My daughter goes to a Jewish preschool (sort of by accident--we loved the preschool and then realized it was Jewish), so of course she's been learning a little bit about Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Featured prominently is a song called "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm really really sorry." I heard her singing this at home and thought...oh great, another way for her to get out of doing the right thing.
Wait, what?! That's right, I am annoyed by my daughter saying sorry so much. She's great at apologizing, and I often find myself thinking (and sometimes saying) "Well, it's nice to apologize, but it would be better not to do the bad thing in the first place."
But how does this parenting experience resonate with my broader belief in the power of apology, and in the possibility of redemption? Does it all fall apart when I'm called on to actually walk the walk with a three year old?
I think the answer is found in what can, or should, accompany an apology. The times when I get frustrated are when I observe my daughter repeating the same behavior without trying to change it...and thinking that it's all right if she just apologizes afterward. So the solution, I think, is in the extent to which we are open to actually changing our behavior, to transformation. Mary, the other clergyperson at the Washington Ethical Society, gave a great platform about transformation last Sunday. And it turns out that the song my daughter learned has the idea embedded in it: the last verse goes "I won't do that again."
Apologies are wonderful. Transformations are even better. Here's hoping for both of them in all our lives.
1 comment:
This reminds me of an experience a few weeks ago when another NVC trainer and I took a walk with a boy who was suggesting we do something that his parents might not approve of, saying, "Don't worry, I''ll take responsibility." We asked what that meant, and it seemed like "taking responsibility" to him simply meant that he was willing to be the one who was blamed for what happened -- as if accepting blame really solved anything. Apologizing or accepting blame can arguably be a distraction from what really matters: a willingness to consider the effects of our actions and take the consequences into account in a way that will alter our choices. - Bob Wentworth
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