A Cyber Confession
What's the one thing you've done no one else can ever know?
The mere thought of dredging up some dark and hidden sin, inspires a hard gulping swallow, a pounding heart and perhaps a blush on the cheeks.
Unconfessed sin left festering deep in our psyche can cause psychosomatic illness. It gnaws on our conscience and robs us of inner peace and tranquility. Sin simply means missing the mark or misusing the full potential of the gifts God has given us.
The Epistle of James chapter 5:16 tells us: "Confess your trespasses to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The effective fervent prayer of the righteous man avails much."
The early Christian church believers practiced something that today would be considered radical. They practiced public confession...confessing sins publicly in the context of community. The practice become over time unworkable, causing division, scandal and rancor in the church. The church community representative, the priest, was eventually charged with listening to confessions and the sacrament of confession developed to fulfill the healing and restorative benefits of confession.
Our western society has difficulty with the concept of confession and sin. Admitting that we have sinned to a person or group somehow negatively impacts us in a culture artificially propped up with issues of self image and self esteem. It's not my fault; it is someone else's, etc., etc. Yet as the saying goes, we need to sometimes "get something off our chests". We now can do that easily without exposure or repentance. There are now quick convenient and anonymous ways to deal with those nagging indiscretions of ours: cyberspace confessions. It is the internet confessional. It's trendy and catching on.
Have some slip-ups to shake loose and can't or won't make it down to the parish priest? No problem. Just have them absolved and dealt with by posting them online at an e-confessional. You're just a few keystrokes away from artificially deleting a guilty conscience. These sites offer other the chance to see what you've posted and see if your sins are comparable or as grievous as theirs.
What a voyeuristic bonus! The rest of the world can get online and identify with the transgressions of others. And consider the therapeutic benefits in this system. We can delude ourselves into thinking how very good we are in comparison to others. Who needs a priest or time of prayer and self reflection anymore? We can fool ourselves by thinking we can hide from God. We get trapped into a false reality which accommodates itself to our comfort level of anonymous silence.
Yet, divorced from God's love, mercy and forgiveness, turning our backs on the light who is Christ, the shadows grow dark and deep. We still flirt and are secretly confused by dark thoughts; dark words; dark emotions; dark actions; dark omissions. Yes, we are hiding from the living God, and we are overwhelmed by the shadowy monsters we create by our own sin.
True confession before God, whether in the solitude of a repentant heart or before a priest in the sacrament of confession, leads to healing. The confession of a contrite heart restores a right relationship with a relational God. Confession isn't an information transfer; it is a relational healing.
That is why "share-a-sin" on an e-confessional site is such a tawdry distortion of the true spiritual rhythm of confession. Cyber-confession is anonymous. Christian sacramental confession is personal. Cyber-confession is the announcement of wrongs to an impersonal Web site. Christian sacramental confession is ownership of wrongs to a personal and caring God. Cyber-confession results in entertainment for others. Christian sacramental confession results in re-connection of damaged relationships with others.
Whether you go to confession or not. Whether you are a believer or not. Whether you believe that all of this is medieval superstitions and dead and brittle fairytales, at least let the words of this confessional prayer, penetrate beneath any cynicism, anger, and personal bitterness. May these words soften your heart.
"Most merciful God, I confess that I have sinned against you in thought, word and deed, by what I have done and by what I left undone. I have not loved you with my whole heart. I have not loved my neighbor as myself. I am truly sorry and I humbly repent. Have mercy upon me and forgive me; that I may delight in your will, and walk in your ways, to glory of your name. Amen"
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I get where this priest is coming from but the entire concept of "being in darkness" from the light of God, confessing to a priest etc. is bogus because it is believed to be true.
What is truly DARK are the unconsciou
If God IS the one as Jesus once said "In Him, we move and have our Being" then "god" is the Unified Field of Consciousness, period. We cannot be separate from that. If the nature of that "god" or Consciousness is Love, then we cannot be separate from THAT. If it is conditional "love" then it is not Love truly and it is not "god".
A great sage of India, Ramana Maharshi said that the simplest thing is to abide IN and AS the Self. To be identified with the Unified Field of Consciousness which is the Source condition of all Life. We ARE That. The sense of separation arises when we identify with the body rather than the life force which animates the body. Churches are well aware of the sense of separation and they've made a racket out of it.
Tithe, buy indulgences and the sin on your soul will be wiped clean and you will no longer be "separate" from God. As if that were even possible..
Heretics unite!
(or don't, if that's your particular trip.)
A thoughtful post from one perspective, followed by (mostly) much more widely relevant responses from a variety of divergent viewpoints.
God knows I love the HuffPo - no pun intended.
Well, maybe a little... ;)
Boy its good to be an atheist. None of that "Catholic guilt" to drag around with all those silly nonsense "sins".
Agreed. There is no such thing as sin. What a waste of the precious time we have on this earth worrying about non-existent entities or ideas.
PART ONE OF A TWO PART RESPONSE:
Confession calls for a belief in the concept of sin. That word "sin" has a good many meanings according to particular faith traditions, moral and ethical beliefs, a good many of us would agree that it hasn't got a universal definition, but rather, a general direction it takes in use. Here's a definition I found:
A transgression of a religious or moral law, especially when deliberate.
Theology.
Deliberate disobedience to the known will of God.
A condition of estrangement from God resulting from such disobedience.
Something regarded as being shameful, deplorable, or utterly wrong.
intr.v., sinned, sin·ning, sins.
To violate a religious or moral law.
To commit an offense or violation.
[Middle English sinne, from Old English synn.]
This seems to imply that we can know the will of God. That is a rather large implication. It assumes that we can know what God is, and then assumes that God has a will, somewhat like a human being, that we can understand and access. Many would not agree, and I among them stand with my doubts.
Continued
PART TWO:
Many do not believe you can ever be estranged from God, but that you might think, believe or act as if you are capable of estrangement. Mystics of the many faiths do not believe this. Nor do all faiths agree about what a transgression or sin might be.
Many faiths don't have "exterior" laws, but instead are based in a kind of personal integrity that arises out of a practice of an "interior" awareness of consciousness, a rendering of close attention to life itself, of observing ones thoughts, & living in harmony with what learns of life itself.
Many believe there is nothing but God, & that sin is merely a mistaken understanding, an error based in feelings that the good things of life are scarce; that religious laws are exterior to the individual, i.e., imposed by others, & are followed by those who have not learned to develop an interior level of personal integrity that allows them to make harmonious ethical choices for how to live.
Continued.
PART THREE
Each of us needs a level of forgiveness for our mistakes & poor choices. We need to accept responsibility & do what we can to help those we hurt or harm in any way. We need to recognize that when we are genuinely willing to accept responsibility that the satisfaction of our debts to others is determined by those we've hurt. If I hurt someone else, it is s/he who must be satisfied with my apology & my amends because it is s/he who was hurt. My forgiveness of myself does not rely on the acceptance of my efforts to apologize and correct my mistakes, however.
Neither should I "forget" the harm I caused. My mistakes need not be carried like a burden, but lightly as a generous gift that protects me from repeating those same mistakes with anyone else. Consciousness requires that we observe our lives & grow as a result of our expanded expression of personal integrity. As Randy Pausch said in his famous last lecture: "Apologize when you screw up and focus on other people, not yourself."
Like you stated, the cyber-community isn't exactly a safe-haven to put your most personal thoughts and confessions. However, I would like to commend you for coming on here and explaining the importance of releasing our burdens.
I think the main problem is that most people sin so often and so deeply, that they can't imagine a state of being where confessing releases a small burden so we can be closer to God. I can't move forward with a lie on my heart (unless it's part of an important story I'm telling, then I just forgive myself),..
Praise God (and not just because an ordained priest would be an exclusively cool addition to my personal webpage...
jesdakota: Praise God...Any chance you're Catholic?
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Praise God, no.
http://www
Hmmm. Cyber confessional, being "saved" in the collective, morality across the net via Boolian commands. Sounds like another way for the Church to dig its sharp claws into the youth of our country and the world. Keyboard priests as peeping-Toms. Advice from old, sex-less celibates and virgins about modern day issues. Imagine the stories and the advice.
Use reason and scientific enlightenment to understand the threat of the Church. By doing so, it's not being a cynic, it's not anger, and it's not bitterness . . . it's intelligence. Not believing the Medieval fairy tales, fables, and myths is smart.
The apogee of hypocracy of the Church. A sin is an act that violates a moral code, usually a devine set of moral directivesor codes of conduct. Now, the Church offers a way to absolve one's "sins." Why doesn't start with it self?
Wasn't the Church responsible for abuse of young children, denying it, and then hiding it? The Church did not fess up until they were investigated, prosecuted, and sued. Imagine what they can do with a Mac?
http://en.
Beware of the fangs of the "Shadowy Monster's" of the Religious right and the Catholic Church. Next thing you know people will confess via text message. Mobile confessions on your cell phone.
As a student of history and comparative religion, I'd say that there's so much wrong with this article that it's hard to know where to begin. So I'll just list the major errors.
1. Confession is not a sacrament to all Christians.
2. Many Christians reject entirely the concept of a priesthood whose job it is to hear the confessions of others.
3. The practice of confession provides spiritual and psychological benefits regardless of the context in which it is done. AA and other 12 Step groups encourage members to use a sponsor, a friend, a counselor or a pastoral helper when doing the 5th Step of confession.
4. One need not believe in a God figure to get spiritual and psychological benefits from confession. See AA, once again, for a model where any power outside of one's own ego can be used as a higher power.
5. The sacramental church has done more to trivialize the act of confession throughout the centuries than any cyber-confessional ever could. People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.
6. Millions of Buddhists, secular humanists and students of various schools of consciousness demonstrate that it is possible to live a sane and moral life without invoking any conceptual God. This article implies otherwise, That sort of spiritual arrogance has too often led the Church into dark and evil works.
But thanks for sharing, anyway.
Good post.
Otay,
You have said what I wanted to say in response to Father Bakas - and more - but in a more level-headed, less acerbic manner.
I an a member of a worldwide Buddhist lay group who, when excommunicated by our priests in their attempt to take total control of the laity, simply let them and said, "Religion is not about a ritual and we do not need intermediary men to connect us with the truth or offer us spiritual sanctuary.
Father Bakas, you belong to - and make your income from - a religious tradition that literally claims that I cannot create my own spiritual cleansing, but that I need YOU, that you have some special supernatural powers over my own heart and soul that I do not. You may claim that I live in darkness because I have turned my back to God, but you are wrong.
The same patterns of screwed up church behavior are just as endemic to the east as the west. Look in the basements of Tibetan monasteries, and you'll find instruments of torture, just like in the European ones.
I am glad that today, people are free to be athiests, agnostics or believers of every stripe.
And I am also glad that the religous oligarchy - in all its various forms - is losing its death-grip as the light of democracy and a free press shine into its dark corners.
Maybe the good father will respond to my post, but I doubt it.
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