Accidents Happen
I once hosted a dinner party on a fine summer evening. Our guests milled about on our back patio sipping cool, refreshing beverages and plucking tiny appetizers off of fancy trays. Meanwhile, I was in the kitchen trying to set out a buffet spread on our dining room table with such precise timing that the cold foods stayed cold and the hot foods stayed hot.
A dear three-year-old, whom we adore, decided that I needed help, which was true. I was grateful she noticed. I had just placed a generous bowl of cut fruit on the sideboard. She took one look at the crystal punch bowl and glass tongs and that kid found her reason for being. I could hear her murmuring and dragging a chair across the floor but lacked the capacity to investigate. As I pulled blistering hot baked potato casseroles out of the oven I heard a new, louder, murmur from her: “It’s ok, accidents happen! It’s ok, accidents happen!” and indeed one had.
Her best thinking told her that she needed to further toss the fruit. She tossed the fruit alright. Up and over the lip of the bowl the fruit rained down on the table and floor. A strawberry landed in the middle of a green bean casserole. A cantaloupe chunk found its way onto the brisket platter. Meanwhile, she hummed a little tune and delighted herself with her service work.
It was the best moment EVER! This child had learned a lesson most of us are never given or do not have the capacity to receive. Accidents happen and the world continues to rotate. We are human and make mistakes. When we repeat those mistakes over and over again, we discover we have developed a habit that has become a compulsion. We discover that we are constitutionally incapable of NOT making this same mistake time and again. Our shortcomings may result in deeds that are so awful, so big, so UNFORGIVABLE that we do not know what to do.
Do we lean into the humiliation of it all?
Or do we trust in humility? It is OK to understand that accidents happen, it is invaluable that we learn our part in cleaning up the mess.
