AGNITIO, CONFESSIO
Sunday, July 12, 2020
Awake and walking around, I feel good. I try to do good too.
I try to live a life that I would respect and admire if it was someone else, and I was watching me …
But I believe I am not alone – and I don’t mind admitting to thoughts that aren’t always so respectable.
Despite my dreams that wake me and tangential thoughts that alarm me, I cannot un-feel this feeling, this belief, that there exist weaknesses and failures within all of us.
Still, we live in a society where whispers and secrets would quickly undermine us if our private thoughts were revealed to anyone but a lamppost.
I’ve often wondered about the confessional – you know what I mean, that place in Catholic churches where secrets are kept and stored by one listener.
I like the concept of unloading what is stored inside, and perhaps the darker side of our thoughts and actions ought not to be made public. So I understand the unloading side, the confessing side, and everyone should understand the ‘wanting forgiveness’ side of that.
But what about the flip-side?
What must it be like to hear everyone’s secrets, confessed terrible deeds, and wicket thoughts – what must that be like for them?
I’m sure that, just as therapists see therapists, priests probably confess to other priests – but not anonymously.
Where is that in our society – a place, or methodology, where we could secretly and privately without fear of ever having those thoughts revealed while we are alive, where would that be?