Sorry!

I’m wondering if Elton John was in fact right when he sang “sorry seems to be the hardest word.” I’m certainly not good at it. Saying sorry that is. When I was a kid and did something that resulted in me being sent to my room (I know it’s hard to believe, but that did actually happen), the way to redemption (that is, being allowed out of my room) was to say sorry. Trouble is, when you’re a kid and you’re cross with your mother who sent you to your room, saying sorry is hard. Really hard. Especially when it was your brother’s fault. It was always my brother’s fault! And that’s part of the problem isn’t it? Mostly we want to think it is really someone else who should be saying sorry. That’s why it is so often so hard to say sorry. Because we don’t think we have anything to say sorry for. We wat to blame someone else. It goes back a long way it seems to me. Adam said it was Eve’s fault and Eve blamed the serpent. No-one wanted to say sorry. Actually, rather than say sorry and front it up, Adam and Eve hid. Or they tried to. They hadn’t worked out quite how hard it is to hide from God. We’re still not good at saying sorry. How many times do you hear someone in a public office say sorry for a mistake? What’s much more likely is for them to blame the opposition or the markets or…because it’s always someone else who’s to blame. She may have done it, and I apologise if she has and I’ve missed it, but the SNP member of parliament who travelled to London to Scotland and back knowing she’d been in contact with someone with a positive COVID test and then knowing she’d herself had tested positive, might do well to consider saying sorry. However, before we judge too harshly, perhaps we all share the same challenge: that things never really apply to us in the same way as they do to others. Right? Isn’t that what we mostly think? It’s quite humbling when someone says sorry to me. But I am not usually humble enough to say sorry to them. Truth is, we all make mistakes. The way out of my room when I was a boy, was to say sorry. It was too hard to do in person, so I used to make a paper aeroplane, write “Sorry” on it, and try to fly it from by bedroom window to the kitchen below hoping it would fly in through the window and my mum would catch it. It never worked. Never, I would spend hours in my room. I wonder what rooms we spend our time in because we can’t find it in our hearts to say sorry. I’m living with some scars. Maybe you are too. I'm learning it’s better to say sorry. Tried it earlier today. You don’t need to know the details and I’d be embarrassed to tell you. The good news is that I believe in a God of mercy, which means I can say sorry and keep saying it. He hears me every time. Elton John asks: “Why can’t we talk it over?” Turns out those are wise words. And, I think, words God might say to us. I wonder how different the world could be if we learnt to say sorry. Maybe, maybe, we could find out. By trying it!