I Can't Believe I Ate the Whole Thing - Regret

Sermon by

Reverend Nancy Bouchard

November 2, 2008

This summer while I was living up in the Adirondack Mountains I had the pleasure of living without a television. My subscriptions to Oprah and Spirituality and Health had piled up so it was a pleasure to sit out on the deck and read. One particular article that stayed with me was about regret. This was a fairly interesting read, you know the kind where you turn the pages while your eating pizza and you finish reading and eating at the same time and look in amazement at the extra large box and say “I CAN’T believe I ate the whole thing!” And then you feel regret!

The writer, Martha Beck, began the discourse with a story about an elderly monk who was selected to be abbot of his monastery. For decades he’d been concerned about the accuracy of hand written documents that had been copied from copies over the many years. His first order of business was the difficult task of researching and examining the originals to insure the integrity of the sacred materials. Barely into his new appointment, he went into seclusion deep into the monasteries archives. After several days the other monks grew concerned and they went in search of their new abbot. They found him weeping over a crumpled document; barely able to speak he looked up at them obviously distraught and moaned “it says “celebrate” not celibate!

I wondered as I read the somewhat humorous story about the nature of the regret for the new abbot. Had he been in love and chosen his calling instead? Maybe he wished he had been open to the possibility of a loving intimate relationship.

Was he thinking of those who struggled in the monastic order with issues of celibacy or was it the thoughts of devoted monks who left because the vows could not be kept? REGRET

Define by those who study its characteristics, regret can either be related to acts of commission or acts of omission. In a series of studies omissions appears to be the greatest source of the most intense feelings. The nature of “regrets of omission” include *the things you wished you did but never did get to, *the things you could have done but passed, *the things you think you should have done and *the things you think people expected you to do.

This might be referred to as the wouldda, shouldda, couldda’s syndrome and the source of what the articles writer, Martha Beck called “the woeful fuel of country (music) ballads and self-recrimination.

Let me just pause here for a few moments and ask each of you to privately consider a regret that remains in your heart. Consider whether it is an act of commission...something you did and regret, or was it an act of omission… something you didn’t do and wish you had? I’ll take a poll a little later and see how we compare to the research.

Regret is one of those complicated experiences and it lends itself to great rhetorical posturing depending on the source of study; philosophy psychology, economics; theology. The adages we use generally indicate intolerance for what is seen as irrational and inconsistent with the principles of reason and rationality. “Don’t cry over spilled milk” “you knew the odds” or as one journalist described regret [it’s] “a room-in-nation that is an emotionally corrosive exercise.” And who among us has not heard or offered a very popular piece of what we consider sound advice to those perceived as dwelling too long in their regret “get over it!”

Regret has been called self-indulgent and suggests personal deficiency and fruitless expenditure of energy over actions or inactions that are irreversible.

I’ve not formally studied decision theory (which is the more scientific name for regret), but in preparation I found there are researchers and scholars who offered some interesting insight.

In her publication Regret: The Persistence of the Possible, writer Janet Landman summarizes the four worldview categories of regret:

the romantic view where the individual heroically overcomes and defeats the obstacles of regret with primary focus on the absolutes of life and happy endings;

the comic worldview leans towards the inevitability of regret seeing regret as a “ blip” of the map of life to be resolved with reason

the tragic worldview voices the irreversibility of regret, a denial of happy endings and that every choice means a sacrifice

and lastly, is the ironic worldview: similar to the tragic worldview, regrets are seen as irreversible but in this worldview there is room for the experience of regret to offer mixed blessings, happy endings and tragic endings.

In her article, writer Ms. Beck suggests a strategy she calls the “six step plan to regret-proof your life” In our culture where studies have shown as many as 90% of the population expressing some form of deep regret, this prescription is the model of choice…people will work hard to actually avoid regret. They spend time strategizing and calculating, suppressing and confessing. I see Beck’s worldview as romantic since she concentrates on finding options for happy endings.

Now it isn’t that Ms. Beck’s suggestions are outrageous or even bad advice; get beyond denial she says, consider the other emotions involved in regret and address each of them, grieve what can never be recovered, let your regret inform you, learn from it, don’t avoid the anger in your regret, and lean towards love and away from fear in your decision making.

Like I said, there’s nothing inherently wrong with the six steps but theologically, spiritually, I find them much too linear for someone who wants to have a fulfilled life. The steps emphasize “regret proofing,” finding ways to avoid future experience, moving away from obstacles, using reason and control. And as I mentioned last week, it’s not easy to be a Unitarian Universalist and this is an example of where I think our spiritual search directs us to, the road that really is less traveled, maybe even hidden from sight.

For over two years I was a hospital chaplain. The most challenging was my residency at Yale New-Haven Hospital where not a single day passed without an incident of indescribable trauma. I heard the stories of estrangement, unfulfilled dreams, disappointments and deep regrets of life, guilt, shame, despair.

I don’t know that the six steps would have protected or been comforting in these moments and in chaplaincy the purpose was not to find the answer but to be present as people lived their experiences. It was hardest to be with those people who wanted easy answers.

In the past several weeks I’ve been fortunate to meet with some of the members, friends, and visitors of UUCLV. I’ve had the opportunity to become acquainted with those I didn’t know and reacquainted with those I knew from the past. It has been an honor to hear your stories and I felt trusted in conversations that included painful stories of regret; family conflicts, disagreements with friends, professional disappointments, and things left unsaid or hurtful betrayal.

I also note that among you there remain some strong feelings of regret about Rev. DeRoche’s departure and how matters were handled. There are regrets over Rev. Stephanie Barnett and Rev. Sue Volmer’s resignation from the church. There are regrets that these matters have damaged important relationships.

But it is not the six steps of Martha Beck that I would offer any of you as a way to deal with these regrets or others.

Regret offers us a mirror and a reflection of the real human face. Regret can be the story of the courage it takes to live in the realm of uncertainty. Regret can be our source of our true nature; vulnerable humans seeking to live fully.

The thoughts of Episcopalian Bishop John Spong have inspired me as I face regrets along my path. I, too, am tempted to find the easy answers, to find the perfect way to reach the perfect end. But I look to those much wiser than me; one whom I greatly admire is Bishop Spong who lifts up questions that cause me to think. A strong and vocal supporter of women’s rights, same sex marriages and other contemporary social issues, here are some of Bishop Spong’s challenges that earn him my respect:

A new way to speak of God must be found.
Since God can no longer be conceived in theistic terms, it becomes nonsensical to seek to understand Jesus as the incarnation of the theistic deity.
The biblical story of the perfect and finished creation from which human beings fell into sin is pre-Darwinian mythology and post-Darwinian nonsense.
The view of the cross as the sacrifice for the sins of the world is a barbarian idea based on primitive concepts of God and must be dismissed.
There is no external, objective, revealed standard writ in scripture or on tablets of stone that will govern our ethical behavior for all time.
The hope for life after death must be separated forever from the behavior control mentality of reward and punishment. The Church must abandon, therefore, its reliance on guilt as a motivator of behavior.
All human beings bear God's image and must be respected for what each person is. Therefore, no external description of one's being, whether based on race, ethnicity, gender or sexual orientation, can properly be used as the basis for either rejection or discrimination.

Bishop Spong not only dares to take positions on controversial subjects, Spong is very vocal on the nature of what he calls true religion. He is very clear in his arguments that living in the shadow of traditional religious doctrine seriously limits human self-affirmation and living fully, and in my worldview of regret, it is not the shortcut of control or limitations that will lead us to a “regret free life.”

Here are Spong’s words of advice “As opposed to religion that brings security and certainty, true religion is the opposite, not acting as the security in place of fear with the certainty of theism and religious hierarchy, but as the enabler of the courage to be, ( let me repeat that…TRUE RELIGION IS THE ENABLER OF THE COURAGE TO BE) in spite of, in acceptance of, anxiety and fear. “True religion enables one to grasp life with …radical insecurity and to live it with courage. It does not aid us in the pretense that our insecurities have been taken away.”

For the purpose of this discussion, the theology of regret, not the philosophy of regret, or the decision theory of regret, but the theology of regret calls us to experience regret, not avoid it. In the process of experience we will not need six steps that “regret proof life” but rather we will see the real gift of faith, the courage to live without promise and the courage to look forward.

I’m reminded of a poem I always really liked called “Warning”

When I am an old woman I shall wear purple
With a red hat which doesn't go and doesn't suit me.
And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves
And satin sandals, and say we've no money for butter.
I shall sit down on the pavement when I'm tired
And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells
And run my stick along the public railings
And make up for the sobriety of my youth.
I shall go out in my slippers in the rain
And pick the flowers in other people's gardens . . .
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

But maybe I ought to practice a little now.
So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised
when suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple

Can you see the possibilities of finding deep meaning when fear of uncertainty is not central to how we live? When we dare to wear purple or stop to sit on the pavement and look around with curiosity.

When our life experiences are not framed by doctrine but by real experience interpreted not like the tragic response of the abbot who suffers with regret, but instead with acknowledgment we took a road of courage. Ours will be the path less traveled, but it may well enable us to be fully human. It may well offer a speck of wisdom and it may well lead us to embrace radical insecurity, which Spong offers as a step towards true faith and real self affirmation. Can we find the courage to be, not avoiding regret but appreciating its true complexity? This is the choice I want to make when confronted by two roads.

Blessed Be, Shalom, Om Namah Shivia, Amen