The Deacon’s View

“It’s Entirely My Fault”
I was standing in line when the man ahead of me backed up, stepping on my foot. He turned, looked at me, and said, “Excuse me. It was entirely my fault.”

Two days later, his words were still with me. They were as an echo from a past age when it was all right to be wrong, even “entirely.”  Whatever happened to being at fault?

Now we hire lawyers to defend us even when we are clearly at blame. In the most obvious of errors, we find it easy to blame the victim, or at least to justify our behavior. The simple act of backing into the person behind could predictably bring forth the response, “Oh, I didn’t know anyone was behind me,” or “Oops,” or even, “Geez, why don’t you try crowding in a little closer?”

Funny how a simple “It was entirely my fault” changed us from potential antagonists into momentary allies, two people caught up together in a world that puts us into crowded spaces and lines. We could smile and relax, rather than growing tense inside.

As we speed into another new year, it seems a good time to reflect upon the power of a heartfelt apology to produce the seeds of peace we all yearn for. These seeds begin in our own homes, and with the people we hang out with, work with, share ministries with. From these mundane beginnings they swirl out into the world around us. The line where my foot got stepped on was long. The people around us heard the man apologize, saw us smile. And I suspect that this group, tired at the end of the day, relaxed ever so slightly. Something in the atmosphere had shifted. Something new had happened.

One summer evening in 1955, a group of  180 teenagers of all races and religions, meeting at a workshop in the California mountains, locked arms in a circle and sang a song: “Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me.” This message is with us still if we will LIVE IT, not just sing it.

May God bless our new year, and may all of us become conscious bearers of the seeds of God’s peace, love and justice in the world around us.

                                             ~Gay Blundell, Deacon