Vidui: A Confession of Sins Against the Future

 

We confess and we forgive:

The times we bought leaded gasoline, inorganic beef and whole cow milk. 

We forgive the stray plastic bottle unrecycled. 

We forgive all the turned pages and unlistened-to reports

Or the phone calls we didn’t make

And the emails we didn’t send,

We even can forgive the times we didn’t vote

And the times we didn’t march.  

We forgive and we can be forgiven: 

We’re only humans after all and 

We didn’t want it to be real.  

But now we know. 

We confess but we cannot forgive:

We can’t forgive these other sins against the earth because 

They are sins against the Holy Wholeness. 

How do we forgive all the species that have disappeared ?

Or the burnt forests or the dried up lakes?

And how can it be for us to forgive the greed and the selfishness,

The times we chose to not notice the changes, 

And the times our lives were too personally pleasant to care?

We signed on to a covenant:

The earth will take care of us

If we will take care of it. 

And we reneged.

It is not for us to forgive.  

We confess and wonder:

Will our sins be remembered?

Our children,

And their children,

Will they resent our sins against them?

Will they forget the willful ignorance?

Will they forget the procrastination?

Will they forget the waste?

We will be long gone

So we don’t have to care

Which is disgusting

Because we are guilty. 

Will our children forgive our sins against the future?

Ashamnu. 

Amen