I’m doing Christmas cards this week, which means that all my spare time is spent repeating the process of writing a note on the back of our family picture, tucking it in an envelope, peeling off an address label, and affixing it to an envelope. The only thing that breaks my flow is when I catch sight of a certain person’s name and address, about half way down the third page of labels. Every time I see it, wince. That name is a reminder of just how unsaintly I can be sometimes, and how very much I am in need of God’s mercy (and other people’s mercy as well).
You see, it’s the name of an acquaintance I originally met through a local playgroup when my first child was an infant. Shortly after we had gotten to know one another, a friendly debate (read: vicious catfight) about parenting philosophies erupted on the playgroup email list. Some of the things this new friend said ruffled my feathers; I strongly disagreed with her stance on a couple of issues, and I felt personally judged by one remark in particular. A few days later she sent out an email that was basically friendly, but touched on some of the things that had rankled me. I was exhausted and in a bad mood, and so I forwarded the email to my husband, along with some snippy commentary.
Later that afternoon, I saw this friend’s name in my inbox. The subject was RE: her earlier subject…which was weird since I hadn’t sent anything to her. I opened her note, and a horrible feeling descended upon me as I realized: OH MY GOSH I HIT ‘REPLY’ INSTEAD OF ‘FORWARD’! I looked down in the email thread to see my words that had arrived in her inbox. And I thought: Wow. I was really being a jerk there.
Naturally, I immediately sent an apology, which she graciously accepted, and we moved on. But all these years later I still remember that moment every time I see her name.
As I was thinking about the situation while writing up her Christmas card earlier this week, I wondered: Would I have had such sincere remorse for my sharp words if she’d never seen the email? I might have felt vaguely bad about it, but the truth is that I probably would have forgotten about it pretty quickly.
It’s an interesting illustration of how sin works: If you had asked me if I thought it was okay to make a hostile comment about someone, I would have said no. I wasn’t Catholic at the time, but that kind of thing was certainly against my personal moral code. And yet, as long as I thought that no one besides me or my husband had seen what I’d written, I didn’t feel all that guilty about having done it. When I thought of my remarks, I immediately thought of all my excuses for making them (which, perhaps incorrectly, I assumed that my husband would understand as well): I was tired, I was in a bad mood, I’d felt hurt by something she said previously, etc. I saw my bad behavior through the lens of my rationalizations for doing it; and through that lens, it didn’t seem all that bad.
But something changed when my comments were dragged out into the light for my acquaintance to see as well: Not only had someone else now been hurt by my remarks, but all of my justifications suddenly lost their potency. I didn’t even bother typing out my tale of woe that I was tired or in a bad mood or whatever, because I knew how lame it would sound. I was faced with the stark truth that excuses that sound awfully compelling when they’re confined inside your head can sometimes turn out to be pretty weak when you have to say them out loud for someone else to hear.
I often thought of this situation a couple of years later, when I was about to become Catholic. Other people in my RCIA class struggled with the idea of confessing their sins to a priest, but I never had the slightest problem with this practice. Especially after that experience with the mistaken email, it made perfect sense to me that God would set up a system like this; since he knows us better than we know ourselves, he understands that we tend to keep our sins carefully wrapped up with rationalizations as long as they’re confined to our heads. And, sure enough, before I had access to the sacrament of confession, when I would confess my sins in the form of silent prayer, they didn’t often strike me as being that big of a deal. But when I later sat down and spoke those same sins to my priest, everything changed. Some of my excuses were legitimate and worth explaining as extenuating factors for my bad behavior…but most weren’t. And I had to go through that painful but cathartic moment of seeing what I’d done, stripped bare of hollow excuses, and just admit: Wow. I was really being a jerk there.
As I affixed that old friend’s address label to the Christmas card envelope, I was reminded once again of my own sinfulness, and thus my need for a Savior. I thanked God for his mercy, for kind friends, and for giving us a way to understand the weight of our sins, without having to wait until we accidentally hit Reply instead of Forward.
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Confession has kept me more sane and true. It is a wonderful blessing.
Thanks for sharing your story, it was interesting to read and reminded me on how I have many sins I need to confess. Haven’t confessed in years, just started to go back to church, get involved and continue building a relationship with God.
Great post as always.
If it’s any consolation, if I had a penny every time I was a jerk I’d be very rich by now. And I don’t say that pridefully.
We all have those people in our past, don’t we? Folks who have become an instant reminder of how far we have to go towards heaven and sainthood. I can remember one in particular who caused me to get almost physically sick as I remembered how far our friendship had fallen. It took confession to remind me that we are both just people in need of prayer.
From that moment, every time I thought or spoke about them, I began to buffer it front and back with prayer. Over time, it has gotten better and while our friendship is still broken, I am able to focus on the beautiful memories rather than the ugly.
what I think about is those people i have offended and I will never know it. I hurt someone and I can’t even be contrite cuz I dont know who they may be or why i hurt them. But i did. So, i try and forgive every offence i can. Forgetaboutit as much as grace can take me….
Cindy - Welcome back!
Jennifer, thank you.
The gift of reconciliation gives us graces we can’t even measure. My husband has gotten me in a habit of going regularly, and now if we can’t make it and have to wait a little longer, I find I’m thirsty for it.
What about HER sin? Being snippy and judgemental is pretty nasty. Don’t be so hard on yourself.
Cynthia, not being hard on ourselves because the other person sinned is all a part of rationalization. Allowing ourselves to react to someone else being snippy or judgemental is very easy, but not at all charitable. We need to learn to look at ourselves under a clear bright spotlight. The only way to do that is through confession.
We are not responsible for how someone treats us. Feeling hurt or offended is quite normal. How we react is what gets us in trouble!
We all need to look at ourselves in the clear bright light of truth and the only way to really do that is in confession.
Thanks for the wonderful post…to become on the outside what we are on the inside…terrifying, and yet wonderful with graces work in us.
Thank you for this wonderful post, Jen!
And Rachel W.—thank you for your lovely reply. It really hit home.
I too appreciate your post because I think we have all done something like this and they are good object lessons. I was in a very secular time in my life and was shaken out of it by a moment at work. I was a nurse in a children’s hospital and had gotten aggravated with my patient’s mother (as mothers of sick children have nothing to do besides make the nurses happy?) The nurse I reported off to in the morning got an earful of nasty poisonous spew from me that was so bad when I reflected on it, I was bitterly ashamed. I realized that the poison in my heart was a product of my life and I needed to change.
The other important lesson of foolish internal rationalizations is that they are how Satan tricks very good people into very bad things. I frequent a message board of women whose husbands had betrayed them by affairs… Christian husbands who betray build a very elaborate structure of rationalization to convince themselves that their wives actually DESERVED what was being done to them. So not only does the wife get betrayed, but she gets treated like a person who deserves the lies and disrespect of betrayal. That doesnt happen overnight - we need to stay diligent in our internal accountability and the Sacraments are the best way to do that.
“Would I have had such sincere remorse for my sharp words if she’d never seen the email? I might have felt vaguely bad about it, but the truth is that I probably would have forgotten about it pretty quickly.”
This is a great reflection and I would never have thought of confession in this way. Great testimony.
God Bless.
Thanks for your sharing.
At least 4 times in my past I wrote letters that were really insulting and hurtful. Yet, while composing them, I had convinced myself that I was being wise and inspirational. It wasn’t until the backlash came that my mind cleared and I realized that I had been a jerk. I think it has to do with our inability to trust God. We think that we can insert something into the situation to change it where nothing best be said. We can’t accept not being in control.
If we’re convinced that we have to input our opinion, run it by a trusted friend first. It’s kind of like going to confession before committing the sin and then avoiding it in the first place.
Good article. Confession keeps me in line. I don’t like confessing the same sins all the time so I strive to really change my behavior. Plus at times, it really felt like Jesus was talking to me. Hard to explain the feeling.
Hi. I found you through the reference Simcha made about her virtual baby shower….and I liked you at “what hitting reply instead of forward taught me about sin”. You hit it right on the head. Taking our sins outside our head strip away the rationalizations and bare them to the light. Just as it would be in heaven. I’m a convert and never had a problem confessing to a priest. I was in RCIA and when I learned I would have conditional baptism and why, I knew I had been baptized correctly but had no proof, so I felt a strong need for confession. I’ll never forget how scared I was….and I had some “real zingers” in there to confess. But oh the feeling of being absolved….of hearing those words. God bless you.
I feel bad that you still feel guilty about it! She forgave you. God forgave you. Stop beating yourself up. Chances are, it was divine intervention that it went to her. Had you kept all of those feelings inside, you would have both eventually gotten in a big fight. It cleared the air. You probably both apologized, and are now still friends, since you sent her a Christmas card! :)
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