Reality is a harsh teacher

Have you ever had the disheartening experience of finding out you're not quite the person you thought (hoped) you were?

It was one of those days where some of the less-than-stellar things I've done in the not-so-distant past have come back to mock me and my "hidden" pettiness. It's amazing that for all of my "spiritualizing," I can still turn a blind eye to certain sins so easily. And while I'm disappointed that I had to be confronted with my own immorality in order to own up to the fact that I made choices I'm not particularly proud of, I'm grateful that I have a God who loves me enough to smack me around when I start to think too highly of myself.

Drew used to say that apologies are mostly phony because they almost always have the qualifier "if" tacked on somewhere. "I'm sorry if I hurt you." "I'm sorry if this is offensive." I agree with that for the most part. In particular, I agree that many times we apologize for the reaction our words and/or actions have elicited and not the acts themselves. By which we're essentially saying "I haven't done anything wrong yet I acknowledge you got hurt nonetheless" and that is, indeed, an empty penance.

Sadly, I think that's far too common. I know I'm guilty of it. However that belief makes the assumption that, not only do we fail to examine ourselves honestly, but that we simply can't. It's asserting we automatically and involuntarily make excuses to defend bad behavior and are incapable of applying earnest humility. And I, personally, think that's untrue. It's rare but, sadly, contrite hearts are few and far between. "For all have sinned and fall short" is said over and over but how many times do we really make laundry lists of our own particular and specific failings? It's easy to make it a wide generalization but what I need to do is keep that magnifying glass over my own life for a little bit longer and stop missing the trees for the forest.

I am sorry for everything that led me up to today's rude awakening but not because I almost got in trouble and not because someone got hurt indirectly. I'm sorry because I know better - I knew better - and I want to be above that; I thought I was. I was wrong.

I won't make excuses. I can only promise I'm going to do better next time.