Shame and guilt are two millstones we carry throughout our life. In our internal landscape, demons amplify these emotions to create a sense of worthlessness.
To speak these dark secrets to another and have them accept our failings ("sins") unconditionally is THE path to redemption. In this, the Catholic church stands head and shoulders above other religions; a good priest creates a holy space of love and acceptance. Into that space gets poured the darkness, which dissolves in the healing light of love.
A modern analogy might be a therapist. But an intellectual discussion may fail to hit the mark.
My father died one year ago tomorrow. He was a quiet, yet devout Catholic. Tomorrow I will make a confession. I have been returning, slowly, to the church, the original sanctuary of the soul.
Thank you for a thought provoking piece. I look forward to the next one.
First off, I'm moved by your father and your own slow return to faith. As I mentioned, I'm not Catholic, and it's a faith I struggle with. My family gets much out of the rituals, and I want them to have that foundation of encouragement to engage with the divine, but I still struggle to get past the church's past and the instances of ignorance fueled hatred I've encountered in my own time. That being said, I find real beauty in what is possible. So though I may not make that first move to the confession booth, I do find inspiration from the ritual.
I was also thinking of your analogy of a therapist. At one point in my life, I found therapy helpful. But it was not enough for what I need. I have had intellectual discussions that hit the mark, but they are few and far between, and often with other spiritual aspirants and along the lines of divinity and philosophy. I believe in the possibility, but not the guarantee, that any discussion can point to redemption, to the truth.
Your piece has inspired a lively and inspiring discussion amoungst your readers...thank you for that as well!
The Catholic Church has indeed experienced a litany of grievous moral failures over the centuries. We can all point to the dogmatic teachings, predatory sexual behaviour, cover ups, etc, as reasons not to participate in the Catholic community. Indeed, it was one of major reasons for me leaving - it wasn't doing 'anything' for me.
Yet the Church is of the world and so cannot be perfect. To expect that is childish. It astounds me to hear people talk of the church as if it is an unalloyed malign influence. Imagine how the world may have evolved without Catholicism - it is doubtful that the Renaissance would have happened without the notion of man's relationship to the divine.
To paraphrase Churchill - "Catholicism is the worst form of religion except for all others which have been tried."
Anyway, this is your blog, not mine! I'm glad to have found you and look forward to your next post.
Without disrespecting you, there is the large part the Catholic Church played in sending people to slaughter and be slaughtered in the crusades, the lust for control punishing even the suspicion of alternative paths to the divine - the Cathars come to mind, but also any whiff of ‘heresy’. Faith takes us to love but more often to exclusion and harm.
This always makes my day to watch someone do this!! 🤩 I’m so excited for you, and to see what you share with us!
I did grow up Catholic and if I’d ever spoken the truth to any of those old men--some crotchety and judgmental, some kind but paternally chastising for things I didn’t feel were wrong but I knew the church would expect me to confess because I was female and therefore the origin of all sin--if I’d spoken what was in my mind and heart, I would have been excommunicated. Because religion lost me when I was 7 when I asked deep, unanswerable questions of adults who were horrified and outraged at my little chirping logic, debate and philosophizing. 🤪
Therefore I muzzled. *Everything.* Northern MN in the 70s as a female neurodivergent artist?! Yeah. Everything. The only way I could express my true self was in writing I never let anyone read, and in dance. Silent. Masked (but not at all). Raw kinetic communication that could be interpreted any number of ways, and denied with a casual smile if interrogated.
Taking the choke chain, muzzle, and gazillion masks off with my old blog 7 years ago was the most terrifying, liberating and exhilarating thing I’ve ever done. It still is, every time I go a level deeper. It’s what I’m migrating here to Substack, as well as all the stories I never got to share, so I’m super excited to see someone else devoted to doing this scary thing. So worth it! And so needed in this selfie, photoshopped, AI generated world. No wonder I always love your writing. Congrats! Can’t wait to watch the unveiling.
I had the same experience growing up, although perhaps with more generic fears. IMO confession must take place in the presence of an acknowledged universal good. The Ten Commandments helped the Israelites as they wended their way through the Sinai. To our modern sensibilities, they seem quaint; transport yourself 2,500 years back and they are profoundly insightful and revolutionary.
Read Leviticus if you ever want to appreciate the day to day of the average Jew wandering in the desert, wondering WTF Moses ever had this bright idea of fleeing Egypt.
Totally!! One of the things I could never get anybody to answer--why I couldn’t confess directly to God. Shrug. So that was another secret I hid and muzzled--my intimate, trusted relationship with The Divine.
I don't see it exactly that way; you can't shop for forgiveness at the altar of your choice.
To me, it is vital to confess to another human, to be completely vulnerable and open to grace. The 'old' church struggled with maintaining the definition of good and hence was could be judgemental about life choices. Today's church has evolved.
Still, there is good and evil, as far as I can tell.
Oh that’s good to hear! I’m always thrilled to hear when somebody has found the right place/tools to heal their heart. Some people absolutely do best confessing to an official human conduit to the Divine.
I have never been one of them. I believe every person *should* choose the altar of confession and forgiveness that best heals and inspires their hearts.
THANK YOU! I'm so grateful you're here, and so excited (okay, maybe nervous) to continue sharing these stories with you. And I 100% agree about our selfie, photoshopped, AI generated world. It's amazing how real honest humanity can shine through in that world.
I didn't include it here, but I also became a master of denying things with a casual smile and a laugh. I always knew I was lying to myself when I had that smile on, and too many people caught on. I'm happy to learn that the blog and the writing have helped. And, I'm hoping it will help me connect with my 8 year old, neurodivergent, sensitive, and really effective masker of a son.
Oh, yes. *That* smile. Gak. It took a drunk driver and TBI to discover my real one, and now... 🎶*Never gonna give it up. Never gonna take it down. Never gonna hide the things that hurt me...* Hahahah! We have such opposite lives, but your stories never fail to inspire me. As the neurodivergent kid of a military father who had no clue how to connect with me until very recently, perhaps that's one of the reasons why. It's such a beautiful and fascinating journey you're on. Extra bonus that you know how to paint it in words.
I think if it didn't make us sweat so much, the potential for growth and that kind of shining wouldn't be nearly as potent. Hmmm...kinda like muscles. Brain & heart muscles. Let the sweating continue!
It is only confession in the presence of forgiveness and absolution. Writing to a faceless crowd is no substitute for looking your fellow man or woman in the eye and saying "I confess...."
I actually did say it. I confessed I hated spinach. Am being both contentious and truthful I realize. Perhaps offending your sensibilities. Catholicism, orthodoxy, name the organized, established religion, and I will be that. But I do recognize that faith often provides consolation and at times good guidance. If I offended you, my apologies.
Hardly. People who get offended are often looking for applause. I'm just offering another viewpoint is all. I just don't believe that writing to a faceless audience is the same as confessing. To me that is closer to emoting.
If we can tell ourselves the truth, feel the remorse, actually change to be better as a result, that is more of an honest and true attempt to fundamentally understand the how and why of your own actions and doing so go forward as a better human being - more compassionate, more empathetic, doing more to aid your fellow man.
I would ask if you're going to engage in this discussion to do it out of the comments. I think a well reasoned discussion, handled respectfully and with intent to uplift, could be worthwhile. But only within this bounds and done in another forum than this, please.
I've rewritten a response five times and deleted them all, so I think I will just respond in a bit of a messy way.
I want to say yes. All of what I consider writing is confession, in the sense that the writer looks into the eyes of truth and records what is there. The idealist in me believes this is all that writing is, and it is the reason that people wrote stories from the time of The Odyssey to the Gospels to today.
I started to respond that I'm not sure what most people consider writing today meets this bar. And not just the AI generated drivel, but the copywriting and the self-promotion, and all the likes. As I was getting ready to send that, I read a response on Tara Penny's substack about how hard it is to judge the why of writers, and I was stopped in my tracks.
So all that to say, I don't think I know. I can only seem to know that I'm desiring to share truths which I've never been comfortable sharing in service of my own craft. I have been feeling like I've let that fear stop me, and I don't think it's worth it right now. But you definitely made me think about what I meant and what I was doing. I hope the next piece will generate the same level of thoughts.
Thank you Tommy. I'm grateful you're following along. There is power in naming and speaking. And you're right, finding a name is so empowering. When my son was diagnosed with ASD, having the word Autism felt like it gave us an understanding, even though it changed nothing about him. It's a small analogy to what you're also discovering.
I resonate fully my friend. My first full confession came 14 years ago when I did my first AA 5th step with my sponsor. Brutal. And powerfully liberating.
I say first because I’ve done mini 5th steps along the way since then, including my writing. Good on ya. It’s cleansing.
Thanks Dee. I can only imagine that confession. I'd be scared out of my mind, and even more so knowing the places of success and ego identity you'd come from. Your writing is powerful and enobling to read, so please, keep confessing with me.
Sometimes I save your pieces because an inkling in the back of my mind tells me I’ll need them later. Today became that day. As I read your words, I felt an explosion of thrill at the prospect of confession. And I can’t tell if it’s because of the unmasking itself OR the urge to do something wrong that would, thus, necessitate said unmasking. The latter is very intriguing! I also REALLY needed Lamott’s one inch frame reminder as I am currently being crushed by analysis paralysis in my own project. I’ve got a Sunday that’s free, all to myself, and I woke up with a blaring alarm in my head DO SOMETHING. One inch, Katie, breathe.
One inch. I'm struggling with it these days even as I declared in these posts that's what I'm doing. But we can both remind each other when we need it.
I think the thrill of doing something wrong and the unmasking are both intertwined. We can't have one without the other, so they by definition are one and the same.
Also, when you said "sometimes I save your pieces because an inkling in the back of my mind tells me I'll need the later," all I can say is I'm so honored and I'm blushing. Thank you for the highest complement I can imagine.
Thank you Anthony. I'm grateful you liked it. I'd love to see others do the same.
Well said, Latham. A courageous beginning.
Shame and guilt are two millstones we carry throughout our life. In our internal landscape, demons amplify these emotions to create a sense of worthlessness.
To speak these dark secrets to another and have them accept our failings ("sins") unconditionally is THE path to redemption. In this, the Catholic church stands head and shoulders above other religions; a good priest creates a holy space of love and acceptance. Into that space gets poured the darkness, which dissolves in the healing light of love.
A modern analogy might be a therapist. But an intellectual discussion may fail to hit the mark.
My father died one year ago tomorrow. He was a quiet, yet devout Catholic. Tomorrow I will make a confession. I have been returning, slowly, to the church, the original sanctuary of the soul.
Thank you for a thought provoking piece. I look forward to the next one.
Thank you for reading and commenting, GPB.
First off, I'm moved by your father and your own slow return to faith. As I mentioned, I'm not Catholic, and it's a faith I struggle with. My family gets much out of the rituals, and I want them to have that foundation of encouragement to engage with the divine, but I still struggle to get past the church's past and the instances of ignorance fueled hatred I've encountered in my own time. That being said, I find real beauty in what is possible. So though I may not make that first move to the confession booth, I do find inspiration from the ritual.
I was also thinking of your analogy of a therapist. At one point in my life, I found therapy helpful. But it was not enough for what I need. I have had intellectual discussions that hit the mark, but they are few and far between, and often with other spiritual aspirants and along the lines of divinity and philosophy. I believe in the possibility, but not the guarantee, that any discussion can point to redemption, to the truth.
Your piece has inspired a lively and inspiring discussion amoungst your readers...thank you for that as well!
The Catholic Church has indeed experienced a litany of grievous moral failures over the centuries. We can all point to the dogmatic teachings, predatory sexual behaviour, cover ups, etc, as reasons not to participate in the Catholic community. Indeed, it was one of major reasons for me leaving - it wasn't doing 'anything' for me.
Yet the Church is of the world and so cannot be perfect. To expect that is childish. It astounds me to hear people talk of the church as if it is an unalloyed malign influence. Imagine how the world may have evolved without Catholicism - it is doubtful that the Renaissance would have happened without the notion of man's relationship to the divine.
To paraphrase Churchill - "Catholicism is the worst form of religion except for all others which have been tried."
Anyway, this is your blog, not mine! I'm glad to have found you and look forward to your next post.
Without disrespecting you, there is the large part the Catholic Church played in sending people to slaughter and be slaughtered in the crusades, the lust for control punishing even the suspicion of alternative paths to the divine - the Cathars come to mind, but also any whiff of ‘heresy’. Faith takes us to love but more often to exclusion and harm.
This always makes my day to watch someone do this!! 🤩 I’m so excited for you, and to see what you share with us!
I did grow up Catholic and if I’d ever spoken the truth to any of those old men--some crotchety and judgmental, some kind but paternally chastising for things I didn’t feel were wrong but I knew the church would expect me to confess because I was female and therefore the origin of all sin--if I’d spoken what was in my mind and heart, I would have been excommunicated. Because religion lost me when I was 7 when I asked deep, unanswerable questions of adults who were horrified and outraged at my little chirping logic, debate and philosophizing. 🤪
Therefore I muzzled. *Everything.* Northern MN in the 70s as a female neurodivergent artist?! Yeah. Everything. The only way I could express my true self was in writing I never let anyone read, and in dance. Silent. Masked (but not at all). Raw kinetic communication that could be interpreted any number of ways, and denied with a casual smile if interrogated.
Taking the choke chain, muzzle, and gazillion masks off with my old blog 7 years ago was the most terrifying, liberating and exhilarating thing I’ve ever done. It still is, every time I go a level deeper. It’s what I’m migrating here to Substack, as well as all the stories I never got to share, so I’m super excited to see someone else devoted to doing this scary thing. So worth it! And so needed in this selfie, photoshopped, AI generated world. No wonder I always love your writing. Congrats! Can’t wait to watch the unveiling.
I had the same experience growing up, although perhaps with more generic fears. IMO confession must take place in the presence of an acknowledged universal good. The Ten Commandments helped the Israelites as they wended their way through the Sinai. To our modern sensibilities, they seem quaint; transport yourself 2,500 years back and they are profoundly insightful and revolutionary.
Read Leviticus if you ever want to appreciate the day to day of the average Jew wandering in the desert, wondering WTF Moses ever had this bright idea of fleeing Egypt.
Totally!! One of the things I could never get anybody to answer--why I couldn’t confess directly to God. Shrug. So that was another secret I hid and muzzled--my intimate, trusted relationship with The Divine.
I don't see it exactly that way; you can't shop for forgiveness at the altar of your choice.
To me, it is vital to confess to another human, to be completely vulnerable and open to grace. The 'old' church struggled with maintaining the definition of good and hence was could be judgemental about life choices. Today's church has evolved.
Still, there is good and evil, as far as I can tell.
Oh that’s good to hear! I’m always thrilled to hear when somebody has found the right place/tools to heal their heart. Some people absolutely do best confessing to an official human conduit to the Divine.
I have never been one of them. I believe every person *should* choose the altar of confession and forgiveness that best heals and inspires their hearts.
THANK YOU! I'm so grateful you're here, and so excited (okay, maybe nervous) to continue sharing these stories with you. And I 100% agree about our selfie, photoshopped, AI generated world. It's amazing how real honest humanity can shine through in that world.
I didn't include it here, but I also became a master of denying things with a casual smile and a laugh. I always knew I was lying to myself when I had that smile on, and too many people caught on. I'm happy to learn that the blog and the writing have helped. And, I'm hoping it will help me connect with my 8 year old, neurodivergent, sensitive, and really effective masker of a son.
Oh, yes. *That* smile. Gak. It took a drunk driver and TBI to discover my real one, and now... 🎶*Never gonna give it up. Never gonna take it down. Never gonna hide the things that hurt me...* Hahahah! We have such opposite lives, but your stories never fail to inspire me. As the neurodivergent kid of a military father who had no clue how to connect with me until very recently, perhaps that's one of the reasons why. It's such a beautiful and fascinating journey you're on. Extra bonus that you know how to paint it in words.
I think if it didn't make us sweat so much, the potential for growth and that kind of shining wouldn't be nearly as potent. Hmmm...kinda like muscles. Brain & heart muscles. Let the sweating continue!
All writing is confession, don’t you think?
It is only confession in the presence of forgiveness and absolution. Writing to a faceless crowd is no substitute for looking your fellow man or woman in the eye and saying "I confess...."
I actually did say it. I confessed I hated spinach. Am being both contentious and truthful I realize. Perhaps offending your sensibilities. Catholicism, orthodoxy, name the organized, established religion, and I will be that. But I do recognize that faith often provides consolation and at times good guidance. If I offended you, my apologies.
Hardly. People who get offended are often looking for applause. I'm just offering another viewpoint is all. I just don't believe that writing to a faceless audience is the same as confessing. To me that is closer to emoting.
If we can tell ourselves the truth, feel the remorse, actually change to be better as a result, that is more of an honest and true attempt to fundamentally understand the how and why of your own actions and doing so go forward as a better human being - more compassionate, more empathetic, doing more to aid your fellow man.
To me, all humanist world views fail because they lack transcendance.
I wonder if those who pursue your path actually experience true forgiveness of self. It would be an interesting psychological discussion.
I’m willing to engage in this. I think we are and should be our harshest critics. But I have forgiven my younger self more than once.
I would ask if you're going to engage in this discussion to do it out of the comments. I think a well reasoned discussion, handled respectfully and with intent to uplift, could be worthwhile. But only within this bounds and done in another forum than this, please.
I've rewritten a response five times and deleted them all, so I think I will just respond in a bit of a messy way.
I want to say yes. All of what I consider writing is confession, in the sense that the writer looks into the eyes of truth and records what is there. The idealist in me believes this is all that writing is, and it is the reason that people wrote stories from the time of The Odyssey to the Gospels to today.
I started to respond that I'm not sure what most people consider writing today meets this bar. And not just the AI generated drivel, but the copywriting and the self-promotion, and all the likes. As I was getting ready to send that, I read a response on Tara Penny's substack about how hard it is to judge the why of writers, and I was stopped in my tracks.
So all that to say, I don't think I know. I can only seem to know that I'm desiring to share truths which I've never been comfortable sharing in service of my own craft. I have been feeling like I've let that fear stop me, and I don't think it's worth it right now. But you definitely made me think about what I meant and what I was doing. I hope the next piece will generate the same level of thoughts.
Loved this piece Latham and can’t wait to follow along with your confessions series. Really inspiring.
I’ve just begun to learn how speaking and writing, making it visible and concrete, takes away all its power over me.
Moving on always seems to be a matter of finding a name for the thing happening to me.
Thank you Tommy. I'm grateful you're following along. There is power in naming and speaking. And you're right, finding a name is so empowering. When my son was diagnosed with ASD, having the word Autism felt like it gave us an understanding, even though it changed nothing about him. It's a small analogy to what you're also discovering.
I resonate fully my friend. My first full confession came 14 years ago when I did my first AA 5th step with my sponsor. Brutal. And powerfully liberating.
I say first because I’ve done mini 5th steps along the way since then, including my writing. Good on ya. It’s cleansing.
Thanks Dee. I can only imagine that confession. I'd be scared out of my mind, and even more so knowing the places of success and ego identity you'd come from. Your writing is powerful and enobling to read, so please, keep confessing with me.
Thanks brother. “To thine own self be true.” It’s all I got. 🤷🏻♂️
The 5th step in AA is all about unburdening to another person. Maybe look there...
Sometimes I save your pieces because an inkling in the back of my mind tells me I’ll need them later. Today became that day. As I read your words, I felt an explosion of thrill at the prospect of confession. And I can’t tell if it’s because of the unmasking itself OR the urge to do something wrong that would, thus, necessitate said unmasking. The latter is very intriguing! I also REALLY needed Lamott’s one inch frame reminder as I am currently being crushed by analysis paralysis in my own project. I’ve got a Sunday that’s free, all to myself, and I woke up with a blaring alarm in my head DO SOMETHING. One inch, Katie, breathe.
One inch. I'm struggling with it these days even as I declared in these posts that's what I'm doing. But we can both remind each other when we need it.
I think the thrill of doing something wrong and the unmasking are both intertwined. We can't have one without the other, so they by definition are one and the same.
Yes, I think you're right about the latter there! And in regards to the former, maybe one centimeter for now ;)
Also, when you said "sometimes I save your pieces because an inkling in the back of my mind tells me I'll need the later," all I can say is I'm so honored and I'm blushing. Thank you for the highest complement I can imagine.
Awww, Latham!! Well it’s MUCH deserved!!