncomfortable, unhappy, or unfulfilled. For it is only in such moments, propelled by our discomfort, that we are likely to step out of our ruts and start searching for different ways or truer answers.”- M. Scott Peck
Guilt – the fruitless emotion
If you’re a Christian, it doesn’t only mean you believe in the Bible, in Jesus etc, it also means you subscribe to a particular architecture of thinking. In these ‘Chronicles’ I aim to demonstrate why our conventional views are – not flawed or slightly off – but entirely misinformed, entirely mistaken.
In order to be a believer requires that believers subscribe to a set of pillars to hold up their faith. These are, in no particular order, free will, the soul, guilt, sin, heaven [and thus hell], life after death [which is a separate concept to heaven in a sense, which I will explain], and a personal God. 7 concepts. This week I will be focusing on:
GUILT
I don’t think being human has any place for guilt. Contrition, yes, Guilt no. Contrition means you tell God you are sorry and you’re not going to do it again and you start off afresh. All the damage you’ve done to yourself, put right. Guilt means you go on and on belaboring and having emotions and beating your breast and being ego-fixated. Guilt is a trap. People love guilt because they feel if they suffer enough guilt, they’ll make up for what they’ve done. Whereas, in fact, they’re just sitting in a puddle and splashing. Contrition, you move forward. It’s over. You are willing to forgo the pleasures of guilt. -Wendy Beckett
While contrition is a step forward, it still implies apologising for something you suspect you have done wrong. In the simplest language – feeling bad and saying sorry. But what are we feeling bad about? Does that have any substance to speak of, let alone think of?
First, let’s clearly differentiate between the emotion and the legal statement. Someone who is found guilty of a crime, is thus ‘culpable’. This is a word meaning ‘to blame’, ‘in the wrong’, ‘responsible’ or ‘liable’. I personally prefer the word ‘culpable’. Guilt is word much like God, love and sex that is loaded with meaning and bias, most of them not very useful or even accurate. In this article I will show that while guilt may be real [someone either did or did not murder or harm another], the emotion that is guilt tends to be based on chimerical concepts, and very seldom on reality or anything rational.
Guilt is an extremely powerful motivator. Think about it. A parent caring for a young child is not compelled to do so by the child. The child is smaller and powerless. But guilt, a sense of duty, instinct perhaps, compels that parent to respond to cries. Though it is not guilt alone at work, guilt certainly plays a factor. The child quickly tries to hijack this weakness, claiming to be extremely upset because it was not provided with a toy or item of confectionery which is essential to its happiness and well being. The parent needs to be discerning to see that the guilt in not providing is a healthy response, good for the parent and in the child’s best interests.
The church is also very good at controlling its congregation by employing guilt. It was when I was reading a book by M. Scott Peck [The Road Less Travelled] that I began to look at guilt in a completely new way. Guilt, as it happens, also happens to be the thing that attracts as to Christianity and once a member, what compels us, forces us to remain in service to an invisible God. Guilt, because Jesus died for us, and so we owe him our allegiance since he ‘paid a price’ before we were even born. Guilt, because God loves us [like a parent loves a child], and so it is our duty to honor our Father. And Guilt, but this time the more factual kind – if we ignore God we commit the unforgivable sin, because it is simply unconscionable for us to do that.
Religion induces as much guilt as it cures. - Reverend Ellen Livingston
Guilt though, we’re told, comes to us as a result of what James Joyce referred to as ‘the agony of the conscience.’ In other words, guilt is inherent. A little voice in our hearts says to us, don’t do that, and when we do, we feel guilty. It’s natural?
Actually, it’s not. That voice in your heart is an internalised sense of ‘what society wants/expects’. I can be in a country like South Korea, and I feel a twinge when I accept anything, money, or a gift, with my left hand. This is not because I feel guilty, it is simply a physiological response, a recognition, that what I am doing is not socially healthy, and if I repeat this behaviour I will suffer, possibly, ridicule or exclusion.
Of course, back in South Africa, I am perfectly entitled to exchange money with whichever hand, since here it is not a culturally significant matter. Yet initially I may be in the habit of offering and accepting with right hand only. Guilt, is a construct of culture and society, and like many conventions, they have little to do with what is healthy or right. Culpability is based on a convention then. Convention is a word meaning standard, or principle, in other words – something generally agreed upon by many. And so to enforce it, usually one also needs an audience to force or coerce someone into a behaviour they might otherwise not naturally be inclined towards, or feel comfortable or casual with otherwise. All of us have participated in these conventions – either to include or to ostracise, and all of us have been the victims of this. It is a powerful mechanism which can be used to crush a competitor based on very flimsy information. Someone may be guilty of being arrogant to one group, celebrated for being ‘confident’ by another. But the culpability involved is fictional – it is constructed by an agreed set of conventions, and often the idea of conventions being overstepped are implied or imputed rather than real.
The bible will also have us believe that when we are born we are immediately guilty, because we inherit ‘original sin’. And thus are immediately in need of deliverance/salvation. This is based on a suspicion that in our lives we will need to work to survive. That life involves struggle. The concept of ‘sin’ hijacks this impression of the truth, and exacerbates it with religious overtones.
Original sin is a cynical attitude to the world. What about original virtue, a concept once espoused by Matthew Fox, a silenced Roman Catholic priest? Or conventionally – innocent until proven guilty?
It’s when it becomes toxic that we are alienated from ourselves, that we are dehumanized, spiritually bankrupt. - Reverend Ellen Livingston
And we all know very religious, very spiritual people who are strict on themselves that end up feeling, rather than liberated and joyful, but despairing and depressed. Guilt when it is excessive can lead us down a road where we arrive at a place that is filled with spiritual and personal bankruptcy.
M. Scott Peck, psychiatrist and author of The Road Less Traveled has a healing prescription for the guilt trip that keeps us in bondage: It is the willingness to suffer continual self-examination. - Reverend Ellen Livingston
Self examination isn’t about finding guilt, it is simply raising our level of consciousness, and improving our efficacy at dealing with life, at managing our emotions vis-à-vis the emotions of others.
When you read Frank McCourt’s story, so engaging and so heartbreaking have your handkerchief handy: it’s the sad plight of a mother who is sick and hungry and poor, the victim of an alcoholic husband who can’t hold a job, who loses young children to lack of care and attention and yet is still expected to do her wifely duty and have yet more children. Or simple as this—she will burn in hell. - Reverend Ellen Livingston
Bill Moyers once asked Joseph Campbell on a TV program if what people wanted from religion was eternal truth. He replied, “I don’t think that’s what we’re really seeking. I think what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive ... so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive.” Part of feeling “fully alive” is to experience both the fragility of existence and the reality of sin that dwells even on the gateway of joy and wonder. - Reverend Ellen Livingston
So instead of guilt, what?
The answer is this. Guilt is a fruitless emotion. It cannot produce a positive result. It is like the ring Frodo had to cast into the bowels of Mount Doom. It is a poisonous artifact that only darkens and soils those who encounter it. Instead of guilt, do something. If you feel a sense of guilt, of insufficiency, of shame or blame – even if it stems – you might think – from yourself, raise yourself up; go and do something.
So as a remedy, or as what might be called an act of contrition we can do certain things—we can do what we need to do to take care of our own health, to nurture our relationships, to slow down, smile and show concerns for the check-out lady and be patient with everyone we see today. On a broader scale we can work to heal the injustices and poverty and racism and homophobia in our society. We can clean things up, say we are sorry, show up, grow up. We can forgive ourselves and others. Over and over. - Reverend Ellen Livingston
More: The Christianity Chronicles - Free will, what is it
No comments:
Post a Comment