15O LORD, God of Israel, you are righteous! We are left this day as a remnant. Here we are before you in our guilt, though because of it not one of us can stand in your presence.
Guilt can be a good thing! But guilt has gotten a bad rap in recent years. Starting especially in the 60’s with the live and let live agenda, guilt became something to be rejected as part of the ancient past. We became a generation that was over all that stuff. We knew much better now. We were not captives of ignorant belief systems that carried guilt as a standard feature. We would have none of that. We would do whatever we wanted to do and not feel guilty about it. Well, it has not seemed to work. We still feel guilty, even if we are not at all religious. When we violate our own standards, we feel guilty. When someone else violates our standards and we get the negative consequences we get incensed. How dare they violate us! The problem lies in the assumption that each person can do whatever they want and it will never negatively affect anyone else. But we know that isn’t true. One person’s freedom to rape creates a raped person who had no choice in the matter. We can’t be totally free. We must live with constraints. The question becomes whose constraints. Our society rejects any universal constraints to behavior. They push for individual definition of right and wrong. But there will be inevitable violations of other people’s freedoms at the whim of the individual exerting their right to freedom. But when we violate a standard, either our own, or someone else’s, guilt is the result. And guilt is good if it motivates us to choose a different action in the future, one that won’t violate the standard and that will result in no guilt. Do the right thing, and no guilt results. That is true freedom.
The Arnold Journey 