As I look back over the last year, I have found myself repeatedly saying sorry. The truth is that life hasn’t worked in the way that it ought to work and I know that I have made mistakes along the way, in part, because I have found the whole process of working in an alien environment where the rule book simply doesn’t work, in part because I have not been able to meet people face to face and in part because I have just been so tired most of the time. I guess that the time will come, when we look back on these days and discover that we have learned some important lessons because of what we have experienced. My parents drilled into me from a very early age, the importance of saying please, thank you and sorry. As I look at the world as we see it today, I feel that some of those ideals are slipping away.
It saddens me as I look at politicians getting criticised for some of the decisions they have made and the modern media tears them to shreds. I wouldn’t want to have been in their shoes over the last year and I can fully understand why mistakes have been made. What really saddens me is that so much good could be done with a simple apology. I really don’t blame Matt Hancock for the shortage of PPE as the pandemic raged out of control, I think that mistakes were made and the powers that be were in a horrible situation, I don’t expect an apology, but it would be nice for somebody to say “we got some things wrong and we are sorry for that” rather than trying to convince us that there wasn’t a problem in the first place. All Dominic Cummings needed to say was “I thought I was working within the rules, but with the benefit of hindsight, I was wrong, and I am sorry” or the Prime Minister to say “I misunderstood the severity of the situation at the beginning of all of this and I am sorry for that” I would forgive all of them, because I wouldn’t want the responsibility for some of the decisions they have had to make.
We are not the first generation to make bad decisions, make mistakes, sometimes with little consequence, sometimes with quite devastating results. The Bible teaches us repeatedly that life works, by us recognising the errors of our ways, admitting when we hurt others and apologising. But this whole process is a two-way journey, when somebody apologises and genuinely works for reconciliation, we have got to be able to forgive and move on. I am sorry for my mistakes and do my best to learn from them.