Everlasting Punishment
by Roxann Smith
I saw a picture of a wayside pulpit, not unlike ours, which listed the sermon title as “Everlasting Punishment” and underneath it stated “All are lovingly invited”. So, I lovingly invite you all to share “Everlasting Punishment” with me today.
Last year, I spoke about life everlasting, and about kindness and gave you some ideas about being kind. So this year, I decided that everlasting punishment would be a good counterpoint. And I can give you some good ideas about how to make your life a living hell.
As I don’t believe in the biblical “heaven” where you have everlasting life, I also don’t believe in the biblical hell, where you have everlasting punishment.
So what do I believe is Everlasting Punishment? For those of you who know David and me, you might think it is what is happening to David after leaving me for 5 and half months to hike the Appalachian Trail. Or for me, the last four weeks thinking about writing this sermon which was a self-inflicted, although not everlasting, punishment.
My dear friend Dot was 25 years older than me. She was an important person in my life who gave me some advice 35 years ago which helped me make a very important decision. I didn’t alway stay in contact with her but I usually saw her once a year. Last year, I kept putting off getting in touch with her; I don’t really know why. I always had an excuse. I’m busy. I’m tired. I’m going on vacation. I just got back from vacation. I’ll talk to her next week. One day last spring, I decided today is the day I’m going to call Dot. But then I had this weird feeling, so I goggled her name and, I found out that she had passed away 2 months earlier. I thought to myself, this is my hell. This is what I have to live with for the rest of my life, I didn’t make the effort to engage with my friend and now that opportunity to tell her how much she meant to me is lost forever. I was really upset with myself for making all those excuses when there really wasn’t any excuse.
So to me, Everlasting Punishment isn’t what is inflicted on us; it is what we inflict on ourselves. It starts with regret, which is defined as “to feel sad or sorry about (something that you did or did not do)” It’s a those things we didn’t do or did do, and we punish ourselves over and over and over again. It’s the things we regret in our lives and sometimes just can’t get them out of our heads.
Earlier the choir sang David’s Lamentation, a song about a father’s grief over the death of his son, Absalom. King David’s relationship with his son, Absalom, was “complicated”. I’m sure the story has been taken and made into books and at least one TV soap opera. To me, this song expresses so beautifully a father’s anguish for his son’s death and with that anguish, his regret. Absalom was a charmer and his father’s favorite but he plots to overthrow his father. King David gets wind of what Absalom is planning and leaves town. Before he leaves, he arranges for some of his faithful servants to spy for him. They get word to him that Absalom and his army, plan to follow, and attack David and his army. King David decides he lead his army and attack Absalom but his men convince him that it is better that he stay behind and they will go fight. So King David stays behind but orders them not to kill Absalom. They ignore his orders. They find Absalom in an indefensible position and he is killed. When David hears of Absalom’s death, he laments that he should have died, not his son. He made two decisions to regret: one, for his army to go and attack his son and two, to not go with his army because if he had gone, he could have protected his son. “Would to God I 3 had died, would to God I had died for thee, O Absalom, my son, my son.”
Fortunately for most of us, our regrets do not involve life or death situations. But our lives can seem just as complicated and we have to make choices, decisions, actions or not make those choices, decisions, actions. We don’t know what will ultimately will cause us pain. We can’t live a life without having regrets.
To prepare for this sermon, I watched a bunch of TED talks. If you don’t know about TED talks, they began in 1984 as a conference where Technology, Entertainment and Design converged, and today covers almost any topic. Did you know, when washing your hands, after you rinse, if everyone shook their hands 12 times and then took a paper towel and folded it, their hands would be perfectly dry using only one paper towel and 5 million trees a year could be saved. That is just an interesting fact that has nothing to do with everlasting punishment or does it?
TED talks are about 18 minutes long and are usually educational and entertaining and you don’t have to feel guilty for spending time on the internet. And you get to pretend you are really doing research and not avoiding writing a sermon.
Journalist and author, Kathryn Schultz gave a TED talk on “Don’t Regret, Regret”. The essence of her talk was: to love regret because regret reminds that we can do better and that we want to do better. Love regret because regret reminds that we can do better and that we want to do better.
Schulz says there are four characteristics of regret:
1. Denial. I didn’t really do that. Did I really do that?
2. Bewilderment- Why did I do that?
3. Punishment- I could kick myself.
4. Perseverance-the obsession that puts Denial, Bewilderment and Punishment into an infinite loop. Punishment Everlasting.
I remember a co-worker telling a bunch of us a story. She admitted to doing something not quite up to my “moral/ethical/ whatever standards”. She told us she regretted doing it. The group broke and we went back to our desks. My snarky self, sent an Instant Message to another member of the group, saying “can you believe she did that.” The only problem was I hadn’t sent it to the person, I thought I was sending it to. I had sent it to the co-worker who told the story. I didn’t realize this until; the reply to my message was “Yup, I did it. Not one of my proudest moments.” At that moment, I wasn’t having one of my proudest moments. I felt physically ill. I denied it. “I really didn’t just do that”. I was confused. “How did I make that mistake? Why did I send that 5 message?” The punishment, I wanted to crawl in a hole and just die. How could I be so stupid, mean and insensitive?
To my credit, I went over to her desk and apologized. She was gracious and told me, it wasn’t anything she hadn’t already asked herself. We have a little store at work and found a card and yes, Hallmark does have a card to apologize when you are stupid and insensitive. Well, not quite. They had one I could modify. It had a picture of a horse on the front, with an arrow pointing to its behind and said “I’m a horse’s …” and you open it and it said for “forgetting your birthday”. I crossed out the line “for forgetting your birthday” and said, “No, I’m just a horse’s ass. I am really sorry”
But here’s the perseverance, I spent months worrying about what I had done and how hurtful it was. When I was thinking of of everlasting punishment, that story came into my head and I began to feel ill again. But it is an important regret for me to remember. It reminds me to be a better person, not to gossip, not to judge.
Can you live a life without regrets? There are some people who say, I have no regrets in my life. Do they mean they have never done something wrong, never committed an injustice? If so, they are either delusional or lack the empathy to understand the consequences of their actions. Or both and I won’t mention any politician's name here. Or do those people recognize that those regrets are the things that form important parts of their lives, so in fact they are not regrets. I think there are a lot of people like me who struggle to try and remember that we are not the sum of all the mistakes we have made.
So how do we keep ourselves out of our own self-made hell of regrets and worry? I’m only an expert for my own life and I can only tell the ways I have coped(or heard in a TED talk).
1. If you cannot stop obsessing about what you have or haven’t done and you worry about it constantly. Seek professional help. Counselling and sometimes medication, can make a big difference in your life. It made a big difference in mine.
2. Recognize that you will have failures but you are in good company. You may say the wrong thing, you may do the wrong thing, but You are trying. Success rarely comes without failure. Michael Jordan. said: ‘I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that’s why I succeed.’
3. Recognize that mistakes happen. But can you fix that mistake? Can you apologize? Can you make amends in some way? The sooner you can do something, the less time you will spend obsessing about it. You are not a bad person because you made a mistake.
4. Try to understand what you can or cannot change. If you can’t change something, learn how to accept it. That might mean going to back to the first thing on my list, getting professional help. But it might just mean thinking about the Serenity Prayer: Grant me the serenityto accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference It can help you step back and take an objective look at regret.
5. Try meditation. I recently took an eight week mindfulness class taught by staff at the UMASS Medical school and I am learning to meditate. It is not easy but there times, I can feel that shift in my mind and body, from the frenetic to the calm. Meditation doesn’t have to be a formal practice. It can be as simple as looking at the sky for 10 minutes and focusing our minds on something other than our thoughts. H
Here are a few things I try to do to avoid regrets. Remember I said “try”.
●When opportunity knocks, take it. Make sure your excuses are not just excuses to avoid the uncomfortable, scary things in life. Like giving a sermon.
●Make sure your heart is ready, your voice is ready,your feet are ready, your hands are ready and your spirit is ready for whatever comes along.
●Knock on opportunity's door. Don’t wait for things to happen. If you want to see a movie, invite someone to go with you. But if they say no, go to the movie by yourself.
●Pick up the phone and call. Pick up the phone and call.
●Here is a hard one for me because I am truly an introvert. Don’t sacrifice your time with family and friends to the Internet, TV and to work. I don’t think anybody ever said on their deathbed, “ I should have watched another TED talk”. Do you think anyone says “ I wish I had read another book.”
●Tell people you love them. We are New Englanders but it’s important that we say it.
●Count to 10 or 100 or 1000 when you are angry or upset. Take deep breath. Take a walk. Give yourself a break from your immediate emotions.
●Be kind. To yourself and others.
●Don’t believe that You are anything less than beautiful
We can’t live without regrets. They make up the story of our lives, who we’ve been and who we want to be.
The Indian mystic Osho said, “Suffering is not holding you. You are holding suffering. When you become good at the art of letting sufferings go, then you’ll come to realize how unnecessary it was for you to drag those burdens around with you. You’ll see that no one else other than you was responsible. The truth is that existence wants your life to become a festival.”
Thank you and let the party begin.
by Roxann Smith
I saw a picture of a wayside pulpit, not unlike ours, which listed the sermon title as “Everlasting Punishment” and underneath it stated “All are lovingly invited”. So, I lovingly invite you all to share “Everlasting Punishment” with me today.
Last year, I spoke about life everlasting, and about kindness and gave you some ideas about being kind. So this year, I decided that everlasting punishment would be a good counterpoint. And I can give you some good ideas about how to make your life a living hell.
As I don’t believe in the biblical “heaven” where you have everlasting life, I also don’t believe in the biblical hell, where you have everlasting punishment.
So what do I believe is Everlasting Punishment? For those of you who know David and me, you might think it is what is happening to David after leaving me for 5 and half months to hike the Appalachian Trail. Or for me, the last four weeks thinking about writing this sermon which was a self-inflicted, although not everlasting, punishment.
My dear friend Dot was 25 years older than me. She was an important person in my life who gave me some advice 35 years ago which helped me make a very important decision. I didn’t alway stay in contact with her but I usually saw her once a year. Last year, I kept putting off getting in touch with her; I don’t really know why. I always had an excuse. I’m busy. I’m tired. I’m going on vacation. I just got back from vacation. I’ll talk to her next week. One day last spring, I decided today is the day I’m going to call Dot. But then I had this weird feeling, so I goggled her name and, I found out that she had passed away 2 months earlier. I thought to myself, this is my hell. This is what I have to live with for the rest of my life, I didn’t make the effort to engage with my friend and now that opportunity to tell her how much she meant to me is lost forever. I was really upset with myself for making all those excuses when there really wasn’t any excuse.
So to me, Everlasting Punishment isn’t what is inflicted on us; it is what we inflict on ourselves. It starts with regret, which is defined as “to feel sad or sorry about (something that you did or did not do)” It’s a those things we didn’t do or did do, and we punish ourselves over and over and over again. It’s the things we regret in our lives and sometimes just can’t get them out of our heads.
Earlier the choir sang David’s Lamentation, a song about a father’s grief over the death of his son, Absalom. King David’s relationship with his son, Absalom, was “complicated”. I’m sure the story has been taken and made into books and at least one TV soap opera. To me, this song expresses so beautifully a father’s anguish for his son’s death and with that anguish, his regret. Absalom was a charmer and his father’s favorite but he plots to overthrow his father. King David gets wind of what Absalom is planning and leaves town. Before he leaves, he arranges for some of his faithful servants to spy for him. They get word to him that Absalom and his army, plan to follow, and attack David and his army. King David decides he lead his army and attack Absalom but his men convince him that it is better that he stay behind and they will go fight. So King David stays behind but orders them not to kill Absalom. They ignore his orders. They find Absalom in an indefensible position and he is killed. When David hears of Absalom’s death, he laments that he should have died, not his son. He made two decisions to regret: one, for his army to go and attack his son and two, to not go with his army because if he had gone, he could have protected his son. “Would to God I 3 had died, would to God I had died for thee, O Absalom, my son, my son.”
Fortunately for most of us, our regrets do not involve life or death situations. But our lives can seem just as complicated and we have to make choices, decisions, actions or not make those choices, decisions, actions. We don’t know what will ultimately will cause us pain. We can’t live a life without having regrets.
To prepare for this sermon, I watched a bunch of TED talks. If you don’t know about TED talks, they began in 1984 as a conference where Technology, Entertainment and Design converged, and today covers almost any topic. Did you know, when washing your hands, after you rinse, if everyone shook their hands 12 times and then took a paper towel and folded it, their hands would be perfectly dry using only one paper towel and 5 million trees a year could be saved. That is just an interesting fact that has nothing to do with everlasting punishment or does it?
TED talks are about 18 minutes long and are usually educational and entertaining and you don’t have to feel guilty for spending time on the internet. And you get to pretend you are really doing research and not avoiding writing a sermon.
Journalist and author, Kathryn Schultz gave a TED talk on “Don’t Regret, Regret”. The essence of her talk was: to love regret because regret reminds that we can do better and that we want to do better. Love regret because regret reminds that we can do better and that we want to do better.
Schulz says there are four characteristics of regret:
1. Denial. I didn’t really do that. Did I really do that?
2. Bewilderment- Why did I do that?
3. Punishment- I could kick myself.
4. Perseverance-the obsession that puts Denial, Bewilderment and Punishment into an infinite loop. Punishment Everlasting.
I remember a co-worker telling a bunch of us a story. She admitted to doing something not quite up to my “moral/ethical/ whatever standards”. She told us she regretted doing it. The group broke and we went back to our desks. My snarky self, sent an Instant Message to another member of the group, saying “can you believe she did that.” The only problem was I hadn’t sent it to the person, I thought I was sending it to. I had sent it to the co-worker who told the story. I didn’t realize this until; the reply to my message was “Yup, I did it. Not one of my proudest moments.” At that moment, I wasn’t having one of my proudest moments. I felt physically ill. I denied it. “I really didn’t just do that”. I was confused. “How did I make that mistake? Why did I send that 5 message?” The punishment, I wanted to crawl in a hole and just die. How could I be so stupid, mean and insensitive?
To my credit, I went over to her desk and apologized. She was gracious and told me, it wasn’t anything she hadn’t already asked herself. We have a little store at work and found a card and yes, Hallmark does have a card to apologize when you are stupid and insensitive. Well, not quite. They had one I could modify. It had a picture of a horse on the front, with an arrow pointing to its behind and said “I’m a horse’s …” and you open it and it said for “forgetting your birthday”. I crossed out the line “for forgetting your birthday” and said, “No, I’m just a horse’s ass. I am really sorry”
But here’s the perseverance, I spent months worrying about what I had done and how hurtful it was. When I was thinking of of everlasting punishment, that story came into my head and I began to feel ill again. But it is an important regret for me to remember. It reminds me to be a better person, not to gossip, not to judge.
Can you live a life without regrets? There are some people who say, I have no regrets in my life. Do they mean they have never done something wrong, never committed an injustice? If so, they are either delusional or lack the empathy to understand the consequences of their actions. Or both and I won’t mention any politician's name here. Or do those people recognize that those regrets are the things that form important parts of their lives, so in fact they are not regrets. I think there are a lot of people like me who struggle to try and remember that we are not the sum of all the mistakes we have made.
So how do we keep ourselves out of our own self-made hell of regrets and worry? I’m only an expert for my own life and I can only tell the ways I have coped(or heard in a TED talk).
1. If you cannot stop obsessing about what you have or haven’t done and you worry about it constantly. Seek professional help. Counselling and sometimes medication, can make a big difference in your life. It made a big difference in mine.
2. Recognize that you will have failures but you are in good company. You may say the wrong thing, you may do the wrong thing, but You are trying. Success rarely comes without failure. Michael Jordan. said: ‘I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that’s why I succeed.’
3. Recognize that mistakes happen. But can you fix that mistake? Can you apologize? Can you make amends in some way? The sooner you can do something, the less time you will spend obsessing about it. You are not a bad person because you made a mistake.
4. Try to understand what you can or cannot change. If you can’t change something, learn how to accept it. That might mean going to back to the first thing on my list, getting professional help. But it might just mean thinking about the Serenity Prayer: Grant me the serenityto accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference It can help you step back and take an objective look at regret.
5. Try meditation. I recently took an eight week mindfulness class taught by staff at the UMASS Medical school and I am learning to meditate. It is not easy but there times, I can feel that shift in my mind and body, from the frenetic to the calm. Meditation doesn’t have to be a formal practice. It can be as simple as looking at the sky for 10 minutes and focusing our minds on something other than our thoughts. H
Here are a few things I try to do to avoid regrets. Remember I said “try”.
●When opportunity knocks, take it. Make sure your excuses are not just excuses to avoid the uncomfortable, scary things in life. Like giving a sermon.
●Make sure your heart is ready, your voice is ready,your feet are ready, your hands are ready and your spirit is ready for whatever comes along.
●Knock on opportunity's door. Don’t wait for things to happen. If you want to see a movie, invite someone to go with you. But if they say no, go to the movie by yourself.
●Pick up the phone and call. Pick up the phone and call.
●Here is a hard one for me because I am truly an introvert. Don’t sacrifice your time with family and friends to the Internet, TV and to work. I don’t think anybody ever said on their deathbed, “ I should have watched another TED talk”. Do you think anyone says “ I wish I had read another book.”
●Tell people you love them. We are New Englanders but it’s important that we say it.
●Count to 10 or 100 or 1000 when you are angry or upset. Take deep breath. Take a walk. Give yourself a break from your immediate emotions.
●Be kind. To yourself and others.
●Don’t believe that You are anything less than beautiful
We can’t live without regrets. They make up the story of our lives, who we’ve been and who we want to be.
The Indian mystic Osho said, “Suffering is not holding you. You are holding suffering. When you become good at the art of letting sufferings go, then you’ll come to realize how unnecessary it was for you to drag those burdens around with you. You’ll see that no one else other than you was responsible. The truth is that existence wants your life to become a festival.”
Thank you and let the party begin.
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