My last post about a thief paying for the bike that he stole reminded me of one of the newest TV programmes to make its way to Australia, My Name is Earl. If you haven’t seen it, it’s all about a guy who decides that all the bad stuff that happens in his life is the result of the bad stuff that he’s done.
He writes a very long list of bad deeds that he’s perpetrated and then sets about making things right. He visits people that he’s hurt and pays for the damage he’s caused. It’s a very funny show but in the end Earl is only doing the right thing so that good things will happen to him in return. There really isn’t a great sense of doing the right thing simply because it’s the right thing.
The whole premise of the show is based on karma, the law of cause and effect. Of course we’ve all seen good stuff happen to bad people and disaster fall on the innocent so I can’t say that I believe in karma, but I do believe in putting things right. That’s not to say that I always do all I can in that area but I certainly think it’s a goal worth heading towards.
If you had to write a list like Earl’s, what would be on it? Are there things in your past that need to be put right? Are there people with whom you need to make peace? Are there relationships that need healing? Have you talked about someone else behind their back so that others now see them in a bad light? Do you need to make restoration for anything you’ve done or harm you’ve caused?
It’s a hard subject to deal with because there are usually things we’ve done that no one else knows about and dealing with them may require us admitting fault to others. That’s never easy to do.
Writing out a list like Earl did can be a fairly scary experience but I like the way that he deals with his list. He just takes it one item at a time and he keeps on working his way through the list. As strange as it is to gain life skills through a TV comedy, maybe that’s a lesson we all need to learn.
Posted by Rodney Olsen
Technorati Tags: My Name is Earl – Karma – Restoration
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Humility is definitely rare these days. Very rare.