Now comes the New Year, the season of fresh starts. We celebrate by opening our calendars and staring at the pristine pages. We make a resolution or two. We revel in the knowledge that we have a chance to make this year better than the one before.
Some religious people will say that there cannot be a fresh start, even for something as simple as a diet, without atonement. The word atonement means reconciliation, or "at one ment." It implies that mistakes — even sins — can somehow be made right.
In the Hebrew scriptures, in Leviticus especially, there are guidelines for the ways in which repentance and prayer and charity can atone for sins, cleansing the people and reconciling them with God. Once a year, Moses said, priests were to make sacrifices to atone for the sins of all of Israel. Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, is still celebrated.
Muslims also make sacrifices and prayers for reconciliation. And Christians believe Jesus, by the way he lived and died, continues to atone for wayward humanity.
Yet atonement is more than a religious concept. In the secular world, too, experts recognize that atonement can heal the heart and make long-term change a more likely prospect.
Bob Dow, who has a doctorate in philosophy, says concepts like atonement are the kind of stuff philosophers talk about when they get together. He says philosophers also like to explore the concepts that accompany atonement. They like to talk about the nature of shame, alienation, repentance, compensation, forgiveness, redemption, heaven, hell.
As the director of the Family Counseling Center in Salt Lake City, Kate Della-Piana also finds herself thinking about atonement. She focuses on forgiveness.
Della-Piana says, "It is amazingly healing when someone feels forgiven." It is good to feel forgiven by God, if you believe in God. It is good to feel forgiven by another person whom you have harmed. It is even possible to feel forgiven by yourself, Della-Piana says.
It is also possible to forgive someone without him or her even knowing they've been forgiven. If the person who wronged you doesn't admit it, you will still feel happier if you can bring yourself to forgive, Della-Piana says. She also says forgiveness is a long process.
The concepts of atonement and forgiveness are especially meaningful this time of year, because they are at the heart of what so many people struggle with when they make their New Year's resolutions. Della-Piana says the people who are the most successful at changing their behavior are those who are willing to come face to face with their problems.
They admit, "I have a problem with anger." Or "I really am not taking very good care of my body." Before you can apologize (to another person or even to your own body) and gain forgiveness and feel cleansed, Della-Piana says the first step is to fully realize you have a problem.
It's the same in the Alcoholics Anonymous program, where admitting you are an alcoholic comes first and atonement is one of the last things that happens. At AA, atonement is actually step number nine.
The man who answers the phone at the Salt Lake AA offices, a man we will call Joe, says step eight is to be willing to make amends and step nine is to actually make those amends, "except where it would hurt other people." In other words, Joe explains, don't call someone who was unaware her husband was cheating and say, "I am so sorry I had an affair with your husband, and I hope you can forgive me."
Also, says Joe, you might feel like you are only part of the problem and you might not want to be the first one to apologize. In AA, he says, they talk about cleaning your own side of the street. You can't force your neighbor to clean his side. All you can do is apologize and clean your own.
Bob Dow quotes from a philosopher named John Hicks who writes about how, through atonement, love can happen between two people and they can create a powerful shared life. Dow says, "I like the idea of a new thing being created, a unit, with an influence for good beyond the relationship that did not used to exist."
What she likes about atonement, says Della-Piana, is the whole idea that we are flawed but we can learn from our mistakes. When we say, "I made a mistake; I want to make things right between us; I want to do better," we learn we can still be loved, in spite of our imperfections.
Atonement involves humility, Della-Piana says. She adds, "Through humility you learn a larger acceptance of yourself and others."
E-mail: susan@desnews.com