This sermon was presented at Stevens Chapel on July 14, 2002, by Kenneth Beebe.

Guilt Is Not Good For You

I don’t like guilt and probably one of the many reasons I don’t attend a Christian church is that I never accepted the concept of original sin. Instead I like to think of myself as the end product of a happy loving relationship. That makes me feel a lot better than believing I was born a sinner. Stop for a moment and think how these different views could affect one’s life and self esteem. Thus, I suggest to avoid a great deal of the guilt that comes your way, you have to have a positive view of yourself. Or, as my mother would say why should others think good about you, if you don’t believe you’re good.

There are two types of guilt, one being the fact that one has committed a breach of conduct or law. But I’m not going to talk about rules and laws, because they don’t prevent anything, but are guidelines as to what might happen if you break them, as an example some of us will drive 30 in a 25 mile per hour section of road. Or as my hero Dennis the Menace exemplifies if the consequences are worth it to you, rules don’t prevent anything. In a cartoon of him sitting in the corner smiling with his feet up he says "the look on ol’ Margaret’s face was worth it."

The second type of guilt is the feeling of inadequacy or self-reproach from an imagined offense, or as I call it the power guilt. This guilt is so powerful it can cause people a great deal of stress, people will volunteer to do things they’d rather not, skip vacations when they need them, attend Aunt Sue’s luncheon when they’d rather be someplace else. All this guilt causes people to lose control over their lives. This in some of it forms is what I wish to explore today. We have all either used or have had used on us this power guilt. Perhaps the recognized experts in this area are the nuns in parochial school. The nuns are such masters of the art, that even now if I was to use guilt, which of course I would never do, and I had to be on a committee. May it consist of myself and three women, who all went to parochial school, and with their background of guilt, I will be surprised if I have to do anything, yet the task that we were charged with, will have been done and done well.

There are numerous forms of power guilt and we need to recognize them so that we don’t use them and we don’t allow them to be used on us. Keeping in the spirit of parochial school let me give you an example of church guilt. While attending a church function I was greeted by the statement "hi Ken I see your wife in church more than I see you." To which I replied "because she needs it more than I do." Now the last I checked unlike the Catholic Church it is not a sin to not come to our Sunday service. However out of cultural habit this person was attempting to make me feel guilty for not attending service, at least as often as my wife attends. In mentioning this incident to some friends, their comment was that is why they never go to church, because people lay a guilt trip on them, instead of making them feel welcome. Thus instead of going to church occasionally, they don’t go at all. This is important for us to remember, for when we do have visitors to the church we don’t have a second chance for first impressions. So in place of guilt let us extend the hand of warmth and friendship

Holiday guilt is always interesting, here we come across the if you loved me we would go to or do…. Or we really should go to or do …. Both forms are to be avoided, the love me one works both ways and at holiday time the word should ought to be banned. What to do, to begin with have a positive self image and count yourself as important and put what you want to do, have time to do and can afford to do on a high level. Because Christmas will take place, the wedding will happen and the person will graduate without you there. But you in your hectic life may have a strong need to do nothing go nowhere and relax. If you don’t take control, trust me a good guilt maker will control you and still make you feel you haven’t done enough. I’ll admit that even I attend the should go "to’s" once in awhile, but 90% of the time if I’m at a function it’s because I want to be there and not for the purpose of attendance checklist.

This leads me into reality guilt or the not acceptance of reality. We seem to understand the basics of reality such as we can’t be in two places at once, that as we age we’re not as quick as we were at 21 and finally what’s done is done. As example I can’t be here and in Vt. at the same time, so I make a choice and accept it, not make a guilt trip of it. My walking speed isn’t what it used to be, so I encourage others, to head off to the fishing spots first instead of waiting for me. I’d rather have a fishing report when I get there; than have the feeling I’m slowing them down, when they don’t have the opportunity to fish as often as I do. (I had to get something about fishing into this talk) When it comes to acceptance of reality I think Willie Nelson sums it up in the following lines: Guilt is just a memory written on my brow and there’s nothing I can do about it now. And I know what I would change if I could go back in time some how, but there’s nothing I can do about it now. If there is something you would like to do, then do it, make the call, write the letter do the visit, but do it because you want to.

Along with acceptance guilt is vacation guilt, which is part of corporate or professional guilt which is a topic unto itself. Just let me emphasize, we need to accept the fact that work and the world will function without us. As an example when I worked for AT&T, Jim Olson who was president of the company died. The corporation didn’t miss a beat. This acceptance of the fact that the world will function without us, is a positive action. Once we accept this fact, that life goes on without us, we now can take time to enjoy ourselves, as just us and explore what we call important.

People who ask others to volunteer are going to hate me for this next topic of volunteer and assumption guilt. If you get asked to be on a committee or to do a task, especially if it is one you do well and usually enjoy doing, and you say no. Quite often you’ll either be asked why, or get we were counting on you for this. What I’m going to say next is very important, no is such a powerful word that to help it weakens it. By this I mean never never defend a no. To defend or explain a no, opens the door to guilt and a good guilt master will have you saying yes when you don’t want to. Let me ask you this, how often do you have to defend a yes, or is it the usual thank you and good bye. Saying no especially when you’re retired or have a special interest in an area, is not easy but it works and if asked why just say because I said no, thank you. Sometimes when we say no it’s because we want and need time to do nothing and with our puritan heritage doing nothing isn’t defendable, but in today’s world doing nothing is doing something that is very important.

To conclude let me say that guilt causes stress, it gives control of our lives to others, it prevents us from taking time to enjoy self and family and hinders personal growth. To avoid guilt you need to be positive especially to yourself, then when you feel good, you’ll want to share this feeling by helping others feel good. It’s nice to say yes but when you say no say no.