blame

Ok, so I’m not a writer. At least by writer’s standards that have been thrust upon me. It wasn’t even a valiant effort. I did get to attend a new writers group this past week. That should count for something. And the teaching for my community o’ faith was much more of a literary work than the usual offering. They were just coincidences though, merely anomalies within an otherwise lame effort. I could blame it on practically anything. This has been an unusually draining few weeks with one more to go. However, my feeling is that if a challenge can be conquered against intimidating odds, then it can be conquered anytime. I’m not sure of the wisdom here, but I’ll not whine “It’s not my fault”. It is what it is. Time to regroup and reevaluate, I don’t have time for blame.
Life is too short. Get over it and move on. Try again. Take another angle. Those are all preferable to me over “It’s not my fault”. Why is it always about fault anyway? I can’t tell you how many I encounter in my pastoral arts position who are paralyzed by blame. They are justified by “It’s not my fault”. What difference does it make? Is there resolution to the conflict by placing blame? Does one get any closer to the goal with the magical phrase “it’s not my fault”? You’ll not hear that from me. I’d much rather put my head down and press on to my original goal. So I was lame this week, what does next week have to offer?
I guess part of this weeks perspective, if I’m honest (which is always a good thing), comes from my study and consequent teaching to my community o’ faith. This week found us in the garden with Jesus as he begged the Father to “take this cup”. He wanted relief from the suffering that was approaching. It was suffering, by the way, for something that was not “his fault”. He would eventually be killed. He could have wasted his energy on blame. He could have run and hid like his friends. He could have blamed his childhood or the crappy living conditions that he was born into. Not many of us can compare ours to a stable. He could have pleaded the unconstitutionality of the charges against him. He could have claimed poor representation from his lawyer. He put his head down pressed on towards his destiny.
How many of us can say that? How many of us can compare our past week to his last week? Get over it. You may not believe what I believe at all about all of this. I am certainly OK with that. If you don’t though, I want you to be sure that it has nothing to do with a desire to place blame somewhere else. Don’t let it be because you don’t think that it’s fair, needing a Savior I mean. I like to think of myself as honest enough to realize that I need second chances. I fail all on my own. It may not be immediately related to my own actions, but chances are, if you trace it back far enough, I share in the “blame”. So I choose to live my moments secure in the knowledge that at a moment in time, what I couldn’t do for myself, was done by someone refusing to place blame.