It's been a great privilege to hear them–your regrets.
In many ways, it was completely unfair to ask you about them. Regrets seem the right topic to take on first as we turn to our month-long look at Ghosts. They clearly haunt us. And they're universally struggled with. But they're also personal–very personal, even painfully personal. "I'd rather tell you about my sex life," said one Soul Matters group member. A member of our UU writers' group began her piece by writing, "Do I have regrets? A few long-time friends have asked me this over the years–as only such true friends have any right to ask."
Hard to tell if that was a comment or a complaint. Or maybe a warning. And if so–if it was a warning–then it's a good one. We all do well to remember it. Indeed, when it comes to regrets, only true friends really do deserve the right to ask.
They expose us–give others access to what is most raw, most painful. Most full of shame. And so unless you are willing to listen with the love and unconditional acceptance of a dear friend, it is only right that we not ask.
And so right up front, let's be clear: today isn't just about the need to deal with regret; it's also about the need to offer each other love.
And in addition to talking about pain and love, we're also talking today about the present. You don't have to listen but for ten seconds to realize that, when talking about regrets, we're not reminiscing about something that "once happened," but reporting about the here and now, about a phantom that is sitting right in the middle of the room.
And so ghosts? Yes. Absolutely yes–regrets don't just take up residence in our memories, they also haunt the house we are living in today.
"I just can't let it go," she said. No tears. It was straight-forwardly put. "I told her once. that my life would have been better off without her. It was just once. Other than that, she had a pretty boring middle-class, love-you-unconditionally childhood.
"It happened during the teen age years. One of those stupid mother-daughter fights. I'd been a stay-at-home mom for a couple years too many. I was struggling with all that "deferred dreams" stuff we all do in our 40s. She was being a typical dramatic and smart-mouthed teenager, taking her anger and angst about life out on her mother because she knew unconsciously it was safe to do so. Our mutual self-pity created a perfect storm–the worst fight we ever had. I think she was almost ready to hit me, to be honest. But that line stopped her dead in her tracks–'and to think everything that I've sacrificed for your ingratitude; don't think for a moment young lady that I don't wonder everyday how my life might have been better off without you!'"
"It was stupid" my friend went on calmly, "After giving each other the silent treatment for a good hour, I went back and apologized. Anger was drained from both of us. We did the mother-daughter crying and hugging thing. And took all our harsh words back. I think she really forgave me. I know she forgave me. We've talked about it a number of times now that she is an adult. 'We all lose our cool mom, it's no big deal. Trust me, in a few years I'll probably say worse.'
"And yet," my friend ends, as she stares glassy-eyed at the table in front of her, "It just doesn't go away. It just doesn't go away."
"Oh honey, I know what you mean," says the wise grandmother in our group. "I still can't let go of how terrible I was to my husband in those final two years. It was awful, but not his fault. But I didn't let that matter to me; I blamed him anyway. Two years of him not remembering who I was. Two years of that impatient part of his personality dominating all the others, making him mean to everyone, making it hard for me not to be angry and disappointed with him almost every visit. Me angry at a man who had his mind and memory taken from him by a cruel disease. How small and terrible is that?!
"And I think, I think I was most angry at him for making these my last memories of him. We all want that sentimental good-bye, holding hands and saying I love you right up to the last minute. Bt instead, he left me with memories of him throwing oatmeal across the room because it had raisins in it!
"I know that I'm human and that anyone would have had a hard time with it–I know all that. But I still wish I hadn't been angry with him, blamed him. It's not rational to beat myself up for that, I know. But I do anyway. I just do."
"Well not that it's a contest," says the one other guy in our group, "but at least you all did something wrong."–he says teasingly. "I mean...my regret is about something I did right–And what are you supposed to do with that?! 13 years we were married. Maybe I should have ended it years earlier–I don't know.
"It's not that it was all bad or all wrong; Some marriages just have a lifetime that is less than a lifetime. I'm glad I saw that. It's helped me be grateful for all that was a gift about it. But still that didn't mean it would have been right to stay in it.
"And it turned out to be the best thing for her too. She was very hurt at the time but now she's got a better life, with someone who obviously can't get enough of her. So it doesn't make much sense, I know, but I still regret it. There was a lot of pain as a result of my saying good-bye, I wish I could have figured out a way to do it better, sooner, with less hurt. I still wish that even to this day."
In the midst of getting ready for this sermon, I found a poem called "Anti-Lamentation" by a poet named Dorianne Laux.
I want to read a couple of lines from it:
Regret nothing. Not the cruel novels you read
to the end just to find out who killed the cook.
Not the lover you left quivering in a hotel parking lot,
or the one you beat to the punch line.
You were meant to inhale those smoky nights
over a bottle of flat beer, to sweep stuck onion rings
across the dirty restaurant floor,
Regret none of it, not one of the wasted days.
You've traveled this far on the back of every mistake,
[so now] Relax. Don't bother remembering
any of it. Let's stop here, under the lit sign
on the corner, and watch all the people walk by.
It's a fine poem, you know–one I wouldn't hesitate to share with a number of my friends, but not all of them.
I don't doubt that there are a number of regrets about which we should just relax.
I'm not so sure that we were ever "meant" to make our mistakes, but clearly many of those mistakes did indeed take us on their backs to a better place; they did get us to where we are now and in that sense are indeed ironic gifts.
But there are others–many others, I think–that just don't fit that nicely into such an easily-redeemable package.
Listening to my friends these past few weeks and having listened to all of you for three years, I'm just not all that sure that our primary spiritual task around regret is to "relax and look for the silver lining."
Sometimes, there just isn't a silver lining.
Sometimes, regret is here to stay.
Sometimes, I think what we need to hear most is not, "Don't bother remembering it," but "You'll be ok even if it never goes away."
I think this is what makes David Ray's poem, "Thanks, Robert Frost" so compelling:
"Do you have hope for the future?
someone asked Robert Frost, toward the end.
Yes, and even for the past, he replied,
that it will turn out to have been all right
for what it was, something we can accept,
mistakes made by the selves we had to be,
something that in the end we can bear.
This is just such a different kind of happy ending than we are used to!
It doesn't only differ with the vision of Dorianne Laux's poem, it also is at odds with just about every self-help book that lines the shelves of Barnes and Noble and sits on the night stands of hurting folks all over this country.
The best-selling authors give us "7 guaranteed steps to getting rid of regret forever"; Old Frost asks us to settle for acceptance.
Theirs talk enthusiastically of being able to defeat and overcome regret, whereas unexcitable Robert speaks only of "someday being able to bear it."
They see a mysterious secret plan intended to make us winners and worry free; but Frost and David Ray are only willing to talk of "making peace"...making peace with a sadness that will likely never go away.
It's a huge difference. Such a huge difference, that I think we also have to spend some time today, asking why?
Why are David Ray and Old Frost so far from the center?
Why is their voice so rarely echoed?
Why are we so often so unwilling to buy what they have to sell?
Now, on one level, there's an easy answer to that question, right?
I mean...it's just a better ending. Who wouldn't pick a clean slate over Frost's vision of regret as something we may have to live with and learn to bear?
It just makes us feel better to believe that every mistake comes with a "do-over." That every screw-up can be forgiven. That every lemon can be made into lemonaid.
That we can all die with "no regrets."
So...Happier. It makes us happier–That's certainly part of it.
But I'm also thinking today that the attractiveness of this rosy message lies not just in the way it makes us feel better, but maybe also in the way it makes us feel more in control.
Let me try to explain what I mean with a story.
One of the most haunting stories of regret that was shared with me recently was the story a friend who successfully got out a bad marriage, but regrets not doing it sooner.
And the haunting part is not so much her regret about the wasted years, but rather her regrets that it took her so long to notice that she needed to leave.
"He duped me," she says. "He was a liar and I just didn't want to see it.
"None of us want to believe those we love can lie to us, but most people–I think–are pretty good at noticing when we are being lied to. I wasn't. I was "dupe-able." I bought his made-up excuses hook, line and sinker. He was hurting me and I couldn't see it. And I'm not sure who I'm angrier at because of that, him or me? No, that's not true, I'm sure I'm angrier at myself.
"And not just angry, but frightened. I regret not being able to see through his lies mostly because it means that I'm the type of person who can't see through lies. And if I can't do that, how am I suppose to trust myself to protect myself? I regret it because it means that I am vulnerable."
I'm thinking, this morning, that my friend isn't alone. I'm thinking.that such vulnerability plays a part in every regret.
She felt vulnerable because she couldn't protect herself from lies.
But my other friends. they are vulnerable too.
To be able to tell your daughter that you would be better off without her. means you are vulnerable to inflicting deep pain on those you love.
To be able to resent your ailing husband in the midst of his moment of greatest need. means you are vulnerable to letting down those who depend on you.
To be able to let a marriage go on longer than it should means. you are vulnerable to leading others on because of your lack of courage.
And I'm not talking about guilt here. I'm trying to tease out the way in which the mistakes we make...scare the pants off us. There's a lot of sadness mixed up in regret, but there's also a lot of self-directed anger and disappointment wound up in there too.
Simply put we don't want to admit that we aren't always capable of protecting ourselves and those we love from pain and hurt.
We want to be able to control ourselves and life much better than that. And if we have to accept the fact that we can't control our actions that lead to pain, then at least let us believe that we can control things after that, in a way that guarantees we can make up for our faults and messes.
And that is precisely what the rosy, self-help stories of regret give us. Control. They try to give it back to us. We can do it over, they promise. We can clean it up. No worries. You have the power to make it all go away, make it all completely right again.in just seven easy steps.
And yet for some..those seven easy steps just don't work. The wound you left was just too deep.
The mess you made was just too big.
The opportunity you passed up is long gone.
The circumstances are just too complicated for you ever to go back.
The one you let down just isn't interested in accepting your apology or believing you've changed. For whatever reason; for many reasons...control over the outcome just isn't an option.
And when that's your lot, along come David Ray and Robert Frost with a reminder that hope for the past comes not just in control, but also in the form of acceptance.
It's rarely the option we prefer, but it's often the option we need.
The most important thing you all have taught me with your stories is that there are many different kinds of regret–it's not a cookie cutter kind of thing. And we need to clearly wrap our minds around this fact, because each of us–at some point–will get hit with them all.
Some regrets can be corrected; some can't. Some we can lay down and let go; others are here to stay.
And when we are saddled with those regrets that linger for a lifetime...no matter what we do and no matter how hard we try, then we need to be ready to switch approaches, ready to move on to what may be the hardest of all spiritual tasks:
Giving up control and accepting ourselves for the flawed, fragile and vulnerable creatures we are.
I know that's easier said then done. And yet we're not in this alone; you are certainly not the only one that's flawed, fragile and vulnerable; We all are; we're in this together...that too we must remember.
And so one more poem as we end today:
"A Contribution to Statistics"
~ Wislawa Szymborska ~
recent winner of the nobel prize for literature
from Poems: New and Selected
Out of a hundred people
those who always know better
-- fifty-two
doubting every step
-- nearly all the rest,
glad to lend a hand
if it doesn't take too long
-- as high as forty-nine,
always good
because they can't be otherwise
-- four, well maybe five,
able to admire without envy
-- eighteen,
suffering illusions
induced by fleeting youth
-- sixty, give or take a few,
not to be taken lightly
-- forty and four,
living in constant fear
of someone or something
-- seventy-seven,
capable of happiness
-- twenty-something tops,
seemingly harmless,
but savage in crowds
-- half at least,
cruel
when forced by circumstances
-- better not to know
even ballpark figures,
wise after the fact
-- just a couple more
than wise before it,
taking only things from life
-- thirty
(I wish I were wrong),
hunched in pain,
no flashlight in the dark
-- eighty-three
sooner or later,
righteous
-- thirty-five, which is a lot,
righteous
and understanding
-- three,
worthy of compassion
-- ninety-nine,
mortal
-- a hundred out of a hundred.
Thus far this figure still remains unchanged.
You're not in this alone; You're not the only one.
AMEN
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