THE WINTER OF OUR DISCONTENT [W, 1-31-24]

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter—THE WINTER OF OUR DISCONTENT [W, 1-31-24]

 

Every once in a while, I see or hear some person who is interviewed at the end of their career. Often, they say, “I have no regrets.”

That worries me, for the sake of their soul. If you have no regrets, you are either insensitive, a sociopath, or perfect. And as the old joke goes, “The only perfect man was my wife’s first husband.”

I think that’s why even his supporters were discombobulated when President George W. Bush was asked, at the end of his first term, what mistakes he had made. He could not think of any. Of course, it’s not politically helpful to admit mistakes, but, as he pondered an answer, he did not seem to be looking for the correct political response. He seemed genuinely befuddled; he just couldn’t think of any mistakes he had made. I think that is why he ended his first term with the lowest approval rating of any president ever; he could not correct his mistakes because he did not know what they were.

Winter was probably thought of as a time of discontent before Richard III, in which Shakespeare wrote the line, “Now is the winter of our discontent…”

The winter of life is either a time of discontent, because we have regrets, or a season of contentment, because we have come to terms with our regrets, not by denying them, but by examining them and then discarding them in the fire that we need for winter warmth.

Old people need to do this. We go through the boxes of our memories, and take out the letters and clippings and notes we have saved. We look them over, decide which our children or grandchildren might want, and then throw the others into the fire. Just as we do with the physical letters and photos.

Giving up our regrets, not by denying them but by turning them over to God, makes winter the season of our contentment.

John Robert McFarland

On a sort of related topic—forgiveness—a friend was confronted by a work colleague with an accusation of doing her a wrong. My friend protested that she had not done so, and provided visual proof [non-AI generated, it is necessary these days to say, about visual proof] that it was not she who did it. Nonetheless, her colleague said that she “would be the bigger person…” and forgive her. My friend says that it is very frustrating to be forgiven for something you didn’t do. I suppose Jesus would say that she must forgive the woman for forgiving her.