God sows the fastest growing seedlings not in our strengths, but in the soft soil of our weaknesses. Humility in facing failures grows in an aching conscience that inspires sincere amends for misdeeds. That process is essential to mental health. Without the effort of rectification, relationships remain imprisoned in their worst moments; painful memories slip the bonds of the past into a raw and debilitating present. The chance to understand mistakes and make amends is a great gift of being human.
Modern psychology has paid almost no attention to the processes of making amends, instead focusing on fortifying the ego in order to achieve self-directed goals. Making amends involves perforation and reformation of the ego through bold self-searching. It has been relegated to religious understanding and “higher power” recovery programs such as so-called 12-step programs. Making amends is often associated with substance abuse recovery, but amends can be made whenever a person or group face their behaviors that have harmed others, and reorient a damaged relationship toward an authentic and equal one.
The following will explain living amends in ongoing relationships, distinguish between amends and apology, and identify five egoic purposes associated with amends that actually undermine their value: 1) relieving guilt, 2) seeking forgiveness, 3) hoping to be trusted, 4) giving money or financial gain, and 5) enabling revenge or other mistreatment of the maker by the receiver. Finally, it will discuss the modern phenomenon of national amends-making, using the great example of the American nation toward its African-American minority.
Making amends is more than conversation based on a vague sense of shame, guilt, or a wish to make things better. It is the fruit of struggle with the truth about oneself. Amends-making has the advantage over other forms of relationship recovery because it offers remorse for specific harmful actions. Event-based amends arise out of regret for specific errors. Relationship-based, or living amends, arise out of remorse for a pattern of errors, in the context of a long-term relationship. But all amends begin in self-examination.
Amends-making is a simple thing, and found difficult because the ego wants to slouch back into self-justification or self-pity. When conscience and empathy overcome the hydra-headed ego, self-examination leads the maker to formulate a description of his misdeeds, and the interactive process of living amends can begin. The recounting of errors is brought to the receiver in a forthright expression of regret or remorse and unvarnished admission of wrongdoing, with the sole purpose of restitution of honor, respect, and love to the recipient.
Amends may be an opening to a new relationship or not. They are meant to empower the recipient to respond in any way. Amends-making seeks no form of gain except the well-being of the receiver and acceptance of the receiver’s response, even if it is rejection. Amends are contaminated if coerced; used to avoid punishment; for self-justification; or in a relationship that cannot be made equal, as between an adult and a child.
Amends are fundamentally different from apology, which is a closed-ended statement of guilt, usually a unidirectional, non-interactive declaration, sincere or insincere, from the heart or as part of a package of ulterior motives.
In making amends, guilt must be crossed quickly, because amends arise not from the self-consciousness of guilt, but from concern for another. Guilt is the embellished side of the coin of pride; it is a salve for pride and too sticky a substance for amends. As guilt is dark pride, one may say, “It wasn’t really me; I wouldn’t do such a thing.” But it was you. You may have been weak, broken, or intoxicated, but it was you. Amends based solely in guilt collapse into defensiveness if pride is again wounded in the amends process, and responsibility again is thrown upon the injured party.
Sincere amends are independent of forgiveness. Whether accepted or rejected, they retain the power of honesty and respect. Living amends do not seek a renewal of trust. When two people marry, they promise to love and honor each other. But for good reason they do not promise eternal trust. Trust is the diploma picked up after a course of deep, abiding knowledge of another human being. Trust is an ornament of love and knowledge, a beautiful but secondary attainment. Where living amends are necessary, there has been a significant betrayal or failure. Expecting the ornamentation of trust from the amends-receiver should be given up.
The central purpose of living amends is to create equality in an unbalanced, harmful power relationship. Sometimes, especially between an amends-making parent and an adult child with a history of financial dependence, the amends-receiver will ask for money. This dynamic can defeat the purpose of establishing equality and mutual respect in a renovated relationship. Persistent requests for money contaminate the process and risks creating new inequalities, dependencies, and resentments.
Living amends place the responsibility of change upon the amends-maker. In the initial stages, the receiver may express healthy, righteous anger against the amends-maker. But this anger should not be allowed to develop into revenge.
Politics is the regulation of selfishness, so it is almost impossible for a nation to step away from its self-interested struggles to rigorously examine itself and make amends for historical injustice. When injustice is corrected through living amends on a national level, the process requires decades or even centuries. Today, the greatest living amends in history are being made by the United States to African-Americans.
The greatness of America derives from her parents, a brilliant father of intellectual enlightenment and a mother’s heart of decentralized Christianity wisely sequestered from the din of politics. Therefore, America has been able to lead the world in examining her historical failures and making amends. From the Founding, America had a troubled conscience regarding slavery, as the politics, law, and discourse from that time make clear. But compromises were made, and the institution of slavery was preserved until the knife of conscience opened the veins of Americans into a bloodied earth of civil war. Since then, individuals, churches, and the government have supported the migration of African-Americans to safety and opportunity. Nevertheless, another century of violence and legal and cultural segregation was suffered before the wrongs committed against African-Americans were faced and changed.
The greatest national living amends in history began in full force in the 1970s from the American nation to her African-American minority, with many transitional federal programs to support the new relationship of equality. George Washington died in 1799. A federal holiday honoring him came in 1882. Four days after the death of MLK in 1983, a federal holiday was proposed and swiftly enacted. The subject of slavery was no longer taboo. The nation was transfixed by the mini-series Roots. African-American participation became essential across arts, culture, sports, the military, the media, and education. A wholesale shift in the education of American children continues today, with emphasis on African-American history and the elevation of African-American heroes. In only a few decades, the living amends of the American nation so uplifted this country that African ancestry is no longer an impediment to actualizing individual ability and talent in any field of endeavor.
Tragically, our great national amends have been poisoned by the left wing with toxins of “white guilt,” demands for financial reparations, and defamations of “white privilege” and pseudo–mental illness of white fragility. Purloined guilt enables self-righteous virtue-screeching while avoiding work to actually help anybody. The “white guilt” fallacy has enabled massive crime campaigns such as Black Lives Matter, as well as the illegal alien invasion. A fine flavor of white guilt is white Jewish guilt, and hateful wailings of Hamas-huggers fill the air. Their preening histrionics belie any concern about slavery inflicted today on captive Jewish women.
The vast majority of Americans of African ancestry experience and accept the amends they know have been made and are doing their best in this better nation. Reject the manipulations of the anti-America left. Celebrate that Americans of all races and backgrounds are living, working, and praying together in constructive harmony, thanks to the greatest living amends in world history.
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