“Thy righteousness shall go before thee, and the glory of the Lord shall be thy reward” (Isaiah).
Righteous:

1.Morally upright; without guilt or sin: a righteous parishioner.

2. In accordance with virtue or morality: a righteous judgment.

3. Morally justifiable: righteous anger.


As we enter the year 2007 and the time of new resolutions , often broken before the month is out, I propose a universal resolution. It is acceptable, no it is more than acceptable, it is admirable to admit that one is not always right and it is even more admirable to accompany one’s admission with a hint of contrition, contingent on how adamant one was about being right.

Although the word right is in righteous, I wanted to clarify, by the above quote and definitions, that admission of not being right or in plain talk, of being wrong, does in no way affect one’s state of righteousness.

It seems to me, by the words and actions of those around us, that being wrong and /or admitting it, is not only a bad thing but it diminishes us irreparably in the eyes of the world, else why would sorry be the most difficult five letter word to pronounce.

For some reason, being right has somehow been paired with being successful, and failure seems not to be an option, although a great many successes were built on the numerous failures that preceded them. An aside - which is kind of off the track - is how many overnight successes were preceded by years or even decades of work.

What brought all this to my mind is the current state of the war in which our country is involved. Mistakes have been made and the consensus seems to be that if this, there would be that, and because that didn’t happen, this is happening. Can no one in the administration say that we weren’t right, we made a mistake and we are really sorry? That includes all the folks who were elected to office from the top on down. It might not change anything but it would make a heck of a lot of people feel less angry at the senseless waste of lives, not to say the ridiculous waste of money, for nothing.

I have lived in the Northeast for my entire life, which has gone on for quite some time, and I cannot remember a December day when at near 70 degrees, people were walking around in short sleeved shirts and kvelling at the beauty of the day. I’m not complaining, but the rise in temperature has been documented in the Arctic, as well as its affect on the creatures who live there. Scientists have talked about global warming for many years but those who are in a position to make changes, have not. This is a problem that may not be totally solved but amelioration is possible and it would be nice to have an admission that mistakes have been made, we’re sorry and we’ll try to do better in the future.

I’m far from blameless when it comes to admitting that I haven’t been right and sometimes having to apologize does put a little chink in my self esteem, but this year I’m going to make the effort. So doing may make me less often right, but on the other hand, may bring me closer to the path of righteousness.