I wrote before about certain embarrassing things sticking in the mind of the one embarrassed. We Catholics, we are so good at that. We’re so good at picking the embarrassing things and hanging them up on the wall, admiring them, and then inviting others to share in the embarrassment with us. Our confessors are the witnesses to our shame. All we can hope is that they provide relief, and yet perhaps that is why so many confessions stick within the mind.
+I know that I stopped writing of a sudden yesterday. I ran out of words, and didn’t know what it was that I needed to say that I needed. I just sat for a while, closed my notebook, grabbed another ride back to town, and sat at that coffee shop I visited a few days ago, drinking an ice tea and looking at nothing. I’ll meet up with Kay tonight, I’m sure.
+I wrote before about certain embarrassing things sticking in the mind of the one embarrassed. We Catholics, we are so good at that. We’re so good at picking the embarrassing things and hanging them up on the wall, admiring them, and then inviting others to share in the embarrassment with us. Our confessors are the witnesses to our shame. All we can hope is that they provide relief, and yet perhaps that is why so many confessions stick within the mind.
“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It has been one week since my last confession, and I accuse myself…I accuse…”
Other than the soft sounds of breathing and the barest hint of vulpine beneath the scent-block, nothing made its way from the other side of the screen, familiar even so many years after the fact, even long after I left St John’s
“I accuse myself of the sin of doubt.”
@@ -63,7 +64,7 @@“I don’t want to be here,” I confessed to the statue. I remember that. I remember the kindness in the stone, in her smile. I confessed, then sighed, knelt, and began my penance.