Mistakes, Me?

A sermon preached for the congregation at Eliot Unitarian Chapel

in St Louis, MO on September 15, 2007

A mayor in Russia's Siberia region has banned municipal employees from making excuses. Alexander Kuzmin, mayor of Megion, says he had lost patience with underlings coming to him with problems rather than solutions, and so has issued a list of 27 forbidden phrases, including “I don't know,” and "I was on sick leave at the time." Employees who use any of the banned expressions, said Kuzmin, "will speed their departure." The Week, 09/14/07.

We are told we should learn from our mistakes. But we can’t learn from our mistakes until we admit we have made some. So, sometimes it takes a while to learn.

In January of 2006, Oprah Winfrey devoted a whole TV show of hers to apologizing for making a mistake. She had profiled a man named James Frey who wrote a book called A Million Little Pieces.

Oprah's endorsement usually means a particular book’s sales will skyrocket. But then a web site called the Smoking Gun claimed that Frey made up or exaggerated almost all of his book.

When interviewer Larry King had a show with Frey, Oprah called in to support Frey, saying his underlying message was what counted, that the story had moved her and her staff to tears, and that the story of redemption still resonated with her. She also indicated it wasn't her fault if the book's publisher and editors didn't do all their fact checking.

But then she had an insight. She brought Frey back on to her show, and apologized for the phone call to Larry King. She said to the audience:

I made a mistake and I left the impression that the truth does not matter. And I am deeply sorry about that, because that is not what I believe. I called in because I love the message of the book.

And I have to say that I allowed that to cloud my judgment. And so to everyone who has challenged me on this issue of truth, you are absolutely right.

How often do we hear a public figure, or a spouse, or a parent, say: you were right, I was wrong?

Once upon a time, a president of the United States was given faulty intelligence information, and was told that when Americans invaded a particular country, "the people would rise up in relief and joy and overthrow [their tyrant]." That turned out not to be the case at all.

President Kennedy told everyone he took full responsibility for the fiasco at the Bay of Pigs, and reorganized the intelligence system. His popularity soared, and the Cuban missile crisis was successfully dealt with.

Once upon a time, another president of the United States was given faulty intelligence information, and was told that when Americans invaded a particular country, "the people would rise up in relief and joy and overthrow [their tyrant]." That turned out not to be the case at all.

President George W. Bush says he made no mistakes going into Iraq. His solution has become more troops and more money. For Bush, any other option may be unthinkable, because it would mean he had made a mistake of epic proportions– thousands of deaths and a trillion dollars and counting.

Politicians aren’t the only ones who admit mistake were made, but not by them. Physicians have a long history of this, too.

In 1847, Ignac Semmelweiss told his colleagues to start washing their hands before delivering a baby. He didn’t know the mechanism of how it worked, but he noticed that when he washed his hands in a chlorine soap, death rates for childbed fever dropped dramatically.

He thought it might have something to do with a doctor moving his hands from an autopsy on a woman who died in childbirth to hands on a woman in labor– a frequent occurrence in those days– but he had no “proof”– except his results. Semmelweiss had his students wash their hands and their patient death rate went down dramatically. Tavris and Aronson, Mistakes Were Made (but not by me), 8.

But his colleagues ignored him. Why? Well maybe because to admit Semmelweiss was right would be to admit that their ignorance of hand washing had killed many patients unnecessarily. That would undermine their sense of expertise. And their egos. 102.

Traditionally, most doctors have been adamant in their refusal to admit mistakes in diagnosis, procedure, or treatment on the self-justifying grounds that doing so would encourage malpractice suits. They are wrong.

Research shows that when a patient hears a doctor admit a mistake, apologize for it, and talk about implementing changes to avoid such mistakes in the future, they are much less likely to sue.

"Being assured that it won't happen again is very important to patients, more so than many care givers seem to appreciate, " says a Harvard professor of health policy. "It gives meaning to patients' suffering." 219.

The desire to not appear mistaken moves us to self-justification.

Self-justification can come about when we feel we need to justify our actions, right? How can I believe two things which seem to contradict each other? For example, thing one: smoking is dumb because it could kill me, and thing two: I smoke a pack a day.

Years ago, when asked why I smoked, I quoted Mark Twain: the purpose of my life is not longevity. Which really isn’t an answer but I thought it sounded witty. Like most people, I wanted to believe I was in control of my life but smoking is a sort of visible death wish.

I could have tried quitting years earlier, but I’d known people who tried to quit and couldn’t do it. Then they saw themselves as a failure. Same thing with diets and losing weight. So, maybe smoking really wasn’t so harmful, or maybe I’d die young anyway, so smoking wouldn’t make a difference. Or maybe smoking kept me from gaining weight. Or something. We can justify just about anything if we really try.

As a British politician put it: I will look at any additional evidence to confirm the opinion to which I have already come. Lord Molson, British politician, 1903-1991.

Most of the time when we are hypocritical, we probably don’t see it. I doubt congressman

Newt Gingrich said to himself, “My, what a hypocrite I am. There I was, all riled up about Bill Clinton’s affair [with Monica Lewinsky], while I was having an extramarital affair of my own right here in town.”

And Christian preacher Ted Haggard didn’t get how hypocritical he seemed when he publicly damned gay people even as he continued his private relationship with a male prostitute.

Justification is so easy. If we’re not careful, we’ll do it all the time, and not even notice. One day we can wait patiently in line for the exit off I-55 to the Poplar Street Bridge. The next day, we’re zooming ahead, ready to cut in front of a truck and slam on our breaks, just a couple dozen yards before the exit. We’re in a hurry. Our reasons are more important. Yadda, yadda, yadda.

A professor of ethics was at a hotel and spilled some ink on a bed spread. He was going to tell the manager but he hated the idea of having to pay for the spread. His friends advised him to forget about it: hotels figured such things into their expenses.

It occurred to him he would say something if it were a bed and breakfast, and not a hotel chain, and that this line of thinking was a slippery slope. He ended up leaving a note for the manager.

And it is true hotels figure such things into costs, taxpayer money is sometimes wasted, your company probably wouldn’t mind an occasional personal email, and so it goes.

It becomes easy to justify behavior we know is wrong. And whether it’s ink on a bed spread or embezzling thousands of dollars, the self justifying is the same.

Self-justification can be helpful. Because it can help us sleep at night. And we live in a culture that looks down on mistakes.

The flip side is, self-justification can be harmful. People will treat others worse because their victims deserve it. They will cling to outdated work procedures. They will convict the innocent and let the guilty go free. They will support dictators and despots.

They will claim that everyone who doesn't believe the way they do is going to hell. Or perhaps a little closer to home, someone implies that everyone who doesn't believe the way they do isn't a true Unitarian Universalist.

As the writer George Orwell put it:

We are all capable of believing things which we know to be untrue, and then, when we are finally proved wrong, impudently twisting the facts so as to show that we were right. Intellectually, it is possible to carry on this process for an indefinite time: the only check on it is that sooner or later a false belief bumps up against solid reality, usually on a battlefield. George Orwell, 1946.

The bigger the stakes, the more self-justification is likely to kick in. Its one thing to steal from your employer or cheat on your taxes. But imagine for a moment you belonged to a group that said the world was going to end.

At a specific time on a specific day. You believe it. So, you quit your job, sell your house, give away your belongings, and do final preparations for the end of the world.

The fateful day arrives, along with the fateful time. And then? It’s the next day. Do you suppose people in such cults say– oh, I guess we were wrong? I wish I hadn’t given away my guitar, my dog, and sold my house?

No, not usually. Usually, they say something like– See! our prayer and devotion has averted catastrophe! Now we should go and proselytize everyone else! Because to admit they were wrong would carry to high a price for their own self esteem.

Most of the time, people are going to do everything in their power to justify their mistake and keep with the status quo. Who is grateful for having a mistake pointed out?

Lao Tzu, a Chinese philosopher perhaps had an overly optimistic view of humanity when he said:

A great nation is like a great man: when he makes a mistake he realizes it. Having realized it, he admits it. Having admitted it, he corrects it. He considers those who point out his faults as his most benevolent teachers..

As a new preacher, I came to realize that as a generalist in everything except maybe religious history and theology, I was talking to people in my congregation who were more expert in a field than I was. So pretty much no matter what it was– urban planning, astrophysics, learning theory, testosterone and male aggression levels– there would always be someone in the congregation who knew more than I did.

Often in my early preaching years, someone in the receiving line someone would helpfully point out that I’d gotten something wrong. We would chuckle, I’d mentally remove that from the sermon, and I’d eat a little humble pie.

But getting a fact wrong in a sermon is not the same thing as putting the wrong person on death row or putting a dangerous drug in a very sick person. The folks who do that kind of work may not be so grateful to have their mistakes pointed out.

That is why in politics, in medicine, in law, and even in the ministry, power without accountability is a recipe for disaster. That's why videotaping police procedures, providing independent review commissions, and using the scientific method rather than intuition is so important.

But what about when we make mistakes? How to avoid the trap of self-justification?

The answer may be to see mistakes as learning opportunities Fiat lux: let there be light.

If we’re not sure if we made a mistake or not, we can try imagining what happened as if it happened to someone else, and tell it as a story in the 3^rd person– she did this or that. And then see if you think it was a mistake or not.

Emotional distance can also be had by putting some time & space between how you feel about something and when you respond. That one trick alone has helped me out quite a bit.

Better to make a mistake, admit it, and eat a little humble pie than to run down the cliff of self-delusion, and perhaps into even bigger mistakes.

Years ago, I was in a casino. And I suddenly had to wrestle with two contradictory thoughts: (1) I am a smart and capable man. (2) I am spending too much money at the roulette table.

I had walked by a roulette table and noticed red came up a couple times. I bet $1 on black. It came up red. So I put $2 on black, figuring I'd win $2 on top of that, for a total of $4 which would make up for the $3 I had spent so far.

I mean how many times can it come up red in a row? More times than you might think. Came up red again. Now another guy at the table– seeing I was doubling my bet to try and "catch up" saw I was in a losing streak and he started to bet red every time, just not doubling his bet. It went red about 6 times in a row and green once. It was starting to get serious, the next bet would have to be over $100 and the roulette operator started shaking his head as if he'd seen this before.

It turned out to be black the next go round, and I collected my chips and got the heck away from that table. After all, I was a smart and capable guy. I was not the kind of guy who would hopelessly pyramid away all his money. Right?

Remember: when you– a decent, smart person– make a mistake, you are still a decent, smart person."

Now for your spiritual homework, a challenge to you for the week. I have an exercise you might do this week. Maybe with your covenant group or a small group of friends. And here’s the exercise– tell of a mistake you made. I would suggest this to our Senior High to do this next week, because it is difficult to do.

So the deal is, in the circle, you admit to a mistake, the bigger the better. The key is to not try to clean it up. No saying how it turned out okay. No saying how you fixed the mistake. No dodging responsibility. Just say the mistake, admit it. Keep that ground rule. Go around the circle. You may find it tremendously liberating.

It can be really hard to do. To say

"I dropped a routine fly ball with the bases loaded," rather than "I dropped the ball because a bird flew by," or "because it was windy."

But that’s what true friends are for– to have someone you can really admit a mistake to without the fancy window dressing of self-justification.

And an exercise like this is important because one day there will come a huge opportunity to not admit to a mistake. It may come in a courtroom or in your boss’ office or across the kitchen table from your lover.

And if you have some practice admitting to a mistake without embellishment, you will be more ready to embrace the clean, but cold truth, and it can set you free.

The hymn says:

Once to every soul and nation comes the moment to decide, in the strife of truth with falsehood, for the good or evil side.

Let us rise and sing shall we? Once to Every Soul and Nation, #119.