AN EXPLANATION IS NOT AN EXCUSE

It started with Adam and Eve and it's been going on ever since. We get caught doing something we know is wrong; and when asked why we did it, we explain: "The snake made me do it." Good explanation, but no excuse. "The Snake," of course, goes by a thousand names, usually the one most convenient at the time of being caught in the act: like "genes," "my parents," "my friends,", or that old standby "everybody else."

If we can name it, we can blame it; we can use it to explain our misbehavior. We use it to excuse our actions, and not only to excuse but to justify as well. Nevertheless, even a justifiable explanation does not excuse us. Never has; never will. We only wish it would.

In the Genesis parable the woman had a perfectly good explanation as to why she did what she knew she should not have done: the snake in the grass gave her a very good, logical, reasonable, even justifiable explanation for why she should eat of the tree. It was not that she was going to die. Rather, it was that she was going to live even more fully. She was going to be like God. Who wouldn't want to be like God, knowing everything? Wouldn't you? I would. So let me explain to you why I did it.

The young man convicted of murder while driving drunk explained to the jury why he did it. He was angry and he drank too much beer and he simply made a mistake. The jury agreed with him: he did make a mistake that cost two young women their lives. But the explanation didn't excuse him from doing what he knew he should not have done: get behind the wheel drunk, running a red light crashing into and killing two people. Try as we might, he and we cannot explain away our actions into reasons for excusing them.

But we try. It's probably the one way we can live with ourselves. I suspect the most difficult words to ever pass our lips are, "It's my fault. I have no excuse." Then we choke back the words we are almost dying to say, “But I can explain. And if you listen to my explanation, you might see that what I did really should be excused, even forgiven."

Explanations are not excuses. So why do we spend so much time and energy trying to explain ourselves when, in the end, the explanation will not excuse what we did? Why don't we take our lumps, resolve not to make the same mistake again, and get on with it?

Why? Human nature. That's the explanation (not the excuse). Our brain wants to justify why we did what the brain knew all along was the wrong thing to do. Just as the body is always trying to heal itself of foreign objects, like disease; just as the body tries to heal itself when it is ingested with that which will hurt it -- too many drugs, too much food, etc.; so our brain tries to heal itself by rationalizing why we just did what we implicitly knew was wrong but went ahead and did it anyway.

It can't, of course. The only resolution to the problem is repentance and forgiveness. Both start with us. We must admit our mistakes, explain them if we will but not excuse them; and then accept forgiveness both from ourselves and from others. Accepting forgiveness may be the most difficult part of all. But that's another story.