Editorial March 4, 2019 Issue

The restorative nature of contrition

Rich Evans

Church chimes are ringing across the way from where I’m sitting. I suppose such ringing has been happening somewhere since the early Middle Ages. Hearing them reminded me that people were gathering to pray together, and perhaps were feeling connected to community, family, or friends. Mostly, they may have been feeling in some way closer to God. It caused me to join them from where I sat. Such ringing calls for spiritual awakening and arouses fresh thoughts. It helps us move beyond less meaningful concerns. Unrung, the bells don’t move us.

A dormant concept doesn’t do much for us. But there is something truly stirring about new views, wakening views, of latent concepts. Contrition might be one of those. Unstruck in thought, it may have a musty, distant, dark, inapplicable meaning for us. If considered at all, it might appear to have no relevance to us today, and we might not really give much attention to what it means or does. In the practical, scientific laws taught of Christ Jesus, however, it is indispensable to healing. For me, contrition has begun to lose association with the permanence of foolish mistakes, regret, or self-condemnation. And as it does, it becomes a lever for restoration of true identity, reassuring us of our innate, God-lifted nature—the loved of Love, innocent and pure.

OK, then, but how should we think about wrongs, even serious ones? For example, if I apologize for a mistake, am I admitting the permanency of it, as if some part of my character? Am I validating the very situation I want to erase?

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Bible Lens—March 4–10, 2019