Some kind of guilt

 

A frigid 29 degrees outside, my vehicle inside was only a little warmer than that as I drove down the long, dark road back to my house.  Out of the corner of my left eye, just above the steering wheel I could see the bright yellow glow of an icon on my dashboard with the “low tire pressure” symbol.  I had to decide if I would go to the station on the way home or go all the way home and deal with it tomorrow.  I do not enjoy the proverbial Sword of Damocles hanging over my head, so I stopped and boosted all 4 tires with some air.  Didn’t I just do this last week?  Darn it all.  I HATE having to inflate my tires.  Last year, I had The Guys seal around the tire stems because we determined that was how the air was slipping out.  Maybe I need to do that again.  I feel like I go through this every year when the colder weather sets in.  I know when.  I know why.  And, I know what to do to make it right.  Yet it is all ONE BIG NUISANCE.

To take this situation as an analogy, I offer you:  GUILTY FEELINGS.  No one enjoys feeling guilty.  Even the people who suffer with scrupulosity – the tendency to nit-pick yourself to death mentally about even the smallest of your own faults or failings – don’t enjoy feeling badly. 

Humans deal with this feeling in a variety of ways -both unproductive and opportunistically.  We have people that wallow in feeling horrible.  We have people who write songs to justify their guilt, “It can’t be wrong, when it feels so right…” and … we have people who label the guilt as if it is bad in and of itself, like a broken feeling attached to no piece of reality that they should be facing in and of itself.

“Catholic guilt” is a phrase that sets my teeth on edge like no other because it is a misnomer.  Guilt is not “catholic.”  It is a universal human experience of people that have at least a modicum of functioning conscience inside them.  I propose: Guilt can actually be a GOOD thing in that it points you, like the dashboard icon in your car, to something that needs immediate attention.  The most unhelpful thing for our own personal well-being is to damn the torpedoes and not address what the Guilt is pointing to.  That would be akin to me continuing to drive on tires that are leaking air … eventually the whole vehicle will be immobilized.

I was thinking about guilt the other day.  From Real Life, I offer you the various types of guilt thrown at us – actually thrown at me – in the last year.  (Maybe the headache I’ve been sporting the past three weeks is not sinus pressure, just STRESS?!)  These are not reasonable guilt-experiences.  They are based in societal judgmentalism and the current “cancel-culture.”

Ø  From FarceBook:  “This post is being fact-checked.”  (Huh.  While you are at it, why don’t you fact-check CNN, CBS, ABC, NBC and the FBI.  It’d keep you busier and be a better use of your time then chasing ME.)

Ø  From pet adoption groups:  “Don’t buy from a breeder, adopt a pet!”  (I am a breeder of AKC spaniels.   I am not a backyard puppy mill and I don’t need my business rained-on.   I am not a bad person.)

Ø  From a friend of another race:  “You don’t know what it is like to be racially profiled!”  (Yes I do.  When I get stopped for a speeding ticket I am almost guaranteed to get one.  I am sober.  I am white. I am single.  And I cannot cry-on-command.  I only got let off the time I offered the Officer some french fries…. and he refused them.)

Ø  From a certain world leader who is anti-capitalism and is critical of American prosperity as if we are all irresponsible and selfish with our finances.  My mailbox hauls in no less than 20 solicitations A WEEK from charities of every kind.  (Did someone sell my name on a list?!)  If I don’t work, the donations that I am actually able to eke out will stop.  I think that for all that is criticized about Americans, we are STILL the most generous people in the world.  My dear grandfather used to pack up boxes of clothes and send them back to Europe for our family that lived in poverty there. 

Ø  (self-imposed guilt)  My neighbors decorate for Christmas like Disneyland-East.  I have all I can do to wash the algae off the white deck posts and wrap a strand of lights around it and add a small Christmas tree by the 4^th week of Advent.

Ø  From H.R. for telling a group of us not to tell interview candidates about the weather here.  Why?  Because it STINKS for 6 months out of the year.  I am literally EATING Vitamin D’s by the handful because the lack of sun this time of year makes me feel like it’s raining inside my head, not just outside my window. 

I could go on.  You get the idea.  My point is that for all the people out there who are saying that their guilt is residually imposed due to their Catholic upbringing or schooling, they are full of baloney.  Most of the guilt thrown on us on a daily basis has very little to do with religion.  I will go so far as to say that the guilt we feel for things that we have done may actually point us to amending our life choices.  Guilt could, hypothetically, move us to be a better person.  We have to entertain the idea, at least, that we make mistakes and could actually do better. 

But what do we DO with guilt?  As I mentioned above, some people just blame an institution, like a religion, for their feelings of guilt.  Others ignore the guilt and persist in whatever it is that makes them feel guilty.  It reminds me of the story of the two farmers talking near the mailbox.  The hound lying on the front porch let out a pitiful, mournful howl.  The visiting farmer asked, “what’s the matter with your dog?”  The reply:  “Nothing.  There’s a nail sticking up from a board and he just lays down on it and howls.”  GET OFF THE NAIL, DAWG!!!

Did you ever have a heart-to-heart with a friend and come away feeling that the load was lighter?  That is the purpose of the Catholic sacrament of confession.  It is also the purpose of the 12-steps in Anonymous groups:  “Admit the exact nature of your wrongs to another person; where it is possible and will not do further harm, make amends; admit that you are powerless to change on your own volition and need a Higher Power.”  The Bible author puts it succinctly:  “Confess your sins, one to another, that you might be healed.”  (James 5:16).  St. James may have wrote that, but it was really God’s idea.  He wants you to feel better and make progress.

So, if you are looking to give yourself a great gift for Christmas or New Years’, what about that?  What about ditching the guilt in some constructive manner so that you can move forward with your life?  “Cancel” the guilty feelings by honesty, faith, and acts of charity.  You will feel better, I know you will.

 

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