On Choosing Regret

We often find ourselves regretting those things we can’t control, including especially the past. Regret is reality; seeking to avoid it isn’t a pure motivation. We may regret giving in to fear, or allowing others to suffer. Are we justified in giving a warning or pressing a point? But resistance, even very slight resistance, is a sign of a loss of trust. Do you intervene, and lose trust? Do you stay silent, choosing regret?

Regret is sadness, related to repentance. A cousin, maybe. Less is more, and more is less, and less is also less. The great thing here is to know when you’re choosing it. Maybe we failed to produce the strength to ask for help. Maybe we became overwhelmed and didn’t persist. Maybe we lacked understanding, to see a complaint required no action, just there for the relief and/or justification it provides.

The old prayer book confesses things not done that we ought to have done. Because there is no health in us. Anyone can confess to things they have done; they remember themselves. Healthy people, who have been healed, are justified in admitting weakness. There is more undone than we know. It takes faith. 

On Handing Down

 

Everything seeks a level. When things tip too far, the wounds of history bleed again: they never depart. We deal with what has been handed down rather than written down; also, we need solutions to the solutions already in hand. It’s too late for Plan B; Plan Z will put you into negative numbers. Time to try something really different. Moments to mend the world, by fragments. Find something sufficiently small to attempt.

Is there enough time? Some things are eternal, and we are among those that are not. Maybe not enough time; but plenty of time; in fact there’s always the same amount of time. We have time to be honest; to be kind; to be reverent; to be civilized. In spite of many years of practice and many lacks. That’s what practice is: repetition, repair. We might prefer to have clean hands, like Pilate. Sorry. We might be cluttering up the mind with that which doesn’t need to be kept there. We could fail to despair. Now we hear only in part: in real time, but without real space. Hope hands us on. We are not here to be perfect, but to be forgiven.