Guilt

A friend of mine once said, "Guilt is a completely worthless emotion." She, like me, had grown up in a conservative denomination and wrestled with a heightened sense of guilt. Many contemporary writers seemed to have joined the assault on feeling guilty. Several books including some of my favorites have joined the anti-guilt ethos of the day. The Ragamuffin Gospel by Brennan Manning to name just one.

Indeed, the problems with perpetual guilt feeling are numerous. Guilt cheats happiness and frequently impedes spiritual growth. But I wonder if guilt doesn't need to be re-examined. When I was a boy, Sunday School teachers were fond of making the distinction between conviction (being convicted of sin by the Holy Spirit) and guilt. The conviction of the Holy Spirit remains until we have repented. Guilt remains whether we repent or not and often we feel guilt for things that we really ought not feel guilty about. Building on those early thoughts, I thought I would try to make a few other observations clarifying the difference between guilt and conviction.

DISCERNMENT--Discernment is a process of spiritual decision making. It involves our own intelligence in conversation with scripture, tradition and the faith community of which we are a part. When you experience feelings of guilt try to locate the source of the principle you feel you have violated. For instance, many people feel guilty for being late for an appointment. Where do we get the idea that being late is a bad thing? Primarily, we get it from our culture. To say that doesn't mean its OK to be perpetually late. There are many advantages for being on time to things. It is, after all, a show of respect to the person with whom you have an appointment. But, there's nothing particularly godly about punctuality or ungodly about being late. Once you have identified the location of the principle, rate the offesne of terms of its real seriousness. We often feel guilt that is out of proportion to the offense.

EXAMINE--Is the thing that's nagging at you really your fault? If so, what specifically is your fault? Often times people take actions or make statements that upset other people. They will try to apologize when they realize that another person's feelings were hurt. Yet, we cannot control other people's feelings nor assume responsibility for them. We must know what we believe to be the ethical and sensitive way to communicate something and try to communicate in ethical and sensitive ways. If we have done that and people are still offended, it may not be our fault.

CHOOSE A DIRECTION--Confessing sins to God is a good first step; however, we often need to try to repair the relationship that has been hurt by our sin. Along these lines, we have to make a choice. We should reconcile where possible and apologize when necessary. At the same time, we need to ask whether trying to address the hurt wouldn't raise more pain than relieve. It's all very difficult. But ultimately we should learn from our offense and seek to correct our past mistakes with our future actions.