Is the word “SORRY”

an endangered word

in the English language?
I’M SORRY
Sort of
If I had done something wrong
If you found me guilty
If I was going to lose face
That someone else is actually to blame

I’m crossing the country on a way to a conference in Nashville, TN today. Everywhere I look and listen I see the face of Senator Craig and hear reporting on his story. He’s pleaded guilty but claims innocence. He seems to “apologize” to save face, but not to confront the power and consequences of the truth. An editorial reran on SFGate from Pat Buchanan, who says that Craig is innocent. That he has his own inner demons – as everyone does. So we should just forgive him and let him be. Because nothing has been proven. Because he’s a good guy. So we should overlook his actions and words based on his established track record.

Got me thinking the inflammatory editorial that actually is an attack against the Democratic Party as opposed to a true word for reconciliation and forgiveness. Granted, that’s my interpretation, based on my journey, worldview and political bent. I also have nothing against Senator Craig. I don’t even know anything about him, except details of a recent trip to the airport loo. I’m also a hypocrite, sinful, broken, devious, selfish, and self-preserving.

But what does it really mean that he pleads guilty but claims innocence? Is it just a ploy? Don’t ask, don’t tell in disguise? Admitting that he enjoys anonymous airport sex with other men, but is not gay? I’m struck by the idea of forgiveness and apology. (Another great article ran on SF Gate today “Pop Culture: Apologists leave much to be desired” which I’m basically paraphrasing and re-preaching in my rants.

Why is it that the privileged and rich not only can’t do anything wrong, but don’t actually need to apologize if – not that I’m implicating guilt – they actually did? How is it that we manage to swallow the couched within nuance, diplomatically-worded, and litigationally-prentive pseudo-apologies of the rich and privileged in our society? Bill Clinton didn’t have sex, just a blow job. Lindsey Lohan didn’t do drugs, she just got caught with them in her purse (twice) and is an erratically bad driver. The War in Iraq is working, we just have to do it all differently and with a lot more troops. The rich and powerful focus on marrying their children off, while the general populace worries about planning their children’s funerals. Senator Craig isn’t gay, he just enjoys sex with men occasionally. Everything is hidden and nuanced. Of course maybe Senator Craig isn’t gay, but he could at least then admit he’s bisexual?

What good does it all do? Most of these fake-apologies are intended and articulated to shore up and protect appearances and profiles. Nicole Ritchie did admit guilt but then went to jail for less time that it took her to watch the most recent movie at the Beverly Hills 38 Cineplex. In Oakland we have a school board member who claims to have done nothing wrong in being out past 2am with a school aged girl, but regrets the deceiving appearances that such an encounter may give.

I admit I know hardly anything about the above situations and the details…my knowledge comes from Entertainment Weekly, Closed-Captioned CNN in an airport lounge and observation. Yet something is wrong.

Everywhere I go today in my cross-country travels people are either lugging their baggage behind them or so busy talking loudly on their cells phone to invisible people (so that they can be heard over their cell-phone-talking surrounding neighbors). We’re so busy focusing on what’s behind us, or what’s not with us, that we seem to totally be oblivious to the present. What lesson and model to we offer to each other, let alone our children, in an age when no one ever gives a true apology but merely plays upon some sort of innate and inbred American value that empathy, sympathy and genuine confession and redemption are all the same thing? I don’t mean to be the first one to throw a stone, but you gotta wonder…how is it that no one has done anything wrong and yet so much of our world is so screwed up? How is it that white people of privilege are not required to apologize (for things that men of color would go to jail for) and rich people are seemingly so easily able to escape the wrath of popular judgment by invoking the 5.2 amendment (I’d be sorry if I’d done something, but it’s actually your fault for thinking that I have). Is the word “sorry” and endangered word in the English language? Seems to be that more of us should be looking into it.

Tonight’s speaker at the conference (Jim Wallis) got me reflecting anew on all of this. Jesus calls those following him to conversion (metanoia) a literal turning around, in the send that you’re going one way (the wrong way on the tracks) and the only way to stop and right things is to stop, turn around 180 degrees and go the other direction. Jesus doesn’t just challenge people to say “I’m sorry” in a celebrity-crafted paparazzi-friendly way. He’s talking about the real stuff. Recognizing in our selves, admitting to others, and confessing aloud (in the appropriate context) that we are broken, hypocrites, unfocused on what’s crucially essential in life. Jesus called everyone to metanoia: women, men, children, Jew, Gentile, and Roman, rich, power, powerful, excluded, centurions and lepers. I think that’s what we’re missing in our culture today. Senator Craig is an easy target, as is Lindsey Lohan and Britney Spears. But what about us..you and me…the people we work with. If you are a life-follower of Jesus’ teachings is in evident in the way we confess and seek metanoia-conversion in our lives?

In the end maybe we should let “sorry” disappear from the English language and replace it with metanoia, not simply settling for lame pseudo-other-guilt-inducing wannabe apologies and expecting true conversion change when we’re convicted and confronted with our brokenness, hypocrisy and selfishness?