Dad had a saying that seemed to come straight out of his ranch upbringing in southern Idaho: “If you’ve got to eat crow, you might as well eat it fresh.”
The idiom “eating crow” denotes having to admit being wrong after taking a strong, confident position. The idea of eating a scavenger bird that feasts on dead animals and has tough meat itself seems unpleasant.
And the saying means that if you’ve got to own up to your mistakes or wrong takes, you might as well do it promptly, as soon as possible, rather than let it linger or even worsen.
The same is true not just for words and expressions but also one’s actions as well.
And I had to learn that the hard way — “eating crow” years later. Far from fresh.
It all started with the one time I cheated on a test — and it wasn’t even my own test.
Our fifth grade teacher gave our class a pop quiz on math homework from the previous night. I hadn’t studied much and didn’t do well with the answers. We passed our papers forward, and the teacher randomly redistributed them back for students to grade their peers’ quizzes.
I ended up with the paper of one of the girls who excelled in math. Feeling both frustrated and jealous, I erased a couple of her answers, filled in wrong numbers, gave a lower grade than deserved and returned the paper forward.
Immediately, regret kicked in. I watched the girl — I’ll call her Carol — take her quiz to the teacher seated up front, pointing out the discrepancies from her original effort.
Trying to slouch out of view and avoid any contact, I braced myself for the consequences.
And the worst thing possible happened.
Nothing.
No getting called up. No trip to the principal’s office. No note home, parent-teacher conference or annotated report card.
There was never a feeling of “getting away with it” — rather a fear for what might come. But nothing did — that day or in subsequent days, weeks and months.
Sadly, I didn’t eat fresh crow and repent properly and promptly.
From then until high school graduation, Carol and I were in many classes together as well as bands and choirs and their extracurricular trips and performances. She also dated my best friend in high school.
We saw a lot of each other, becoming good friends — with my lingering self-disappointment. And although often thinking of the stupid misstep in fifth grade when around Carol, I said nothing.
As graduation approached and while with friends at lunch one day, I told Carol I needed to apologize and correct something from years earlier. Ashamed for the act and the delay, I recounted the mistake, asking for her forgiveness.
“I don’t remember that,” she replied with a shrug.
Years of guilt, regret and embarrassment could have — should have — been avoided from that fifth grade incident. I shouldn’t have altered the quiz, and because I did, I should have repented on Day 1.
In his October 2016 general conference message “Repentance: A Joyful Choice,” Elder Dale G. Renlund of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles recounted a youthful indiscretion — one that he fully repented of that same day, not years later.
Elder Renlund taught: “The fact that we can repent is the good news of the gospel. Guilt can be ‘swept away’ (Enos 1:6). We can be filled with joy, receive a remission of our sins and have ‘peace of conscience’ (Mosiah 4:3). We can be freed from feelings of despair and the bondage of sin. We can be filled with the marvelous light of God and be ‘pained no more’ (Mosiah 27:29). Repentance is not only possible but also joyful because of our Savior.”
Also, Carol’s line of “I don’t remember that” reminds me of what the Lord taught about our repentance and His forgiveness.
“Behold, he who has repented of his sins, the same is forgiven, and I, the Lord, remember them no more” (Doctrine and Covenants 58:42).
Even after repentance, we remember our mistakes — not as a punishment but as a protection. We don’t want to feel the guilt, pain and embarrassment again — feelings that can be alleviated through repentance and the Atonement of Jesus Christ.
I wonder if a memory of our transgressions will still linger when we are in the presence of the resurrected Savior.
If so, we can be assured, as the scriptures promise, that He will not bring them up to us but will remember them no more.
In the meantime, while in mortality, we still make mistakes. But may we try to promptly consume the proverbial crow — and seek “the joyful choice” of repentance.
— Scott Taylor is managing editor of the Church News.
