People use many mechanisms to avoid facing their guilt. These may include scapegoating or 'false guilt'; the latter involves feeling guilty about something which means we avoid the guilt over something more important and then do not feel the grace. It is clear that guilt is a major problem because deep within us, even if we claim to have no guilt, there will be a gnawing doubt as to the efficacy of our actions and beliefs. A complicated way to avoid facing the real issue which may seem insurmountable, is to re-write history and mythologise certain situations, peoples, types, in a way which means society now does not face the true consequences of its actions. Confronting the guilt is the only way to take responsibility and to learn and to become wise and mature; passing the buck or atoning and repenting before true realisation of the extent of guilt only means that healing power is missed out upon. We may actively attempt to obliterate meaning and connections between ourselves and others, events in history, so as to not learn the results of certain actions and therefore again not confront what is happening. It could be that we fear the truth because if we knew the truth we would cease to live; when one sees the face of God one dies.
We may see a pattern occur but refuse to admit our part to play in that pattern. We may do this for temporary comfort but each time come back to the problem we already faced. Each time this happens we may go further in the cure and then go back to our known shores forgetting that once we put our hand to the plough we must not look back. Faith and trust are the ultimate issues here. If God's love is unconditional then if we trust then what really can go wrong. In the grand scale of events, our personal pain may seem like everything to us but perhaps it is pointing us in the direction of change. Perhaps out of conflict something new grows and therefore this pain is essential. When experiencing pain one may only be experiencing the pain and any reassurance seems negligible given that we know nothing else at that moment. In fact, to fully experience it, this is the case. But we must hold on to the reality that things do come and go. If pain brings us into contact with who we really are, someone who suffers, then we may hold on to the pain because it is known and refuse to reach out to the unknown shores. Everything may bring us into contact with who we really are but often only something extreme can shock us into metanoia (change).
Life must be about seeing the variety in ourselves and our experience and if we only seek the extremes we will miss out on a great deal and spend our life in a black and white world which often may mean missing out on real contact. If we can see often minute differences in life then we will start to experience the richness and the beauty of life. It is fear that stops us and fear that makes us homogenise, generalise and lump everything together in a safe predictable way. Why does the future have to be based on our past ? Can we only bear the chaos of the unknown by recreating what we already know again and again, never moving but staying in the amniotic fluid of that which has gone ? Life involves growing and nurturing and for this our ideals must be high; as long as we realise we will never reach them we can keep a balance. God removes our guilt if we face our fears. The power of God is so vast yet we continually limit this power and try to narrow down our lives with the safe options, instead of stepping out into the dark, believing God will be there to guide. Sure, this is all a risky business but it is the high risk venture that reaps the highest interest. If we hate the financial analogy, we might want to tone this down and say God does not force us into anything. Gently, but sometimes violently, our life experiences nudge us into communion with God whether we like this or not. If we can become more aware of this occurring we will feel safer to take larger steps in the right direction.
Guilt allows us to wallow in our own fallen state even further than we might have done if we had not paid attention to our original mistakes. Once we have had a few drinks, we do not really mind having a few more; the damage has been done. Everyone feels guilty for being alive. This sounds extreme but the truth of the matter is we think we might be happier in a different life, with different people, in another body and so on. Linked to the dissatisfaction with what we do have and the envy of that which we do not, is the guilt surrounding all of this. If we are not careful, the guilt may have a crippling effect. We may be so sorry for being alive we may cease to really exist, cease to have any friction with that which is living, for fear of making a mistake and experiencing further guilt. So do we have to stop feeling guilty ? No, guilt can be a good thing if we realise this is what we are feeling, instead of denying it or manufacturing it as a cover for another feeling that may be far less socially acceptable. We may say we feel guilty and others are expected to forgive us and make us feel wanted but what if we really feel hate, anger, resentment, envy and so on. If we acknowledge all that we feel we can then remove the real guilt that we feel for feeling things we think are unacceptable. People accept we feel these things and if we contain them within ourselves we only damage ourselves. This is seen as being noble and it would be if we did not live in a society but we do. The damage we do to ourselves effects others, whether we like it or not.
The more we can experience our feelings, express them, have relief due to them being objectified and not kept within the subject of ourselves, the more we can see that these feelings do not control us and that there is more to us than these particular feelings. Often we may think we feel nothing but this is possibly to block out something so painful we believe it would overwhelm us if we gave it any attention. Someone, anyone, needs to listen to what we feel and accept this as being a part of us that is acceptable. We then accept ourselves more and move into exploring other parts of ourselves that we have kept hidden due to fear of attack and then life becomes richer and richer.
CJP Lee