Rector’s Ramblings – April 17, 2025
Sometimes, I learn profound theological truths from unexpected places. Ok, not sometimes. Quite often, as it turns out. My preacher’s brain is constantly receiving and reviewing ideas and concepts; it’s a side effect of my vocation that I evaluate everything for spiritual meaning. It can make it hard to enjoy movies, but it usually adds to the flavor. This week, while watching the new hospital drama, The Pitt, on Max (the mash-up of Cinemax and HBO), I was surprised by a spiritual concept I had never encountered before and one I will hold onto.
If you haven’t seen the show, it’s a hospital ER drama that is probably the best-done hospital drama since, well, ER, decades ago. Noah Wyle, who starred as the young intern in ER, is now the senior physician at a Pittsburgh trauma center, although it’s a different character. The show’s hook is that each episode is an hour of a day, which means that after four episodes, you’re only four hours into one shift. In one scene, Wyle’s character is trying to offer support to a brother and sister who are preparing for their elderly father to die. The daughter is having trouble letting go. She resisted the decision-making process to respect her father’s wishes not to be intubated or to use machines in the hopes that he would improve. When it is clear that he won’t improve and everything is disconnected, she still struggles to understand and accept what is happening.
After learning they don’t believe in God, Wyle suggests that he knows something they could try to find some comfort, warning them that the simplicity of the approach shouldn’t put them off. After their encouragement to share it, he lays out the Native Hawaiian practice of Ho’oponopono, a ritual that he describes with four movements: I love you. Thank you. I’m sorry. I forgive you. It is an incredibly powerful scene as the siblings walk through those statements, reflecting and expanding on them with their father. I thought of countless times I’ve been with families at the end of life and how powerful those moments can be. I’ve talked to families about those same four ideas, but not always with such clarity or conciseness.
Soon after the episode was over, I looked it up. In true Hollywood fashion, the on-screen portrayal of Ho’oponopono is close but doesn’t quite match what I found. It is indeed a Native Hawaiian ritual, echoing similar practices elsewhere among Pacific Islander peoples. It is a ritual to put right things that have gone astray, particularly relationships. It is intended to bring about reconciliation and healing. It is a bit broader than the four-part exercise portrayed on screen, but there is a tradition of four exercises that are found repeatedly when looking up the meaning of the ritual.
All the versions I could find were slightly different and differently ordered than The Pitt’s version. Instead of the show’s suggestion, the four movements I found are: I’m sorry. Forgive me. Thank you. I love you. The offer of forgiveness to another is absent, and it may just be that there are simply variations of the practice, and the script’s writer knows a different one. Either way, the simplicity of those four movements belies their power. They are powerful concepts to work through with those we love at the end of life, to be sure, but also whenever we can manage to have such conversations. It can change the dynamic of a lot of brokenness in our relationships.
It also strikes me that this is a powerful exercise this week. This is a time to realize our need for repentance and restore our relationship with God. As we walk these final days of Holy Week, it might be a powerful prayer exercise to pray our way through these movements, considering our relationship to Jesus and God: I’m sorry. Forgive me. Thank you. I love you. That is the heart of the ongoing reconciliation work we all do again and again. It may be particularly poignant in light of the events of Jesus’ passion. I’m going to give it a try. I have much to confess and ask forgiveness for, I have much to be thankful for, and I certainly can do a better job of clearly expressing my love to God. It was an unexpected give to learn about Ho’oponopono from a show this week, but it is a gift I am grateful for, nonetheless.
Tom+
