Publication Date: Wednesday, March 17, 2004
Guest Opinion: The 'art of the apology' -- tending to the cracks that let the light shine in
Guest Opinion: The 'art of the apology' -- tending to the cracks that let the light shine in
(March 17, 2004) by The Rev. Jeffrey A. Vamos
When I heard that a writer I knew was stripped of her prize in the Weekly's fiction-writing contest because of plagiarism, I felt a mix of emotions: shock, disbelief, anger -- and compassion.
My wife, Catherine, and I probed the subject like a loose tooth. We started reflecting on the public fascination surrounding this and other recent events. There was Pete Rose's controversial "apology" for gambling on baseball, and a young Palo Alto woman's response to the accident in which she ran into two children as she drove to school.
Such incidents evoke both curiosity and deep questions: How could this person do this? How is it to suffer shame in our modern equivalent of the public square -- our pervasive media world?
Such questions go to the heart of our public ethics as well as our private beliefs. A question fundamental to all religious traditions and societies is: Can there be personal and public restoration from acts destructive to others, and oneself?
Such breaches of public norms are destructive, in varying degrees. They create a social imbalance and a need for restitution, a rending of the fabric of our common life. They also damage the person who commits them. Is it possible to mend such damage -- and redeem the person responsible for it?
My trade is based upon the hopeful, perhaps even irrational, belief (we call it faith) that such restoration is possible, no matter how awful the act.
This is not a new issue. Dante Alighieri's medieval poem, "The Divine Comedy," is known for its vivid depictions of hell, where people suffer because of their destructive ways. But Dante's metaphorical world also includes the notion that no matter how awful one's misdeeds in life, just one word of repentance in a dying breath can land you in heaven -- after much hard work in Purgatory, mind you. The social and psychological message is that restoration is always possible, but it requires time, work and thorough self-examination.
Beyond religion, embedded within our culture is a strong communal desire to forgive that competes with the more primitive urge for "eye-for-an-eye" revenge. In the public drama and buzz created by someone's downfall, deep down many of us would like to see it end happily. At some level, we empathize with the person, even if we're shocked and angered by the deed.
The old-fashioned term for this is "repentance" -- the same root shared by the word penitentiary. Repentance reflects the better angel of our public nature: the concept that an offending individual can be reformed and restored to community rather than merely punished -- a notion all but lost in our modern justice system.
Restoration has deep cultural and religious roots. The 51st Psalm describes what's required in the face of transgression: Instead of a blood sacrifice to appease anger it calls for "a broken heart." The word "contrition" comes from a word that literally means "to crush."
But we still want some kind of public ritual when someone is caught breaking a social norm -- some kind of sacrifice. What can broaden public feeling from outrage to empathy? It can be described simply: the art of the apology.
After Pete Rose's so-called apology, airwaves filled with reflections on what an apology means. What makes an apology satisfying? How do we know an apology is true?
The word "art" comes from "artifice." In our modern media culture, we're sophisticated about such things -- often turning a process originally meant to restore an offender to a right relationship with the community into a PR technique. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger mollified reaction to past misdeeds by his simple, "I behaved badly." It abated public anger -- but was it heartfelt regret or PR?
Keith Hearit, professor of communications at Western University, said on NPR that a successful apology needs: (1) personal acceptance for damage done and concern for those affected; (2) convincing those offended by the act that the person truly feels sorry; (3) a lack of coercion or self-serving motives; and (4) to complete the public drama -- an act, or "sacrifice," to satisfy public expectations.
To me, the first and second matter most in the dynamics of human and spiritual transformation. Does the person truly take responsibility? Does he or she really mean it?
A message at the heart of religious faith also describes a communal possibility: that our brokenness can be a profound, if ironic, occasion for growth and transformation, or healing.
Writer-musician Leonard Cohen describes it well: "There's a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in."
Those involved in 12-step recovery programs are well aware that cracks in one's life can let the light shine in -- through honest and difficult self-examination. This is not just an individual opportunity -- it's an important communal hope that needs to be affirmed. A naive belief? Or a rock-solid basis for social policy and community values?
Those who've transgressed a social boundary have a heavy price to pay -- even if their victims had a higher one. But as a community, we do well to encourage such a hope.
The Rev. Jeffrey A. Vamos is associate pastor at the First Presbyterian Church in Palo Alto. He is active in the Community Working Group/Opportunity Center, and Peninsula Interfaith Action. He can be e-mailed at jvamos@fprespa.org.
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