If You Want a Good Life, Learn to Say This…..

In the fall of 1973, I married a beautiful red-headed, abundantly freckled Irish girl. We were busy playing husband and wife in a tiny apartment on the edge of the University of Alabama campus where we were both full-time students.

The Soundtrack of that first year of marriage was Todd Rundgren’s critically acclaimed album “Something Anything”. We both listened to the album over and over in the evenings after a day of classes and our part-time jobs. A favorite song of mine is “Dust in the Wind”.(click link to hear song)

 Tell everyone that I am sorry, truly sorry

For all of the wrongs I done

I never meant to hurt nobody, no

Lord, I never want to do no wrong

 But I have lied, I have begged and I have cheated

And I know my ship won’t be coming in

As I lay me down to take my rest

I see that it’s just dust in the wind

 Oh my Lord, I have lost once again

And I got no one to help me find my way

But I never wanted to hurt nobody

And I never wanted to do no wrong

                                                Todd Rundgren  “Dust in the Wind”

While I loved the melody, the words did not fully resonate. I was only twenty years old at the time, and I had not yet harmed the people in my life in the devastating way I would in the coming years. I didn’t know the searing emotional pain described in these words. But the time was approaching when I would.

Over the next twenty-seven years I would feel the devastating, oppressive load of guilt, shame, and remorse from the results of repeated damaging behaviors towards those I loved and shared life with. It would be only then that the words of this song would find their place in my soul. Even today, hearing this song takes me back to a time of emotional crisis and relationship estrangement and breakdown.

In the winter of 1999 I was a “resident” in a long-term men’s addiction recovery home. I was newly sober and doing my best to follow the suggestions of the recovery home and of a sponsor (a recovery mentor).

One of my daily “assignments” was to call my sponsor and check in on how I was doing that day. Often, before I even started talking, he would ask me “Is it money or people?”, for it seems all the difficulties I had in life were one or the other. Most all the time, my pain and suffering were around my relationships and how my past and sometimes present actions had pushed the people I love away.

The driving force behind my decision to seek help and follow suggestions was my desire to stop hurting the people that I loved. There was no doubt that my addiction was the primary cause, so I had to address that first, and I did.

There are many ways we can harm people in our lives, but they can all be reduced to the two classic categories of “Sins of Commission” and “Sins of Omission”.

Sins of Commission are behaviors that directly harm others; physical or verbal attack, rudeness, inconsiderate comments, bullying, lying, stealing, gossiping, slander, embarrassing behaviors. I was guilty of some if not all of these.

But some of my most harmful behaviors over the years were those “Sins of Omission”— my lack of action or involvement that seemed to say just as clearly that I did not care, and by inference did not love those in my life; forgetting anniversaries, birthdays, failing to show up for the kids presentations or soccer games or swim meets, being passive, isolating, non-verbal, drifting slowly away from friends and family.

Everyone messes up from time to time. That is what it is to be human. But I had developed years of behaviors that had become abiding characteristics in my personality. Those who I lived with began to expect and accept this unacceptable behavior, until they could no longer.

That day came, which is why I lived in this recovery house with two dozen other men, all in the same boat. We were learning together day by day how to turn our wayward ships around. We were learning through a step-by-step process to practice those classical spiritual principles of self-examine, confession of faults, God-reliance, and love and service.

We were learning together that a good life begins with humility—realizing our way doesn’t work, and that we need God’s help. We began to learn that the way to access God’s help is to begin looking honestly at who we have become, and again with God’s help and grace, correct the wrongs we have committed and try our best each day to live a life of love and service.

Once I took an honest look at what was driving my bad behaviors, it was time to go out to all those I had harmed and do what I could to correct my mistakes and heal the relationship.

My sponsor gave me specific instructions on how to approach the people I had harmed over the years. He suggested I don’t say “I am sorry” (I’ve done that many times in the past with no lasting change), and that I could not blame any of my behavior on anything else; not my addiction, not what “they” did that triggered my behavior, etc. I had to own outright my specific behavior without any other considerations. The only thing I could say was “I WAS WRONG”, and then give enough concrete evidence that would let them know I had considered the relationship and my history in it carefully.

With my instructions in hand, I went out on the road on what my friends in the recovery house called my “Amends Tour 2000”.

A few months back I had totaled my new Toyota, and was jobless, so I  purchased an old Ford Fairlane for $300.00 at a Good Will auction. It was a five speed manual transmission that had only three working gears; first, third, and fifth. So, I would drive the first gear rpms up to a screaming level, and shift into third, and repeat going into fifth.

I went out each day with a list of appointments, driving this old Fairlane up and down the I-59 corridor of my wrongs– from Tuscaloosa to Decatur Alabama and several points in between. I spent an entire day at my former place of employment where I was fired for more than just cause, going from office to office admitting my mistakes and offering how I could make it right.

I did the same with my ex-wife (now my wife again) and my children. I visited my pastor, my friends, my former in-laws (now my in-laws again), my father and siblings, and a special one to my mother who passed away before I had a chance to talk with her. I wrote her a letter of amends and planted that letter with a weeping cherry tree in her yard.

I discovered in the process that what was often the most harmful to others were my sins of omission—in particular how for a number of years I was missing in action with my family and close friends. For these, the only thing they asked of me, which I happily agreed to, was to stay involved and connected to them.

I learned that the act of saying these three words, “I WAS WRONG”, rather than make me feel more guilty, relieved me of guilt and shame. I found with each amend behind me a growing ability to look people in the eye, not at my feet, nor above, but straight on, as I was one with them—for we are all frail, none more so than I. As Ram Doss has said, we are all just walking each other home.

I also learned that the most powerful sound my ears will ever hear is the sound of my own voice telling someone else the truth about myself.

And, I learned from the mouths of those I harmed the truth of how my actions or inaction’s had harmed them. I was surprised in the difference between how I thought I had harmed them and how I really had. The message in this is clear—I really don’t know how my behavior impacts others unless with humility as my guide I carefully consider it first. As a direct result of this process, I have been given a grown-ups sense of self -awareness.

Hearing the specifics of the pain I had caused others over the course of four or five days had an immeasurable impact on me that continues to help me in my relationships today, for I am not free of relationship entanglements. Life is not neat and clean. It must be intentionally navigated. Every day I risk colliding with someone over something. How will I stay away from harming others in a world where we so easily jostle each other to secure our position, our rightness, or our stuff?

Having had this practice making amends, I have found an easier way to live with people. If I lead in all my interactions with tolerance and kindness and service, it gives me a chance to navigate any challenging relationship without harm.

In the words of the Dali Lama, the two keys to joyful living are this: “Harm no one–and help when you can”. A readiness to say to another in true humility, “I WAS WRONG”, has ironically become for me the path to living right.

Using the three words “I WAS WRONG” is the key to renewing joy in my life and receiving the grace with which to live a harmless life going forward.

So, Todd Rundgren, I love your song, and its sentiment, and know how you feel.  But I don’t “tell everyone I am sorry”. I prefer to tell those I have harmed “I WAS WRONG”.

Kind Regards,

Bob