Tuesday, April 23, 2002
Tuesday, April 23, 2002
Then I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not hide my iniquity; I said, "I will
confess my transgressions to the LORD," and you forgave the guilt of my sin.
What the Senoi did was to treat their guilt very seriously. Anytime a Senoi tribesman sensed
that he had needlessly harmed someone, he would begin thinking about the best way to make
amends.
The place where they looked most carefully for ways to undo the harm they had done was
their dreams. Even Senoi children were encouraged to examine their dreams and to carry out
what amends they had imagined in real life. The result was that the Senoi experienced no
mental illness, no suicide, no truancy; in fact nothing even approaching what we would call
depressed behavior. Stewart found this tribe to be the most serene and democratic group he
had ever encountered, with a social system equal to modern man's achievements in
communications and physics -- all because they had learned to deal with the problem of guilt.
Deal with your guilt. Confess and be healed!
(Psalm 32.5
NRSV)
One of the truly fascinating anthropological discoveries of the twentieth century occurred in
1935 when anthropologist Kilton Stewart discovered an unusual tribe deep in the rain forests
of Malaysia. At first these natives, called the Senoi, appeared to be no different from any other
primitive group. Living in thatch and bamboo huts on large piles above the ground, they
sustained themselves with simple farming, hunting, and fishing. In their social relations,
however, they had developed a psychology "so astonishing," in Stewart's words, "that they
might have come from another planet."
God of pardon, forgive me as I make amends for the ways I have hurt your people. Amen.
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