Confessions

Dear World,

I want to let you know how sorry I am; I feel we owe you an apology. You see, we Christians aren't perfect. We don't have a monopoly on being right or even on being "good". In fact we're no better than anyone else. But I know we've hurt you World, I know we've caused so much damage that you can't even look at us any more.

It wasn't meant to be like this. We were meant to be showing you how much God loves you, instead we were trying to get you to love us more. I am sorry. I am sorry too for all those wrong things we did in the name of faith. We went on crusades and we executed people who didn't believe, we started wars in the name of God and stole money from the poor to build our golden altars.

I am sorry for our hypocrisy; all those times when we don't practice what we preach and for making you feel inferior. I am sorry for being elitist and self-righteous; for making you feel like you weren't welcome. I apologise for all those people who preach hate; who wave banners at the funerals of soldiers and dance on the graves of AIDS victims and I am sorry I didn't try to stop them. I am sorry for all those times we made our message boring or insulted your intelligence by watering it down.

I am sorry we don't have the answers to your questions and I am sorry for all those times we pretended we did so we wouldn't look bad. Oh World, I am so sorry we tried to preach to you before we even asked your name. I am sorry we were too busy wrapped up in each other that we didn't notice you were hurting. I am sorry we were so busy we didn't notice you at all.

Please don't judge our message on how we deliver it. Please don't close your eyes to its beauty just because we are ugly. Don't refuse to listen just because we can't sing in tune. You see World, our body is flawed and broken. We are a mess and sometimes we forget that. I know an apology won't make up for all we've done to you, but won't you forgive us? Won't you let us try again?