How to find a secular and spiritual redemption.

Why even care about redemption, is it only Biblical?

Redemption has as its’ root redeem. To redeem is to pay for or do something in order to gain something or get something back. Redemption is the finality of that redeeming. Redemption of a moral and spiritual base is to “gain it back”. Just assume we are all good. There are two sides to the ledger sheet. We must not keep a tally of others but must keep one of ourselves. To be sure we can also just forgive debt in including ones to ourselves but that is not a good as redemption.

So let us take a look at the road to redemption with ourselves and with others, but most importantly with the notion of morality and being good.

There is a term “man up”, I have even heard many women use it. It means to do the right thing no matter the consequences. It is where I can’t and I don’t want to fall completely by the wayside. Redemption is anything but,,, the easy path. It is not just the “road less travelled” it is the road that is harder to travel.

Of course we will here the redemption song by Bob Marley. Redemption is not just Biblical it is moral by ethical standards. It part of our Ubuntu or our humanness. It is worthy of our praise, adoration and striving. Shall we begin down the road of redemption?

Realization requires actually attempting to pay attention to the cause and effect of our actions.

A man confessed what part he had done wrong with his ex-wife and what he would work to change. The wife said she had done nothing wrong and would not change a thing about herself or her actions. Of course life is hard and soon she changed her mind on such matters. Which was good for it had made the man very sad that she could not see herself for he still loved her. You see he saw the faults but loved her anyway. She was afraid that if she saw her own faults like she did in others she likewise would not love herself.

In seeking self-realization we must be ready and prepared to see our faults and love ourselves anyway.

You can got anywhere from Self Realization Fellowship with a yogi, to twelve step programs to a shrink to get some self-realization and that may be helpful. But what we are talking about is different.

This is simply the awareness that we are not perfect and we have faults and make mistakes. Once we realize that then we can see our faults and love ourselves enough to move onto repentance.

Repentance is the notion of turning around.

Oh it sounds all heavy and very religious. But really!? When we come to realize that we can make mistakes then we also open our eyes and realize we can do better. In order to do better we must change our direction to some degree. Repentance is that.

One of my favorite definitions of all times is one for insanity; doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. That is so me. It leads to such thoughts as “why can’t she just ……..”. Which distracts us from “why can’t I just…….”. Capturing that thought is the beginning of understanding repentance.

For interest let us take a Biblical use of repentance. Our teacher friend Jesus used it in a wonderful way here: "The time has come," Jesus said. "The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!" (Mark 1:15, NIV). Clearly He is using it to say “change your heart and mind from not believing in the good news to believing in the good news.” Greek had several words for repentance. They for they did not see a change of heart necessarily leading to a change of actions. Very interesting. And that takes us right up to restitution.

What does restitution really mean?

Clearly paying someone back what you owe them is the best place to start understanding restitution. But it must be deeper than that. It must be done with apologetics. Do not confuse how we use that term here with justification of past actions. It is to “justify” that ledger. Yes at its’ core “justify” means to balance the books. (hence Lady Justice is blindfolded yet holding scales).

So think of Jusification as used in restitution as getting your pros and cons inventory back to balanced at least. (as we all know it is good to have some savings so we should try to tip those scales a bit in favor of the pros)

But we have two serious questions here: 1. how do we give restitution for emotional pain we caused and 2. How do we give restitution to ourselves? If you are spiritual in the, having a God sense, you have a third issue here which we do not address here.

1. To answer this we go back to repentance and change our ways and we dig deep and figure the problem out with the other person. Some things cannot be repaid in kind they must be repaid through a different medium. In our research we have found that the causing of pain to another is best repaid by the showing of kindness to that person. And do not kid yourself, that kindness might be a check for dollars and cents. Paying for actual damage done or advantage taken is obvious and easy.
2. The only way to pay yourself back is to follow through on that repentance. And here is why. Remember we started off that ledger as though we were good to begin with. Doing good and being good is where we find our balance. It just is. If you do good and be good all day long you are simply balanced. And being balanced is a great way to feel and live. And this allows you to heal from your own self destructive ways, and that is a great pay back Jack.

So restitution is about finding that balance of where you were headed and where you would really like to go.

And so we have reached redemption.

We must say you already look better and happier. Oh dear we just gave it away. You have now redeemed yourself. Paid back the old in exchange for the new. You have made a conscious decision to find your wrongs, change the way you operate, clear up the balance sheet and presto magico you are redeemed.

Now you might need some help with some of this stuff, it is not always easy. A very famous teacher once said to the effect “my burden is light, give me some of your weight”. Find that friend now. If it is a God that is fantastic. If it is a dog, fine. It may even be that sharing your burden with someone you have just given restitution to, would be an act of kindness as they may need some work on their balance sheet also. This is basically a trust issue. Perhaps that gives us an insight as to why, really, “In God We Trust” is on our currency.