Things Done and Left Undone

A dear friend once told me that it wasn’t the wrong or evil things he did that he needed to repent, but those things he left undone and knew he should do that begged forgiveness. Aha! Yes, that struck a chord with me. There was the rub: the undone.
I grew up Baptist. Maybe that explains how I missed that part about the undone. The Ten Commandments was a constant subject of sermons and I remember, even as a young child, thinking that generally I lived up to those commandments. Maybe the bearing false witness gave me a bit of trouble but otherwise, I wasn’t killing anyone or stealing. I honored my father and my mother. I didn’t covet what others had, but I could have just turned a blind eye to that one. I do remember liking my friend’s shiny new car real well while I was still driving a beat up Maverick that my sister had wrecked; the gnarled, rusted fender frowned at me every time it was parked beside my friend’s Karma Gia…but that’s another story.
So what are the things I have left undone that cause me to pray this particular part of the confession with more emphasis? What do I have to repent of? Here’s a partial confession of a very long list.
I don’t visit the sick and infirmed. I could. I could make it a priority. I could find time in my busy life to do this. I know full well what it would mean to that shut-in if I showed up, even for a brief hug and smile. I could send a card. I could call on the phone. But I don’t do it!
I could write that check. I keep meaning to. I know that there are those suffering in the Midwest , in Indonesia. I get constant reminders in my daily mailbox of those who need food, shelter, clothing, and medicine. I say to myself: I need to send them some money. And then I don’t. I forget. I pretend it won’t make a difference. Lord knows I am wrong.
I could offer a smile and a kind word to another in passing. I am certain that for some, this may be the only moment of attention they may receive that day, and I am equally sure that it would make a huge difference in their lives. But I am busy, pre-occupied, ignorant of their need for a short conversation from even a stranger like me. I rush blindly by without even a thought.
I could work against the injustice I see right here in my county as well as the world. I give a lot of lip-service to this! “Undocumented workers are treated as the new slaves.” “The litter around here is horrible. Why do ‘they’ have to throw out their beer cans and mar the beauty of my morning walk?” “Something needs to be done about those who don’t have access to good health care”. What do I do? I keep thinking these things, complaining and whining about this to friends, co-workers, Dan, and doing nothing. I could write some letters. I could reach out to those who are ‘strangers in a strange land’, and I could pick up the trash and put up a sign. These things, my friends, I confess, are left undone.
Once when I worked as the Director of English as a Second Language at Mayland Community College, I gave a brief talk to the Trinity Episcopal Women’s Group about what I did and the people I served in my program, mainly Mexican farm workers. When the luncheon and presentation was over, one parishioner made a point to speak to me afterwards. She said that from now on she was going to speak to these men when she saw them in Ingles. In her small way, she was doing something that could otherwise have been left undone or left for someone else to do. I can just imagine what those workers, shopping for a camp full of hungry men after a long day in the Christmas tree fields, must have thought of this white haired woman with the sparkling blue eyes acknowledging their existence and contribution in her smile and a brief hello. She was living out the commandments of Jesus Christ whether they understood her attention and her language or not.
Life is full of what we ‘should’ do, ‘could’ do or ‘would’ do. I need to do, not try to do. I do not need to leave it all undone.
So, today, right now, I get it Lord. And, dear Readers, I have to finish this up now. I have a letter to write, a phone call to make and a check to send! And, Lord, forgive me when I leave things undone.