Songs can be transformed into anthems, and anthems into hymns…but can the monotony of life be transformed into the rhythm of poetry?

Louis C.K. waxed brilliant about the “vacation” that occurs for parents as they walk from the kids’ side to their side of the car. Well, for me it’s more of a guilt trip. I battle guilt over the seconds it takes me to reenter the car (the heat! the lack of stimulation!) as The Kid babbles happily in the backseat. I battle guilt over his moments away from me in daycare as his teachers text me pictures documenting his ever-present grin. I carry guilt around with me like it’s the latest Coach handbag, and so do you because I see it in your Facebook status updates and Twitter feeds and you know what? We’re all getting a little too comfortable with wearing guilt as an accessory.

Guilt is just another form of self-love. It’s a reorientation of the universe that lands me on the throne, my actions as pre-eminent. It’s the complete opposite of worship.

Any activity with me at its center is, by nature, the opposite of worship. If the world depended on me to keep revolving as much as I act like it does, then we’d all be on the north side of Shit Creek lacking paddling devices. Guilt (especially the publicly pronounced kind), much like competition, is my way of trying to feel better about myself: “I should have done ______ more perfectly. Or just more.” Insert whichever activity applies as _______, for example: running miles, cooking dinners, preventing diaper blowouts, breastfeeding longer (DEAR GOD I AM SO SICK OF THIS BEING AN ISSUE FOR PEOPLE ALL THE BABIES ARE FINE), working more hours, working less hours, selling Girl Scout cookies, whatever. Guilt is my not acknowledging that I do things imperfectly because I am imperfect and that there’s Someone who’s not. Guilt implies that the greater plan is a backup one because it really all hinges on me for things to turn out well.

Guilt is a sickness dressed up as duty. I’m ready to get well.

The only prescription, for me, that cures the ills of guilt is actively turning my eyes elsewhere. Away from the mirror and (again, for me) upward. And this, I think, is the essence of worship, the opposite of guilt: acknowledging all that is not about me. Acknowledging, and then attributing all of the gifts, the beauty and the blessings, to their rightful source. And admitting that the failures? Are just redemption waiting to happen. A reweaving of anthems into hymns occurs at the table of grace, which is also where sad eventually becomes untrue but until then, scars become beautiful and life becomes poetry.

Guilt never wrote a line of poetry.

As I’m typing this, The Sis calls to let me know, in her annoyingly calm and unflappable tone, that The Niece was pushed down at school and is receiving stitches in her forehead. “WHICH KID PUSHED HER?” I yell, searching for my brass knuckles, and The Sis assures me that all is well as I hear The Niece whisper, “Meow? Book?” in the background, her forehead slathered with lidocaine. I ask where the cut is and hear that it’s in the right center of her forehead. Exactly where my scar is from the bowl The Sis “accidentally” threw at me when we were kids splashing in the pool. Matching scars. I would be a frantic mess, but The Sis and The Niece are having a party at Urgent Care. And it reminds me of another party, where a certain Life of the Party witnessed an emergency of the Wine Depletion variety (my worst nightmare). Did he freak out, yell at the caterer? Nope, he just made an arrangement with his Dad (a prominent party supplier) and up showed the wine. This is how parties go on. Not with Guilt as the DJ, because his songs totally suck.

Guilt makes corrections and grace makes relationships, taking its students individually sans red pen. Grace is what converts lists into verse and life into poetry. The mundane is beautiful and scars, not length of breastfeeding, are badges of honor, stories to be told. Grace shows up not to condemn, but to transform the whining into a party. With extra wine.