Apology

APOLOGY 
Wonder now just how you feel 
Someday time will grant me grace
And you will see 
Every moment since we broke 
I've begun to change
One day soon I might be the one you needed
Thought you found In our summer
Back before the boy in me
Went and stole it all away I wonder now
If he's sorry
Time, can't change the past Why, did I run and hide
Tonite, as I look back I,
Just wanna let you know I'm sorry
Know you've heard this all before
Now its for real and not just wanting
To get me back To where I'm supposed to be
In your arms Before the boy in me
Left the man in me and the woman in you both lonely -
Always wondered how
You got So much less than you deserve
Seems that fate has found A blindfold for her eyes
Always got in return Much less than you've given
Time, can't change the past
Why, did I run and hide
Tonite, as I look back I,
Just wanna let you know I'm sorry
This is much less than I need to bleed
For all your happiness I've taken
Hope you find every dream that lied
Said it hid inside my ribs
Take their dying light
Maybe you can make it burn on A little longer
I just wanna let you know I'm sorry
I just wanna let you know I'm sorry
If you can’t forget maybe God can forgive me?
I just wanna let you know I’m sorry
Apology is obviously a song about a relationship that went wrong and a man that made a lot of mistakes he wishes he could repair for the sake of the relationship. That is the Factual Truth of the song, but the Epic Truth is a much larger narrative about our lives. We have all been “bitten by the bitter bug” and once we get infected with the cynicism, it leaves us with a “bad eye” as the Hebrew said (choosing to see only the worst about others and their intentions) that leaves those close to us bitten by the bitter bug as well. So many of us who have become “survivors” fall into this trap that seems to be a cage to keep us safe, but in actuality, it’s a cage that keeps others from reaching in to heal us. The booby traps we place all around that cynical cage leaves anyone who would even try wounded and scarred and when they can’t take the cuts anymore we declare that someone has once again abandoned us! Then we make an agreement with the demon of isolation inside to never ever trust anyone again, and that little bastard certainly holds us to that oath every time an opportunity to be led into the light by another’s hand appears.
As The Fray sings “Somewhere along the way I lost a Friend, out here in the Bitterness”, and we have lost too many of what was already a list of too few.
The Gospel of all this (the “Good News’ in Greek) is that we don’t have to be locked into that roller coaster forever, this sick cycle that leaves everyone nauseous of trying to give us some gravity as they are simply caught up in our whirlwind instead. We can ask to be set free but not by human hands and human hearts, as these are only of assistance once a stronger power has pulled us off this carnival ride that we seem to have been born on. We can ask for a new heart that isn’t made of cold and angry stone but made of faith and hope and love. We can ask for the Spirit of the Creator, which is braver than the Spirit of Fear, not afraid to love again. We can only have a heart full of one, which will not share with the other.
“And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.[a] 28 You shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers, and you shall be my people, and I will be your God. 29 And I will deliver you from all your uncleannesses.” Ezekiel 36:26
In my own time on this Earth I have “lived”, if that existence can be called “living” by any stretch of the word, in survival mode for most of my years. Whatever I needed was owed to me by the world because the world had taken so much away, whatever love I needed was to be obtained by any means necessary because without it my heart would not survive (though what I did to find that love was killing my heart and I wouldn’t admit it), and whatever I felt was necessary was justified because I had been left without the options that most people have. So many of us live this way, but there are socially acceptable ways to do this and socially unacceptable ways of “surviving” by any means necessary, Jacob and Esau from Genesis give us examples of lives that were “Stuck on Survive”.
The Jacob path is twisting words to sometimes include Sacred Scripture even, playing on fears and desires, flattery which is false praise, manipulating guilt or shame and other emotions, and then there is the Esau path which is just as evil if we are honest with ourselves but much more illegal, such as taking what you need by force of fist or by force of firearm. One plays on love and the other plays on fear, but both make us less than what we were meant to be and making the road back to someone we can be proud of even longer and longer each time we play the part of one of the two brothers that desired their “Birthright” by any means necessary. I have walked the Jacob path and like Jacob, it has left me with a limp so that I can no longer run away from the messes I make. I have to walk with integrity because I am unable to hide from The Creator who is the one we ultimately wrong in whatever wrongs we commit, as we have wronged His Children. Excuses never end, and never take us where we want to be. The Overcomer is the best of the strength within us, he is the one to prove the whole world wrong, he is the poetic justice and the victor, not the “Survivor-Scavenger”.

Prayer for Those In Need Of Apology 

To The God Who Offers the Grace of Forgiveness

We ask that you Forgive for us how we have harmed your Children, including Ourselves

We ask that you wash away the Weakness of our Tongues

We ask that you speak Louder to their Ears than our Words that Hurt

We ask that you Bind all that we have Broken

We ask you Forgive us for not giving our own Pain a Purpose

We ask that you turn the Bitter Seeds we have spreads into Sweeter Fruit

We ask that you turn to Beauty from Ashes the Fires that we Sparked

We ask that you Heal the Sickness we have brought to other Hearts

We ask that you Restore all that we have Stolen

We ask that you make Myrrh out of the Memories best left Forgot

We ask you to Forgive all that we Did, and all that we did Not.

“Come now, let us reason together,” says ADONAI. “Though your sins be like scarlet, they will be as white as snow.

Though they be red like crimson, they will become like wool.”

Isaiah 1:18 Tree of Life Version

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