Apocalypse Now

Apocalypse Now

A Sermon to Countryside Church, Unitarian Universalist

Memorial Day Sunday, May 26, 2024

The Rev. Dr. C. Scot Giles

Recently after preaching to this congregation regarding the view taken by liberal bible scholars about the supposed resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, someone asked if I would speak about the prediction of the Apocalypse in the Bible. They said they hear a lot about it from their more traditional friends, and were curious about what I might make about the stories of the End of Days.

“Nah,” I said. If I did that it would scare people.”

Then I thought about it and said, “Oh Boy!”

So, Apocalypse it is.

What No UU Minister Expects To Hear

In the 1980s, when I was serving as the parish minister to the Unitarian Universalist Church in Oak Park, Illinois, I had an experience that no Unitarian Universalist minister expects to have. I had a group of church members who were seriously worried that the apocalypse they’d heard about from scripture was about the happen, and wanted to know what they should do to prepare.

Now when someone talks about an apocalypse, you first need to figure out what they mean. The word “Apocalypse” comes from the Greek word for “uncovering of something hidden,” or more simply “revelation.” Revelation is the title of the final book in the modern Bible, and supposedly tells about the end of history.

But that’s not what most people mean by “Apocalypse.” If you spend a few minutes with Google you will discover that there is a whole literature out there about what the world would be like after the Apocalypse. But this post-apocalyptic literature, movies and programming tends to be about the invasion of zombies, a nuclear war, environmental collapse, or economic atrocity. Nothing to do with the Bible at all.

However, as I listened to my frightened parishioners, they were not worried about the end of the world due to the limits of resources, overpopulation, nuclear war or the proliferation of zombies. Instead, they were afraid that the Bible’s predictions were actually coming true.

Not A Small Matter

There are a lot of people who believe that the prophecies in the Bible about the End of Days are real. Some of these people are in high places, and we ignore that to our peril.

Many of you are old enough to remember the Secretary of the Interior during the Regan Administration - the person charged to oversee conservation. His name was James Watt, and at one point he actually dismissed the need for environmental conservation by saying, “I do not know how many future generations we can count on before the Lord returns.”

There are other politicians in power who believe the same. In fact, I suspect there are more of them today then when Mr. Watt told us we didn’t need to worry about climate change because Jesus was coming back.

Imagining that there is a divine plan for the End of Days, imagining that maybe we might get special treatment, that people we don’t like will get their comeuppance, has an attraction. It’s an emotional get-out-of-jail-free card to excuse people from having to make the choices that actually shape the world.

People use it to avoid considering the warnings science gives us about objective problems like world hunger, injustice and climate. That’s a shame because we can choose to do something about those problems. But not if we convince ourselves that the seals will break, trumpets will sound and everything will be made new, without our having to lift a finger.

Which is what a whole lot of people believe. I kid you not.

The Biblical Account

Well, with regard to my parishioners, it turned out that there had been a program aired on a Christian Television network that was a pseudo-documentary. Supposedly scientists had fed news reports into a super computer that also could access any book ever written.

The computer came up with the conclusion that world events were following the predictions of the biblical Book of Revelation, exactly, and that the end of the world was due soon.

After a bit of investigation I learned that the company that produced this program for Christian television used an advertising agency that employed a member of my congregation. He was a bit of a strange person (and with Unitarian Universalists that’s saying something). He had them over to watch it, and as a prank, he told them that such a computer actually existed - and that the conclusions in the show were believed correct by influential scientists.

Now…I hope you heard what I just said. He did this as a prank. There was no actual supercomputer.

I got everyone calmed down, explaining the whole thing was a hoax and sent them home to turn back into rational adults. But I began to ponder why the Biblical mythology about the end of world holds such fascination for so many people.

The Book of Revelation

The Bible is full of prophecies. There are four Major Prophets: Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Daniel, and twelve Minor Prophets.

If you are like me, raised in a traditional Christian Sunday School, you probably were taught that these prophets were making predictions about the problems and crises that would befall the Hebrew people, and which did come to pass.

However, what liberal scholars believe today is that all the “prophecy” in scripture was actually retrospective.

That is, the prophecies were written after, sometimes considerably after, the events they recount took place. They weren’t predictions. They were explanations.

We know this because modern archeology lets us carbon date the ruins and artifacts that have survived, and the rapidly changing language styles of ancient tongues allow us to know approximately when a text was written.

Something bad happened and people were shocked and uncertain.

The prophet would come along and minister to the spiritual needs of the people by coming up with a narrative to explain why the calamity occurred. This was comforting because it provided an explanation. And it explained what could be done to prevent such things in the future.

Think back to when you learned about the fall of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. Many you probably were glued to your televisions, astonished and shaken, wondering how such a thing could happen.

At first you could hardly believe it. Such things were not supposed to happen in America. But then leaders, functioning much like the ancient prophets, explained it to you.

You learned about al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden. You learned about the temperature at which jet fuel burned and steel melted. You learned about the poor security at airports.

Gradually you assembled these into a narrative and you understood what had happened. The Transportation Security Administration came into being, and we all got used to taking our shoes at the airport. This provided a measure of comfort, because we now felt we understood what had happened and what we could do to avoid such things. It worked. There has not been a hijacked aircraft since.

That’s the service the Biblical Prophets provided to the people of their time as well. But the service was explanatory, not clairvoyant.

The Interpretation of the Book

The Book of Revelation is the final book in the New Testament. We have no idea who the author of the Book of Revelation was, as the only thing he calls himself is “John.”

Traditionally, people thought he was the apostle John who knew Jesus of Nazareth, but more recent scholarship casts doubt on that because of the style of writing. These days he’s typically referred to as “John of Patmos,” after the Greek island the Aegean Sea where he said he was living in exile.

From the style of the writing we can date the book to the reign of the Roman Emperor Domitian, who reigned between the years 81 and 96 CE.

If you’ve ever tried to read the Book of Revelation you probably gave up. The book is a jumble of prophecies, symbols, metaphors, including a Seven-Headed Dragon, the Beast, the Antichrist, the Serpent and many others. It is so confusing and vague that one can argue for almost any interpretation.

That said, the book contains some of the most amazing religious imagery ever created. There shall come “A new heaven and a new earth.” “The trumpet shall sound and the dead shall be raised, incorruptible.” The image of a “New Jerusalem” and much more.

Scholars classify the book as an example of “the cosmic combat archetype,” or a primordial battle between order and chaos.

This is an archetypal theme found in religious literature around the globe. We see it in this book, in the battle between Jehovah and someone called The Beast 666. We also see it in the Mesopotamian battle between Marduk and the dragon Taimat from 1000 BCE. We see it in Luke Skywalker taking on Emperor Palpatine in the Star Wars movie. An archetypical theme.

But if you have orthodox or mainstream friends or family, they probably believe the Book of Revelation foretells the end of the world, the final victory of Jehovah, the return of Jesus of Nazareth and the resurrection of the dead.

Here is what they believe will happen.

The Traditional View.

The tale begins with the Time of Signs and Wonders, when things will happen that hint at the coming End of Days. Events are said to unfold with the breaking of seven seals (think of wax seals on an official proclamation).

This is what got my former parishioners so upset. The fake computer was supposedly looking at things that were happening - wars, famines, plagues, which were all supposed to happen during the Time of Signs and Wonders.

Then the seals break.

The breaking of the first seal will result in the rise a white horse, ridden by a man wearing a crown and holding a bow. This first horseman of the Apocalypse is Conquest.

The breaking of the second seal will result in war. The symbol is a red horse made from fire with the rider holding a large sword.

The breaking of the third seal results in Famine. The symbol is a black horse whose rider holds a pair of scales (the way food would be measured).

The breaking of the fourth seal results in Plague, symbolized by a pale horse ridden by Death. There would be a massive die off.

The breaking of the fifth seal results in something called the Tribulation. The world will become a dark place with crime, disorder and lawlessness. Prior to this 144,000 Orthodox Jews will be lifted off the earth, avoiding the Tribulation as their reward. Also will come the Rapture, when a vast number of faithful people will ascend from the earth into heaven and also avoid the Tribulation.

I should note the Rapture is an interpretation of a verse from 1 Thessalonians in the New Testament. It is not explicitly mentioned by name anywhere in the Bible, regardless of what some might tell you.

The breaking of the sixth seal ends the Tribulation. There will be massive destruction including a meteorite impacts, followed by the breaking of the seventh seal which brings with it an immense silence.

Then there will be a series of trumpets. The first six are a wake-up call for sinners to repent. More woes will come. Each trumpet blast brings with it some new calamity.

The final trumpet allows the rise of three beasts. The first beast is a red dragon with seven heads. This is Satan himself. The second beast emerges from the sea and also has seven heads. For some reason people worship it. Then, there arises a third beast from the ground in the shape of a lamb, who announces how wonderful the second beast is. This is the Antichrist. He brands his followers with a mark, the number 666.

Then come seven bowls poured out on the earth, each bringing a new hardship.

There will be a tremendous battle between the forces of the Antichrist and the forces of Jehovah, and it will take place at on a mound in northern Israel called Migiddo, and the battle will be called Armageddon. The sun will turn black, the moon will turn red and the stars will fall to earth. The sky itself will be rolled up and every mountain and island leveled.

Jesus himself then appears. After a thousand year gap, time ends and a new world begins. All people will be living with God in a New Jerusalem.

My Personal View

Let me be transparent here. I do not expect anything in the Book of Revelation to happen because I believe that it already has.

I am one of the Bible scholars who believe that the events recounted in the Book of Revelation were retrospective, just like every other prophecy in the Bible. It was written to explain the persecution experienced by the Christian community in the first century under Emperor Domitian and his predecessors.

The Jesus people didn’t know what to think. Jesus had supposedly triumphed over death and everything was supposed to be better. But it obviously was not. Everywhere they looked they were persecuted. The Emperor Domitian was on the throne in Rome but his predecessor, Nero, persecuted the follows of Jesus without mercy. That was not supposed to happen.

The apostles of Jesus had predicted a time of good will and peace to come in the wake of Jesus. Instead, Rome became yet another example of a dominator culture - there was political oppression, there was economic oppression, there was theological oppression. All good things in the world were being gathered into Rome and distributed to a privileged aristocratic %1. That was not supposed to happen.

Just like in our time, the fall of the World Trade Center was not supposed to happen.

Like prophets everywhere, John wrote to provide a retrospective explanation. His purpose was to offer hope.

To scholars such as myself, the Antichrist was non-other than Nero. In ancient alphabets, letters often were used as numbers (think of Roman Numerals) and if you work out the number for Emperor Nero, it is 666, the same number as the Book of Revelation gives to the Antichrist.” The Seven-Headed Dragon, and the later seven-headed Beast, were nothing other than the Imperial City of Rome itself, with its famous seven hills.

John was proposing Rome’s downfall and what he hoped would be the eventual triumph of the followers of Jesus. He was trying to symbolically explain why things had gone wrong and that the future would be better.

He was mistaken. Rome would continue it’s oppression for another 300 years. Jesus did not return. Things did get better, but not for a long time. But people would cling to the hope of a better tomorrow. I think we can understand that desire with empathy.

So there you have my view. The Book of Revelation was not a prediction. Like prophecy throughout the Bible, it was a retrospective explanation for what had happened, and offered an interpretation that could give hope for the future. That’s no small thing.

Predicted Events

Were you to share my opinion with more orthodox believers they would dismiss it. They would point to things happening around the world now, which they would claim were predicted to happen during the Time of Signs and Wonders. Wars. Rumor of Wars. Fame. Plague.

But there is trick the brain plays on us. Your brain evolved to keep you safe, not to make you happy. One of the ways it keeps you safe is encouraging you to overlook the past in favor of focusing on the possible danger of the future.

Years ago in the cancer care movement there was a popular theory that most people who got cancer had experienced some major loss within two years of diagnosis. There were books written that cancer was really a profound grief response.

However, social scientists realized that that just about everyone has experienced some major loss within any two-year time slice. Loss is just part of life. So, yeah, cancer patients reported such losses, but so did people who did not develop cancer.

That’s the problem with all the popular predictions of an imminent apocalypse. There have always been wars, and rumors of wars. There has always been sickness. There has always been famine. There have always been authoritarian leaders. These things are not unique to our time.

The Apocalypse Is Popular

So, there really isn’t anything to the belief in the End of Days. But we get hooked.

A year doesn’t go by when I do not encounter some religious movement or preacher announcing the the Apocalypse is coming and we need to “get right with God” by giving them money and doing what they say.

There have literally been hundreds of end-time declarations - Christian and otherwise.

Remember the Harmonic Convergence? How on December 12, 2012 the Mayan Calendar was supposed to run out of dates and for some reason that was important?

There were people everywhere predicting that the equator would realign, the poles would switch, a rogue planet would crash into the earth or a massive solar flare would happen. Remember? I do. I was a parish minister at the time and there were people who showed up at church to wave crystals, burn sage and pray. Nothing happened.

Ever hear about the Millerites, followers of William Miller who declared the Apocalypse would happen in 1843? It didn’t, and his followers declared what they called “The Great Disappointment,” and founded the Seventh Day Adventist Church. Something similar happened with the Church of Jehovah’s Witnesses. Even Billy Graham thought the End Times were close. You do not have to look hard to find these folks. You probably have them in your own family.

The Hold On The Mind

On this Memorial Day when we remember those we’ve loved and lost, especially those who died in service to making this world better, choosing to risk their lives. Let’s all resolve to take care of the world they, and others, protected. And let us honor John of Patmos, mistaken though he was. He was upset about oppression in the world of his time. We should be too. However, we should try to do something about it. Not wait passively for the trumpets to sound, or someone else to solve our problems.

Remember that. Especially in times like these. And that’s my sermon.

Travel Agents For Guilt Trips

Travel Agents For Guilt Trips

A Sermon to Countryside Church, Unitarian Universalist

Sunday, May 21, 2023

The Rev. Dr. C. Scot Giles

To the young people who are with us this morning I offer a bit of an apology that this sermon is on an adult topic. However, let me suggest that their might be something in it for you if you choose to stay with my words. If you’ve ever been bullied or blamed, perhaps you will gather some help from my remarks this morning.

The Dave Ramsey Show

I have a strong suspicion that I am probably the only person in this room today who regularly watches Christian Television. But, being a true Universalist at heart and sincerely believing that all spiritual paths are valid and tend to converge over time, I do tune in from time-to-time.

Among my favorite shows is The Dave Ramsey Show. Ramsey is an evangelical consultant who focuses on helping people manage money. And no, his solution isn’t to tell everyone to just give money to their church. Oh, he is quite sure people should support the church of their choice but he actually has dug down into what the Old and New Testaments teach about money and spending. It may not be what you think.

Ramsey is best known for his flat recommendation that everyone avoid debt. He knows that some debt is unavoidable - a mortgage, education loans, a car payment, etc. But he aims to help people manage consumer debt, believing that it is far too easy to get in over one’s head and end up in serious trouble. He believes that God doesn’t want that for anyone.

If you are curious about Ramsey and his six-step program for living debt free, you can find a lot of podcasts he’s made on YouTube and I suggest you check them out. I think he goes a bit far, but believe that much of what he says is sound.

But I like the additional sort of advice he gives as well. Advice about families, unsuccessfully launched children, abusive workplaces, and finding a place of comfort and peace in your life.

He says a lot of people try to control others by the use of guilt. He calls such people “Travel Agents for Guilt Trips,” and I stole the title of this sermon from him. And if you want to learn his advice for dealing with relatives and friends who think you should finance their lifestyles, or who believe you should do everything, while they do little, check him out.

What Are Guilt Trips

A guilt trip is when someone seeks to encourage you to feel guilty so that you will do what they want. It is a form of manipulation.

So what are some common strategies someone might use to put you onboard a guilt trip they have planned? I share some popular favorites from the book Boundaries by Henry Cloud and John Townsend:

•​“How could you do this to me after all I’ve done for you?”

•​“It seems that you could think about someone other than yourself for once.”

•​“If you really loved me, you would make this telephone call for me.”

•​“It seems like you would care enough about the family to do this one thing.”

•​“You know how it’s turned out in the past when you haven’t listened to me.”

•​“You know that if I had it, I would give it to you.”

•​“You have no idea how much we sacrificed for you.”

•​“Maybe after I’m dead and gone, you’ll be sorry.”

People may be passive-aggressive. “Well, I’m glad you FINALLY did your housework.

People may attempt to enforce a contract you never signed. “You should do this for me because I work so hard.”

Or there may be attempts at blackmail. “You need to take me on an expensive vacation, because I heard the way you talked to my mother!

Or there could be an attempt to claim an authority that is not real. “I’m the eldest in the family, so you have to listen to me.”

Probably everyone in this room has had people who have tried to control them with one of these strategies, or something like them. Such things always hurt, because in order for someone to do them they have to believe they know you well enough to hook you. So, every attempt to put you on a guilt trip is, in fact, a relationship betrayal.

And ultimately, trying to put someone else on a guilt trip is a fool’s game. Even if it works temporarily, it will cast a shadow. The other people will feel manipulated and that will corrupt the relationship.

While I now regard the story with humor, here’s a personal tale.

Many years ago at Christmas a relative presented me with a Christmas Stocking full of small gifts. I thought that was kind of cute until the stocking was unpacked in front of a room full of other people. Other than a small selection of hard candies the stocking was full of lumps of actual coal, wrapped in cellophane.

The relative then pulled out an actual list of times I had disappointed her by not doing what she wanted. She had one item on the list per lump of coal, and expected that I would sit there why she publicly recited a list of my perceived faults.

Well, I’ve been open about the fact I come from a family that is something of a train wreck. I wasn’t kidding.

I stopped that relative so her strategy failed. But afterwards I realized I had been the target of a Travel Agent for Guilt Trips on steroids. It was one of my most valuable life lessons. I resolved I would never let such a thing happen again. If someone turns out to be that sort of Travel Agent, I have no place for them in my world.

Study after study shows that when you become the target of a guilt trip it will worsen any anxiety you feel. Ditto if you have any tendency toward depression, obsessional compulsive feelings, shame or envy. It’s toxic stuff.

When I distribute a copies of this sermon through my website, I’ll actually footnote the studies. They are well done and scary.

Notice how all of these strategies are presented as something supposedly said for your good or betterment. But are actually expressed as an effort to manipulate.

If it is an occasional thing it’s probably just a careless slip by someone who meant well. But if it happens all the time, there is a toxin in your relationship and the sooner you deal with it the happier you will be.

My personal take on people who make it a habit to guilt trip others is a bit different from the financial management guru. I’ve come to this understanding by trying to better grasp the phenomenon of guilt tripping.

Dave Ramsey and others like him take the view that when someone tries to manipulate you it’s all about control, trying to achieve their dominance and your submission. I’m sure that’s part of it.

But deeper then that understanding, I came to realize that when someone wants to be a Travel Agent for Guilt Trips they disclose that they are the person who has a problem. Not you.

Or, as I’ve come to say it in my Consultation Room, “Someone trying to guilt trip you shows they have a problem. If it works, it shows that you have a problem.” You need to work on your boundaries so that the only person who gets to control your behavior is you.

Why Do People Guilt Trip Others?

As laying a guilt trip on someone is such an utterly toxic thing to do, and even if it succeeds it will stir up trouble downstream, why do people do it?

I think an attempt to lay a guilt trip on someone is actually anger in disguise. That’s why if the guilt trip does not work to control you, very often the situation devolves into threats and a relationship cut-off if the guilt doesn’t work. What is really underneath the attempt to lay on a guilt trip is a deep unconscious rage being indirectly expressed.

The Theology of the Scapegoat

In your spiritual explorations I am sure some of you have heard of the theological concept the the Scapegoat. For those who have not, you may be surprised to learn that it is one of the most ancient concepts in the Old Testament. It is also relevant to my topic today, which is why I put a photo of a goat on the pulpit screen when I began this talk.

The Scapegoat first appears in the Book of Leviticus, 16:10. It was the name given to a goat who was allowed to escape into the wilderness of ancient Judea, there to perish by starvation or predation. Before being allowed this fictional “escape”on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, the High Priest would lay his hands on the head of the goat and transfer to it all of the sins and iniquities of the people of Israel. As the goat perished, so it was believed, perished the sins of the people of the past year.

The idea was that the sins of a person, or group of people, could be spiritually transferred to another, who by being punished discharged those sins. Much later with the rise of Christianity, this theme would become basic to the theology of the Christos, or Christ, who by being crucified lifted the sins of all. Jesus was the idea of a Scapegoat writ large.

Today we often do not want to think of how primitive and bloodthirsty much of ancient religion was. Long before the Hebrew religion was a gleam in Moses’s eye, peoples even more ancient believed that it was important to sacrifice to appease the gods. As the world appeared hostile and scary to them, they assumed the gods were hostile and scary too and had to be appeased with sacrifice.

The typical sacrifice in the ancient world was of what was called “the first fruits.” Our modern holiday of Thanksgiving is a distant echo of this. The Sacrifice of the First Fruits meant one would offer as a sacrifice the first round of produce from the harvest. One would offer as a sacrifice the first animal successfully hunted in the season. And, for millennia, people would sacrifice their first born children, sometimes horribly.

We know that the ancient people who would eventually become the Hebrews did this too - in deference to the young people present this morning I will not go into detail, but suffice to say the archeological evidence is persuasive.

The Old Testament was written at the end of a thousand year literary dark age in the ancient world. By the time the scribes began their task the practice of human sacrifice become one that people regarded with horror (although traces of it can still be found in a careful reading).

It is widely believed by modern Bible Scholars that the story of Abraham intending to sacrifice his firstborn son, Isaac, but being stopped by God was inserted into the text as a way to justify ending the practice of human sacrifice. I think we can all agree it was an advance for human civilization.

So the tradition of the Scapegoat is an ancient one, pivotal to the progress of a barbaric ancient religion into a civilized one, and that basis of much Christian theology. Regardless of whether one considers oneself a Christian or not, it cannot be denied that Christianity has had a massive impact on the development of our culture.

In a more enlightened and evolved time a lot of us would like to believe that ideas such as the Scapegoat have outlasted their utility, and we’d all be better off if they could be allowed to fade away.

But I think the theme of the Scapegoat - holding others responsible for one’s own failings - is very much with us still. We see it in all those people who try to manipulate others by making them feel guilty if they do not what is wanted.

You see the Travel Agent for Guild Trips is someone who is trying to hold another accountable for how they feel. They feel you should do what they want. You are not doing that, so they feel anger.

Anger is a secondary emotion. When we have a primary emotion like fear, loss, sadness, etc. those emotions cause us to feel vulnerable and endangered. One way to cope with feeling endangered is to shift into anger, because then the brain will produce a surge of energy which helps us feel better, and we instinctively try to establish control to lower of sense of risk.

Manipulating others is one of the easiest ways have a sense of control, and trying to make them feel guilty is a very easy way to do that.

The Travel Agent for guilt trips is always someone compensating for inner feelings of vulnerability. By getting you to do what they want, they make you into a Scapegoat for their own fear and weakness. If you do what they want, they feel better. The Scapegoat has carried away the darkness just as in days of yore.

The Travel Agent for guilt trips is feeling anxiety. They have selected you to be their anti-anxiety drug.

The archetype of the Scapegoat is still with us. It’s just gone under the surface of things. People still want to hold someone other than themselves accountable for what they desire. When the guilt trip comes out, that’s the agenda.

Don’t let yourself be a Scapegoat. It never ends well.

The End of the Scapegoat

One of the very few things advice columnist Ann Landers had to say that I agree with, was that “No one can take advantage of you without your consent.” Like a lot of things she published this is something of an overstatement. Anyone can be victimized or deceived, and one doesn’t give permission for that.

Still, there is a level where, frequently, when someone is trying to take advantage of you, make you a Scapegoat if you will, they need you to play along. If you will not get hooked, the guilt trip can’t start.

Therefore, the wisdom from the ancient religious theme of the Scapegoat is not to get hooked. That is the spiritual skill to acquire if you want to deal with the Travel Agent for a guilt trip.

In this matter I can only speak for myself about what has helped me deal with those in my life who sought to control me by trying to make me feel guilty

First, I do try to have empathy. I’m not a soft person but I do try to be a compassionate one. Therefore, when someone tries to pull a manipulative stunt I remind myself that what they are doing says a lot about them and not much about me.

They are in pain, or scared or weak. That doesn’t mean I will roll over, but it does mean that I will not be cruel if there is any other option open to me, besides confrontation or capitulation. I might speak with a softer voice. I might find a polite way to decline the attempt, or just ignore it. If I know what my guilt trippers is scared of, I may try to speak to that. Sometimes this works. But not all the time.

The other thing I do is to remind myself that I don’t need anyone’s permission to live my own life. If someone doesn’t like a decision I’ve made that is their right. But I don’t have to go along with them, nor do I need to explain myself.

I see this one a lot. You say “no” to an inappropriate request but still feel you need to say more. So you try to explain yourself, give excuses, or try to convince the other person that it’s okay for you to decline what they are trying to get you to do.

That is a mistake. You don’t need anyone’s permission to live your own life. You do not have to explain yourself or give reasons. No means no. You may, in the interest avoiding future misunderstandings choose to explain your thinking to another person, so they have that as information against future requests, but you are not obligated to do so.

For example, I sometimes get requests to loan money. I’ve learned such loans are a very, very bad investment because they are never repaid. So I simply say no, and that it’s a personal policy not to loan money. And then I shut up. I do not engage further in conversation about that, even if it means I’ll need to get up and leave. I don’t need anyone’s permission to live my own life. I don’t have to explain my “no.”

Nor do you. You do not want to be a Scapegoat for someone else’s anxiety. Just as the ancient Hebrews created the story of God staying the hand of Abraham so he did not Scapegoat his son Issac, it is the testimony of the ages that scapegoating is wrong. Nothing good ever comes from it. As was said by a computer in the movie Wargames, the only way to win that game is not to play.

And that’s my sermon

Sources

Carlos Tilghman-Osborne, David A. Cole, Julia W. Felton, Definition and measurement of guilt: Implications for clinical research and practice, Clinical Psychology Review, Volume 30, Issue 5, July 2010, pp. 536-546.

Nicole C Overall, Yuthika U Girme, Edward P. Leman Jr., Matthew D. Hammond, Attachment anxiety and reactions to relationship threat: the benefits and costs of inducing guilt in romantic partners, Journal of Personal Social Psychology, 2014 Feb;106(2):235-56. doi: 10.1037/a0034371. Epub 2013 Sep 30.