Degrees of Sorriness

I’m sorry this blog is late, but I’ve been kind of stuck on how one person’s “I’m sorry” can be practically a different species from someone else’s. There’s a whole spectrum of regret out there, especially this summer.

Here’s a contrast for you. In this corner, we have the apology that stands up straight, looks you in the eye and owns the facts, while cringing inside from the pain of it all. In the other corner, we have the distant cousin—the apology that slouches and blathers, maybe even looking the other way, just trying to save face.

We’ll get to the first kind—the one with real integrity– in a minute. The second kind, sometimes called a “fauxpology,” is so commonplace that it often goes unnoticed; but it can get you into real trouble if you’ve done something pretty lousy and you happen to be in the public eye. You might even lose corporate sponsors.

Yes, I’m referring to the swimmer Ryan Lochte, a guy who probably wishes he’d stayed in the pool longer, competed in the dog paddle perhaps, anything to keep him off the streets.

You don’t need me to repeat the details of his tale, even if I could, and besides—who can keep up with the twists and turns that keep coming out? I’m not interested in heaping more blame on the guy, and surely he’ll get his comeuppance from the United States Olympic Committee, but we can try to learn something from the fabricated story of his escapade followed by his effort to recover.

First of all, tempting as it is sometimes, trying to deflect blame is pretty much always a mistake. After Ryan realized he’d better back down from the original accusation against the policemen-robbers, he said repeatedly that he had “over-exaggerated.” Right. Wouldn’t it have been easier from the beginning to say they’d all left the party in a reckless state and that whatever they did at the gas station was done with impaired judgement? Admitting to being drunk isn’t great if you’re champion swimmers, but most people might cut them a little bit of slack if they’d owned up to it right away.

Instead, even when he got around to apologizing, saying he should have been “more careful and candid” in describing the events, he got himself so far into the weeds that just about nobody, even his own buddies, could stick with him. Frankly, we would have liked to have seen a little bit more hanging of the head, even if his crimes fell short of being heinous.

Inundated as we all were with reports of this sorry tale on mainstream media, I was more interested in getting any intelligent takeaway from religious voices. A quick search brought up a column called “Ryan Lochte’s Non-Apology: Judaism and the Lost Art of True Repentance” by Rabbi Benjamin Blech. You can read it here. He’s tough on Lochte all right, and he also makes use of the episode to remind readers what’s directly ahead in the Jewish calendar.

 

Perhaps there is some synchronicity to the timing of this story as Jews will soon prepare for the High Holy days when we will stand in judgement before our Creator. We too will need to apologize for our misdeeds and to plead for forgiveness from the master of the universe.

 

Someone who really knew how “to plead for forgiveness from the master of the universe” was King David, in the Bible.

Thanks to the benefit of a long car ride together recently, my husband pointed me towards Psalm 51, sometimes called the “Miserere.” Wow, this really packs a punch. Here are just the opening lines, from the King James Version:

 

51 Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy loving kindness: according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions.

2 Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.

3 For I acknowledge my transgressions: and my sin is ever before me….

 

He’s not exaggerating, either, because his transgressions — adultery with Bathsheba along with the murder of her husband Uriah, related in Samuel 2–were plenty serious. Way, way worse than ripping down a poster at a bathroom and then lying about being attacked. David knew this was no time for excuses, that there was no point trying to remind God of his status or concoct some story to put himself in a better light. No, the only way forward was to acknowledge that he was a sinner, plain and simple, and that he needed help.

In this outpouring, David wasn’t being “careful and candid” – he was laying himself completely bare. This isn’t even an apology; it’s an expression of repentance, uttered in great pain. Nothing short of it would have sufficed, at this moment. He couldn’t just go on with business as usual, leading his people, until he got right with God – a daunting task.

There’s no one to prescribe for us what kind of “I’m sorry” is called for each time we slip in sin, each time we hurt someone. We have to gauge how the apology should fit the offense. Going overboard isn’t necessary, but not flinching from the truth sure is.

Apparently there’s a popular T-shirt out there now that says, “Sorry I’m Not Sorry.” If that’s supposed to provide some kind of immunity from being a regular, stumbling human, I don’t think it will do the trick.