What We Have Done & What We Have Failed to Do

Otherwise known as the 3:00 a.m. shame spiral

I’m preparing a child for the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Actually I am preparing a class full of children: wild, wily, loud and squirming second-graders who serve up a heaping plate of humility every Wednesday evening.

I do not know what I am doing.

Yes, I have parented several children past this point, the age of reason. Yes, I spent two full years sitting at the feet of formation in listening to God with young children.

But glory be to the heavens above, trying to teach a room full of seven year-olds—with varying needs and abilities and temperaments and behaviors—has doubled down my awe and respect for educators (and my firm belief that we should pay them ten times what they earn).

Every Wednesday evening, I close the classroom door with the well-worn words of the Confiteor banging round my head:

What I have done and what I have failed to do.

The whole of the Christian life can be captured within those words. We wrestle with good and bad, done and undone. Trying to walk with children into the mystery of a sacrament about sin and suffering and reconciliation and healing reminds me how essential forgiveness is: for ourselves, for each other, for our relationship with God.

All I see are the shortcomings, the spoiled moments, the sullied reality of that night’s class versus the starry-eyed ideal I brought with me. What I have done and what I have failed to do.

Have I shared any sliver of God’s love with them? 

Like many of you, I wrestle with dark thoughts in the long hours of the night. If a child cries out, I dread not only getting out of the warm bed, but getting back in. It takes me hours to fall asleep again once my brain kicks into overdrive. I regret everything I failed to do (thank you notes! unanswered emails! the homeless person I passed without a nod!) and much of what I’ve done (angry words yelled, cruel judgments passed, selfish choices made).

The shame spiral is no match for the abundant, overflowing, never-ceasing mercy of Love, I know—but do I remember that in the desperate hours? Rarely.

Which is why I need the same sacrament I’m trying to share with these children. Why everyday practices of confession and forgiveness and reconciliation are a necessary part of the reckoning and healing we need right now.

This is the sacrament of our flaws and frailty, our moral failings and our most human struggles. This is also the sacrament of God’s wild mercy, untamed and unearned and unending, seeking us out from the lost corners until we are found.

Years ago I came across a prayer that offers the closest counter-weight I’ve found to the dread of the tossing, turning hours. Its words smooth the balm of release and the peace of hope, taking the day’s tattered edges and holding them up to the light to say: look where the cracks let God’s mercy shine in.

What has been done has been done; what has not been done has not been done; let it be.

We all need more mercy these days: more for each other, more from our God. (Even from those second-graders who are teaching me more about forgiveness than I could ever teach them.)

May these words find you in the dark or despairing hours when you need them, too.

Lord,
it is night.

The night is for stillness.
Let us be still in the presence of God.

It is night after a long day.
What has been done has been done;
what has not been done has not been done;
let it be.

The night is dark.
Let our fears of the darkness of the world and of our own lives
rest in you.

The night is quiet.
Let the quietness of your peace enfold us,
all dear to us,
and all who have no peace.

The night heralds the dawn.
Let us look expectantly to a new day,
new joys,
new possibilities.

In your name we pray.
Amen.

From Night Prayer in A New Zealand Prayer Book He Karakia Mihinare o Aotearoa

Peace,

Laura

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