Bless Me Father for I have sinned.
I went to a Catholic Confession with a friend when I was little. As a member of the Episcopal Church confession was foreign to me. The priest was patient as we went into the confessional together. I remember it gave an air of anonymity but the priest was right there. He knew my friend by name and I told him mine.
It was a short visit.
My friend listed her transgressions and was given a list of prayers to recite and admonished to change her behavior or risk purgatory or worse yet, the dark abyss of hell. In my religious experience I had never been so blatantly threatened. My friend was unbothered. She simply said, it’s ok. All I have to do is say the prayers and tell him I tried to improve my behavior.
That’s it?
What I learned from this was that true remorse or regret over your actions was never explored. It was a tit for tat system that made even the most egregious of “sins” completely forgivable by the simple execution of a list prayers and actions given by the priest.
I know, now, that the transformative journey of coming to realize a behavior or action was wrong, or a mistake is lost in this process and that the intention of the process from the words of Jesus was supposed to be transformative. That by sharing your mistakes, you create community around the struggle and thus foster a culture of healing and growth.
A private confession alone with a priest full of admonition does nothing to foster community.
So here we are in Step Five. Sharing your most egregious acts with another human. I remember this from when I worked the steps in my late twenties. I told my sponsor, (a person who guides you in the AA program). I remember that she was wonderfully supportive and did not express judgement or advice on my admissions.
She did, however, remind me that self-acceptance and forgiveness would be paramount in my ability to move on from these things. I cannot change the past; I can only use the past to create a better future.
In this journey with Richard Rohr and Breathing Under Water I do not have a sponsor with whom to process this step. So, I handled it as any once defined alcoholic would do, I found a friend in the program and had a discussion.
God, I love people who live a life of recovery.
I also had a conversation with a friend of mine who is a Baha’i. We share the belief that confession is not a piece of “getting into heaven” and can actually be quite demoralizing for people.
What I learned is that life is far more complex than a list of rights and wrongs. I learned that sharing what we think are awful actions on our part are often times just a part of the process. That God loves us and wants us to know our purpose and find joy in the discovery. Or, that the massive amount of universal love energy in the universe always supports our efforts.
Does this mean we get a “get into heaven” free card? Well, No.
I believe it means that the process of transformation is what matters, not the perfunctory process of seeking penance and salvation. It means we have the answers right here. We have thew power within us to find peace and to live a life of gratitude.
At least that is what I gleaned from this process.
Another really cool thing happened as well.
In the world of social media reels, I saw one with Ricky Gervais. He is answering a question about why he chooses to be a good person and do good things if he doesn’t have to. His character is an Atheist and thus does not believe in afterlife or heaven. Since he “doesn’t have to get into heaven” why bother being a good person?
It made me realize that many of the world’s most amazing people are good not because they are admonished to be by their religious practices, but just because they want to be. I saw so much of the Step Five process at work here. Life is not a list of transgression shared for the purpose of admonition, repentance and thus admission into heaven, it is a process of mutual growth and sharing.
It is about transformation in the spirit of love. It is about self-acceptance and self-forgiveness.
It is about love. (and who doesn’t benefit from that?!)