Dear God,

I was thinking about the word “remorse” today as we covered the opening chapter of the Akhdari and the conditions of repentance. In the text the author mentions that a condition of repentance is feeling remorse.

It struck me because I know myself, and I know that I don’t like to feel guilty. However, this feeling, the sinking feeling of, “Why did I just do that?” is part of what is needed when one comes and says to you, “I’m sorry.”

But what then do we do in a time where one is never really wrong? Where there is an opinion to justify everything? Where what is clearly egregious today will be lauded as progressive tomorrow? How do we feel regret when the people around us continuously remind us that we don’t need to feel bad for doing what we want, for loving who we want, or for living the life we want to live, even if it doesn’t line up with what YOU want.

It’s not easy.

At least it wasn’t easy for me until I thought of those people that will be shaded when you bring us all together. The day where you will bring life to every decayed bone and hold everyone accountable for their every deed.

On that day when the sun is brought miles away and some will wade in their own sweat, it will be then that you will grant your shade to a select few.

One of those people will be the one who when they were alone, when no friend was there to tell them “it’s not a big deal,” when no pervasive ideology led them to believe that true freedom was in disobeying you.

That beautiful, amazing, blessed, gifted person will have your shade because in the silence of that space, they will shed tears of remorse.

Because no matter what anyone may have told them hours before, they knew they did wrong.

And in that moment…

even if the following day they did it again…

even if they messed up a million times after…

in that moment they felt it…

They felt what it meant to disobey the one entity that loves them more than their own mother could ever fathom…

and their heart accepted that nothing matters more than You….

I’m sorry.

Rajab 11th, 1440
March 18th, 2019

Your servant,
Arthur K. Richards