It is my experience that in the church, the institution that most preaches grace, when grace is most needed it is often replaced with guilt.
One time, while I was on staff at a church, we took a "work" mission trip; long days of strenuous labor in the hot sun. During this trip, one of our interns became sick. Now, granted, this intern complained a lot. I love her. She's great. Spunky. But, for her, it might have been a season of inconsistency. I don't know. Regardless, she became sick. And to be honest, even if she was lying to us, that was her choice. I don't have to know either way. After all "love always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres." So, I chose to trust her. And in turn, this aligned me with her well-being.
But. My superiors didn't believe her. That, of course, was their choice. I suppose there were methods they could have used to convince her to get off her butt and get back to work. Instead they sided with guilt. "You made a commitment to this internship..." "Is this going to be the nature of the entire summer?" (Behind her back: "She has been complaining ALL summer! She has been so difficult to deal with; she is obviously faking this.")
I later went into her room and asked her straight-up if she was faking, and she said sadly and weakly, "no". She ended up going home, but, behind her back, for the remainder of the summer, it was muttered under one's breath how annoyingly immature she was. And all I remember thinking is: could we have just used a little more guilt? ::Sarcasm implied::
It's been a long time coming that I have been able to identify guilt-tactics. During an internship I served in, in which I had great concerns with many things they were doing, I had decided it was time for me to leave; to back out of my commmitment and go home. When I told my supervisor this directly he responded with: "View this internship as a marriage. If you back out of this, you might be the kind of person to back out of a marriage." "A woman of intergrity keeps her promise even if it hurts her. (referencing Psalm 15:4)" The irony for me is two-fold: 1. Unless you are in an arranged marriage, you court the person before you decide to make a commitment to them. Well, technically, even in arranged marriage the family courts the other family. 2. The people hosting my internship had also broken their commitments to me. Regardless, the guilt was
thick.
Once during college the finacial aid office wrote me a letter to tell me my work-study money had just about run out. I'd been working a position similar to an RA position (called a CMC - Campus Ministries Coordinator) AND I was working a work-study position. I was completely unaware the CMC position would also pull from my work-study money. I had never been told that would happen. At the end of the letter telling me I was just about out of money (money that I needed very very much), the person signed it with: "Have a nice day." I was furious. Just that year, the college had taken away one of my scholarships because they changed it from a leadership grant to a scholarship based on need. So, they told me I was originally getting it because I was a valuable leader, but then took it away because I didn't "need" it. And then, they rolled it over into a low-interest loan. Considering I still owe approx. $30,000, I'm pretty sure I needed it. Regardless, I wrote them back a letter.
I laid out their miscommunications, their inconsistencies, and their "shadyness". I expressed that they needed a policy to make sure students KNEW that campus positions and work-study positions would ALL pull from work-study funds. And I finished the letter with this: "The next time you are telling a work-study student he or she is out of funds (they obviously need or they wouldn't be doing the work-study program), please reconsider closing with "have a nice day". I will NOT be having a nice day anymore."
About 15 minutes later I received a call from a sobbing woman accusing me of personally attacking her. Granted, my final blow was sharp. I admit that. But the rest of the letter was an attack on the college. I was then called into my CMC supervisors office. Mind you - this was a Christian college. My supervisor proceeded to tell me I was inappropriate, that I was not being very Christ-like in my response, and that I wasn't being a very good Christian leader. And she proceeded to tell me this repeatedly in different ways for about 15 minutes. I then went directly to the financial aid office and apologized, restating that the beginning of the letter was not an attack on the woman, but the college. I apologized for my straight-forward writing style.
A few weeks later, I was talking to my advisor. I loved him. He was a great Christian-leader and a spectacular professor and had been a missionary in China for 10 years. I told him the story. And he smirked at the end of the telling: "Oh, that's nothing: they messed around with my pension and I also wrote a letter. They also called me into their office and proceeded to call me a bad Christian, a poor leader, etc." He continued with this: "This always happens. There was nothing wrong with what you did. But jump through their hoops of asking forgiveness. It will all work out in the end."
A week later the financial aid office wrote me to inform me they had [magically] come up with $2000 more for my work study. Ironic.
All of this to say: guilt is
laced into our minds. Guilt is not from God. It makes us believe we are somehow less than human. It makes us believe we have something tragically wrong with us. It makes us believe we aren't good. It makes us believe our accuser is better than us. Someone else encourages us to feel these things too: oh, that's right, the Father of lies.
Then, we want to form good habits of eating right, exercising, and boy don't we feel guilt when we miss a work out or we eat something not healthy or we even CRAVE something unhealthy. I feel guilty when I don't reach 600 calories (self-induced guilt). We break ourselves down with guilt.
So, here's to one huge blog entry all to say: Fuck Guilt.
