Saying You're Sorry

Apologizing has become a lost art. Too often it has been code for "Okay, so a mistake was made! Can we just drop the whole thing and move on?" Or it has been received as a pro-forma ritual prior to doing the exact same thing all over again. Regardless, there was no sincerity involved or intended; forgiveness was neither expected nor offered.
We are not talking here about the maudlin or melodramatic tears offered by some public figures who have been caught with their hands in some form of cookie jar; those who accept such displays at face value have their own reasons for accepting them without qualm or question. Religious leaders in particular have the script down pat, including the sense of martyrdom when they find they are expected to pay for their own failures. Nor are we talking about the apologias that are brought out by some spokesperson with all the concrete specificity and reality of the fortune in a fortune cookie.
Rather, we are talking about those moments when it is necessary to say "I'm sorry," and mean it. To say it with the hope that the other person says just as sincerely, "I forgive you." Neither of these essential statements should be said too quickly or readily. Apologizing means admitting there is something in fact to be sorry for, something that few seem ready to do. It is someone else's fault, not mine. I didn't really mean it. See my face filled with tears and take pity on me. We do not like to admit that we have in fact screwed up so thoroughly, nor to hand over authority to another for judgment on our behavior ('cause that's what we're doing here, ain't it?)
And it is not really up to us to expect pardon. Apologizing is something we do; forgiveness is something they do. When the other party is ready to let go of the hurt, accept the apology as real, and try to put Humpty-Dumpty back together again (although, of course, it will never be the same egg!), then forgiveness becomes a possibility. Sure, it might be in the other's best interests to forgive, but that is not up to us.
There are of course things which are very hard to forgive, even if we don't want to wave around the adjective "impossible." Some wounds are so deep, so severe, that healing takes the rest of a life. And some mistaken actions say so much about very nature of the person that forgiving one incident changes nothing. But this does no abrogate the need for a sincere apology, it merely makes pardon more a divine act.