A Culture Without Intimacy

 My friend Donna came into the center a few days ago, and afterwards we sat on the couch and talked for a long time. During her session, she had some amazing epiphanies…but then again, that’s Donna. She’s wide open to messages from Spirit, and she channels words of wisdom wherever she goes.

We sat there on the couch, talking with great depth of sharing. We held hands as she spoke, unafraid to be as close as only close friends can be. Her insights were beautiful, words that healed both her heart and mine simultaneously. Such conversations are precious, mostly because they happen so rarely. How often does one allow oneself to feel this vulnerable? These days, in this culture, moments like this are endangered species.

I have found, as I have gotten older, that intimate moments between friends have become less common. When I was younger, we had no cell phones, no internet, no texting. The only way to really talk to someone was to talk over the house phone, in person, or, as they did in the old days, write long letters that went on for pages and pages.

In highschool, I remember spending four hours on the phone one night with my best friend Russell; Russell was brilliant, amazingly insightful, and, little did we know then, starting to feel the presence of Schizophrenia. To be let in on his world, intellectually and emotionally, was both beautiful and terrifying. But we were like that…intimate friends with no walls. I wonder now if those conversations would have happened if we had access to text messages. Would I still have heard the mania and magic in his voice? Would we still have been able to connect deeply if it were all just little words on a screen?

It’s hard to be vulnerable via text. One can write a quick email, shoot off a text, stay in contact and yet never really connect. There’s no intimacy. We have an excuse to listen more to our own inner chatter than we do to another’s thoughts and dreams. We can break up with a lover and never see the pain reflected in their eyes, or send off a cruel email to an insubordinate without having the courage to reach out and actually mentor or truly lead. We’ve become a world of blabbering heads…we talk about us, we sell, we push our messages and agendas out to the masses, we control. But do we really get vulnerable, get deep into the dirt, tell our truths and be present, heart and soul, for others? No. Not so much.

I want to be vulnerable. It scares the crud out of me, but I long for it. I want to be who I am and not just a mask. I want to be there for others, as well. Only after being willing to make your heart intimate can you really enjoy being intimate on other levels…mentally, physically, and sexually. But again, you must feel safe, loved, and not used or manipulated. How glorious would that be?

For a long time, my friend Donna and I got to that space. In a quiet room, huddled on the couch, talking and whispering like children in awe of a big secret, we dared to share our frailties with each other. In that moment, we were one, and I loved her dearly for loving me and being bold enough to channel her soul. It was beautiful, this togetherness. And it made me wonder why I didn’t invite this into my life more often. This is the good stuff; this is what life is really all about.

The Nature of Love for the Over Forty Crowd

“I can understand having issues over trust.” My girlfriend explained to me over her Starbucks. “I’ve worked hard for what I have. My house is paid off, and so is my car. I’ve built a life for myself. Why would I invite someone in to that? Why would I risk losing it all?”

I double-blinked at her. Weren’t we talking about love? Weren’t we dreaming over finding our soulmates?

“I guess I’m really happy by myself,” she mused on. “He can have his house, I’ll have mine. Everything would be separate, if I got involved again. Maybe someday.” She ended on a deep sigh.

We had been talking about a mutual friend, whom I’ll call Gina. Gina had an old lover pop back into her life recently, and because both parties were more afraid of love than they were attracted to each other, he became more and more distant and she demanded constant conditions on how the relationship would proceed. It only took two weeks before the whole relationship disintegrated into a pile of tears for Gina. However, the next day she was happy and said that she was “relieved”, glad that she had steered clear of a disaster.

“I’ve known him for thirteen years.” She had said. “I’ve never been able to trust him. Something always comes before me, with him, and I need to be first.”

I wondered, was this even a realistic request in a new relationship? But if not, why wasn’t it? Is love, true love, filled with so much self concern?

I remember being young and open for love. It was all still new. I remember being in love with William when I was twenty years old. I would have done anything for him, and pretty much did. My step-father didn’t approve of him, so at twenty-one, with no money and a part-time retail job, I moved in with my friend Katie just so I could see Will on a steady basis. Was it financially stupid? Of course. I had no idea about what I was doing. I slept on an air mattress, ate cheap food, barely had enough gas to put in my car. But Will was mine.

I remember how whenever I saw him my breath would catch, every time. He was so beautiful to me. I wanted to know everything about him, every interest, every hobby. What fascinated him? What broke his heart? What lifted him up? I couldn’t bear to let him go at the end of the night, and would talk to him for hours at night on the phone, waiting for him to fall asleep so I could hear him breathe on the other end, slow and rhythmic, until it put me to sleep. The phone line would be open all night, with both of us fast asleep, receiver tucked under our ears. 

Making love on that tiny air mattress was pure bliss. Wrapped around each other, I’d beg him to breathe to me, and in a deep kiss he’d exhale and I’d pull his breath into my lungs. I wanted to become a part of him, and hated the boundary of bone and skin. On occasion I came dangerously close to bruising him, holding so tightly, nails dug into his back, willing myself inside of his flesh. I was lost, and wanted to be lost. Nothing else mattered.

Four years later, William broke up with me. My world stopped, went into slow motion. I begged, pleaded, promised anything to make him stay. But when one is no longer in love, there is nothing to be done. Feeling guilty for hurting me, he tried to make it work, but I felt his sadness and knew that I was the cause of it. I had caged the wild bird for my pleasure, but when he would gaze out the window instead of gazing at me, there was no pleasure to be found, only agony. All he wanted to do was fly. With a broken heart, I opened the cage door…neither one of us could be together once his love had left. It was done.

Now in my forties, I find that, somehow, passion has been squeezed out of us older folk. It’s no longer about love and intimacy; relationships now seem to be about business matters. Do you have a decent job? Can I see your financials? How’s your health? What type of insurance plan do you have? Love is a business contract among the over forty crowd. And at the first sign of passion, we run screaming, “Eek! Stalker! Fatal attraction”

Sex turns into something that you just kind of do. Do our parts fit together? Do you snore when it’s over? With William, I remember trembling in his arms, needing his touch so desperately that I thought I’d burn up. There’s a line in a Dire Straights song, Romeo and Juliette, that has Romeo saying, “Juliette, when we made love, you used to cry.” With William, I did, every time. But once we hit over forty, we desensitized old folks merely roll over and go to sleep, like nothing wonderfully beautiful had ever happened, because for us, it didn't. We go through the motions as if we weren’t even present.

True intimacy happens later. I have been speaking of early, romantic love, which does evolve into something deeper. Love, hopefully, gets stronger after challenges. Two people grow, compromise, fight, go through Hell and back, and eventually stand together, knowing that their partner, their love, is the extension of themselves. But this rarely happens any more…it’s easier to give up, move on, and get free of the things that could have brought them closer together. I’m guilty of this, too. How can we demand trust when we are so selfish? How can my friend say, “Trust is an issue, and if I love again, I’m keeping my stuff separate”? Why do we expect surrender of others if we will not give of ourselves freely?

It seems to me that by forty, we should be better at intimacy, not worse. We should know how to love completely, not to be jaded and selfish and wall ourselves away from it.

When William left me, I thought I’d die. I really did. The agony I went through was more than I was able to bear…I even had a night of such severe panic that I knew I had been on the verge of slipping into a breakdown. The insanity was creeping in, and it was only because of the visit from a divine friend that I am here, and sane, today. He anchored me and brought me back to this world. I was that close, and I was willing to go through that door and not come back. My mind was that fragile.

But the funny thing is, I would gladly trade my now jaded heart for the one I had back then, all those years ago. I may have been needy and immature, but I FELT SOMETHING. I was alive, I was willing, and I had someone in my life that I would have walked through fire for. Now I only have emptiness and memories. I am so well walled and protected that I have become the caged bird who gazes out the window.

But I still have some passion left. Maybe, someday, he will come to set me free. And his bank account won’t matter at all.

The Healer's Walk

Choosing to be a healer can be a rough professional choice.

There are aspects of it that are so amazingly rewarding. Miracles happen, lives change, education transpires and enlightenment reaches once confused vessels of clay. Sometimes, with full-on ego, or with quiet humility, the healer steps back and observes that he or she has just been a part of something really big. A life was touched and transformed, as a flower is kissed by sunlight and at once opens its petals to bloom happily for all to see. And we, the channels of such light, stand back and say (in our best Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure voice), "Whoa..."

These moments are the rare times that keep us filled with hope and dedication. However, they are also the few and far in-between. The typical scenario can instead be depressing, discouraging, and it twists our souls into calloused and desensitized goblins of being. It is a wonder why so many of us are eager to jump into this line of work. We enter it full of ideals, full of intentions that our light will change the world into a beautiful Utopia on Earth. And then reality hits, and hits hard.

We give of ourselves so thoroughly that we drop our boundaries; we allow clients to invade our space, and we take on troubles and exhaustion willingly because we convince ourselves that we are stronger than our clients and therefore we can bear the weight so much easier than they can. We fight for our patients, lecture and plead with them, wrap our identity and self-worth around their journey each and every step of the way. And then finally, sadly, we break down. We get sick. We get tired. And then we have to face the obvious: only our clients can choose to heal themselves. We can't do it for them. And, the truth is, most people refuse the chance to heal. They just won't do the work.

I find that most illnesses are caused by the long-term choices we make on a daily basis. Many issues can be resolved easily by a change of diet; others will require more work, such as an exercise program or the giving up of an addiction (smoking, overeating, drugs or alcohol, coffee, etc.). Some actually require a major lifestyle change, which may include moving away from toxic people (family, friends, an abusive spouse, etc.). A gentleman who was here yesterday is chronically dehydrated; all he needs to do is to drink water. He wants to feel better, wants to detoxify and get his life back, but he barely eats and refuses to drink. Tall and emaciated, already the recipient of a stroke at 27 years old due to a lack of movement, water and decent food, he spends his days in his parent's basement smoking pot and wasting away. He says he wants to get better, that he's not "giving up", but this otherwise gentle soul is doing nothing to save himself. And no one can want it more than him.

People want overnight miracles. Anything that is subtle or gradual isn't a happy option. They try things once, and if the hand of Jesus didn't reach down from the sky and drop their illnesses, like scales, to the ground, then they're done. And they refuse to take responsibility; its the healer's fault, they must be a charlatan, otherwise years of chronic pain would dry up within seconds. And they want to heal immediately WHILE STILL holding on to their poor eating habits, toxic friends and ugly addictions. How do you heal someone who wants to stay as they are?

Some people, those who I'm grateful for, know that it doesn't realistically happen overnight. It takes work and discipline, both on the side of the healer and of the patient. It takes a willingness to let go of your old patterns and the courage to put yourself first...not selfishly, where no one else matters, but "self first", where you realize that you can't be strong for others if you can't carry your own weight. Someone who understands healing knows that if they are unstable, then they have nothing to give, so they learn to say no to outside pressures to conform, learn to push aside naysayers, learn to focus on what they need to do to become balanced. Only then can they emerge and spread more light.

To be a healer, you must become aware. You must see and know who truly wants to heal, and who just wants to waste your time. You must honor EVERYBODY'S individual choice of journey, even if its not one you would choose for yourself. And you must honor yourself first, your own precious light, and guard it with all the selfless love you have within. To love yourself is the most selfless thing you can do...otherwise, your heart will break under the weight of all those who have already given up on themselves. There will never be anything that you can do for them. And that is the true sadness of being a healer.

Bounded or Unbounded?

New Year's Eve found me at dinner with a small group of friends and respected associates. We were gathered at an Indian restaurant, and it was a rare night for me; I was eating food, real food. Why, you might ask, was this so odd?

Sixteen months ago, after an evening where my heart had palpitations so strong that I feared a heart attack, I went on a strict diet. Due to the shape of my body, I found that a rice-based protein powder from a company called Metagenics had amazing results for me. In short, I walked away from food...ALL food...and ate (or drank) nothing but Metagenics Macro and Ultraclear Plus pH.

Both of these products assist the body in detoxification and gut repair; they are termed as a "medical food", properly balanced, nutritious, and easily digestible. My body thrives on it. My chronic pain became manageable, my anemia went away, my energy improved...for fifteen years, as a certified colon hydrotherapist, one-time massage therapist, and professional in the alternative medicine field, I tried EVERYTHING, every supplement, digestive aid and therapy in the book. Suddenly, by simply walking away from food, I felt so much better it was amazing. And for sixteen months I have done well.

People look at me oddly and try to shake me from my chosen path. I get comments about how I'm probably malnourished, and that one of these days my body will break down because of some missing vitamin that I don't regularly get. My bright eyes and good skin tone don't seem to speak for themselves. The comments are usually condescending, spoken usually by someone who has never experienced the frustration of dealing with chronic, autoimmune pain and issues. Everyone knows what's best for me, despite the fact that I protest and tell them that I AM BETTER and have been doing quite well.

I had a chance to go back to regular food for a while; financial issues on my part, coupled with holiday company closures, left me without my precious powder for a week. I was forced to eat real food to survive...I have never been anorexic, never had any signs of an eating disorder, and I hate being hungry. I stayed gluten, dairy, chocolate, tomato, and soy free since I have allergies to all of them. I also stayed vegan. My typical foods were rice, beans, veggies and apples. Within 24 hours I felt heavy, lightheaded and moody. I couldn't wait to get my next shipment of powder.

At the New Year's Eve dinner, I ordered Aloo Gobi: potatoes and cauliflower mixed with herbs and spices, gluten-free, over white rice. One associate snidely commented, "So, food is good, huh?"

It took everything I had to not rip his face off. His girlfriend (an animal communicator) then started lecturing me on how I needed digestive enzymes to transition back to food and kept hounding the issue, despite me telling her that, yes, as a colon hydrotherapist, I am in fact aware of that, and no, after several years of eating food and spending hundreds of dollars on HCL, digestive enzymes, and probiotics, popping several pills before and after each and every meal, my food NEVER digested well. I have noticed no difference in how I feel now digesting food verses how I felt then. But she kept pressing until I rudely told her that the conversation was DONE. Everyone went into uncomfortable silence for a moment or two. I voiced my boundary, and no one liked it.

As a slight side note: my digestion always went smoothly with my powder. Good bowel movements, no bloating, no belching...and energy after each meal verses feeling sluggish after real food. I know, too much information...but I'm trying to be clear.

We can be such a weak species. I am, too. Many times I have forced my opinions on others, telling myself that I am only helping, yet what I'm doing is trying to upgrade my self-worth by controlling someone else. We do this to each other; we control, dominate, force others to not think too independently because it ruffles the tribe. And I think that, in my case, no one wants to admit that maybe powder is a better solution to our pesticide-ridden, GMO, chemical and antibiotic infused edibles. We like our addictions, and to stand face-to-face with a mirror that says, "hey, maybe we should rethink this food thing," is not something that we want to see. It scares us, like standing too close to a sick person; it might be catchy. So we dictate, dominate and run over another's free will and choice without a thought. Our comfort is all that matters, NOT their empowerment.

My powdered nourishment should be delivered today. I am expecting that those close to me, now relieved that I am eating again, will protest loudly when I go back to full-time meals-in-a-glass. And I will try to defend myself with emotion and experience that they don't understand. But I need to be stronger...I owe NO ONE an explanation of my choice. I am an adult, I know how I feel, and all I need to say is, "Thank you for the concern, it is noted, and I have made my choice." PERIOD. No other defense is necessary.

My boundaries are up. I look forward to the day when I am so relaxed with myself that boundaries kept this ridged are no longer needed. Instead of looking for a fight, I will then just laugh at my silly friends and walk away, knowing that they are merely scared of a weird ripple in their pond. And may I, too, be honoring of all those weird ripples in my pond, as well. Let us be empowered and true to ourselves, and know in our hearts that we are safe.

The Grinch Who Survived Christmas

I admit it wholeheartedly; I, dear readers, am a Grinch. Christmas has turned into my least favorite holiday, and it's all I can stand to just get through it.

There's no magic in it anymore. What have we done? We have been brainwashed into the "corporate" view of Christmas: more presents, more decorations, more food, more wine. More shopping, more debt, more traffic, more crazy people pepper-spraying fellow shoppers at a Walmart to grab the last X-Box. More and more, bigger and better, keep up with the Jones' and max out your ego. For two months, insanity reigns, and Christmas carols bombard us in stores and television ads to get us into the mood to shop incessantly. Stress to arrange parties, plan huge meals, decorate, get everything done in a timely fashion rides high throughout late November and all of December. The pressure in on, and afterward  I hear the majority of the people say, "Thank God it's over."

Thank God it's over? Then why are we doing this idiotic ritual? Was this what Christmas was supposed to be about? Did Jesus add a new commandment, "Thou shall shop 'til thy drop, in My name"?

Let me tell you when Christmas was last sacred and magical to me. I was a child, on a quiet night, alone in my living room while my parents were in the other room watching television. The lights were out, and the Christmas tree was directly in front of me, five feet away. I gazed at the lights blinking at me. The ornaments I knew well...each had a special meaning in my child's mind. One celebrated my first Christmas, and another was a converted card from my grandmother. Others had stories that I made up about them; the birds with the long feathered tails had names and histories, and the fabric elves played together when we all went to bed. The angel above looked down upon me and smiled. I could stare at that tree for hours and hours, not moving, completely captured by the beauty of color, lights, and sacred objects.

And then there was Santa Claus. A child has a hard time imagining God, but Santa was clearly attainable...you could write letters to him, and see him in the department stores. Santa WAS magic; he knew who you were, could see inside your soul, and on Christmas Eve night I left out the best cookies for him as my respectful offering. He had a long journey, and he must have been starving! And if not him, then surely the reindeer might like a bite, too.

Did I think he would bring me loot? Sure! I was a spoiled brat already brainwashed. But I thought the Tooth Fairy was amazingly magical, too, and she just left me a quarter. With proper training, I would never have known what I was missing...it would have been enough to have been visited personally by the Divine, and if left a small token, I would have joyously seen it as a sign of approval. I think that would have been more than enough for me.

I read an article on Yahoo a few weeks ago about how Justin Beiber (I'm not a fan, by the way) was told "the truth" by his mother when he was a child. This boy grew up without a Santa Claus. I felt sad for him; to have been selfishly excluded from The Mystery at so young an age just breaks my heart. Christmas was magic to me because of the beauty, the stillness, and the Divine Presence pulsating around my home on Christmas Eve. I had hoped that night that I would be honored with a glimpse of what was beyond ordinary reality. The possibilities took my breath away.

When Santa turned out to be nothing more than my exhausted parents shoving presents under the tree, when Dad turned out to be the guy eating my cookie offerings and dumping out the milk in the sink (he was lactose intolerant), my world became smaller. And when I worked retail for several years at the end of my teens and saw how people really treated each other during the Christmas shopping rush, it became smaller still. Where was the Divine? In Macy's we trust? Really?

If this makes me a Grinch, then I'm all for it. I look forward to my ghostly visitations from the Spirits of Past, Present and Future. Take me away and show me the goodness of greedy commercial insanity, where carols are no longer special because they are played incessantly everywhere for two months. Show me how social guilt, which causes everyone to max out their credit cards for the benefit of the banks and large corporate interests, is a wonderful thing. I want someone to explain it to me. Because, I gotta tell you, Christmas now just makes me feel dead inside. That little girl from years ago has had her heart broken.

Next year, perhaps I will take my Christmas back. Maybe I will decide to believe in Santa Claus again. Maybe I will write him a letter and beg him to come back to us, and ask him to give us the gift of Divine Love. Maybe I'll ask him to lead us out of bondage and to bring us back home, where presents no longer matter, but where the Sacred takes our breath away in happy squeals. That is my Christmas wish to all: may you find where it has been hiding, and may it bless you with abundant love. May you see the magic clearly with the eyes of a child and spread that light wherever you may go.

May the Divine, in whatever form it takes for you, bless you and hold you sacred in this coming New Year.

Bad Poetry Day

I'm not a real poet. At least, not a real good one.

For the bulk of my life, I have never understood poetry. I still can't say that I do. I have no sense of rhythm, rhyme or pacing. But sometimes, on occasion, a feeling chokes me so hard that all I can think about is random images or phrases. Emotions are tricky things...they defy words. Emotions are not of the left brained world. I wish, most times, that I could plug into someone, have them see the pictures flashing through my brain, hear the song (or songs) playing through my head, and let the feelings that are overwhelming me crash about them, frothy beach swirls of liquid turmoil, fluid tendrils reaching up and pulling them seductively into the depths of my sensations. But alas, all I have are words, crusty barnacled trash barfed up by the beauty of the waves underneath. Words are no match for experience. The intensity loses much in the translation.

So, is my barnacled drivel any good? Nope. My stuff is rubbish in the grand world of poetry. I am a great admirer of people who can write well...I may not read a lot of poetry, but I'm pretty keen on song lyrics. My songwriting heroes can do things with words that completely blow me away. Joni Mitchell, Sarah McLaughlin, Chris Cornell, Steve Hogarth from Marillion...I would give up a kidney to be able to write as well as they do. But it's not quite my gift, so instead, dear readers, you get the kindergarten attempts below.

This first poem was from a day when I felt so much inside, yet I had no way to give it an outlet. Ever feel that way? Below the surface, emotions churned and threatened to crack my whole body. I always see it as a black hole in my center, ready to quickly explode, then reverse and implode down into a tiny, heavy, microscopic dot in the effort to maintain control. It then turns into a weird feeling...to be so full, yet so empty...so full of passion, and yet dead inside. How does one reconcile such extremes?

Sunbaked earth
Hot dry land
Fertile mud drained into useless dust
Water travels
Trapped underneath
Flows through labyrinth caves of hollow emptiness
I can't swim
My breath runs out
This cavern, so full, suffocates and warps heart and soul
Ground above
Cracks with tremors
As all implodes within
----------------------------------------

This next one is really old. Its from the last time that I was in love. I now think that the man in question is a complete toad, and I have no idea why I was ever attracted to him, let alone in love with him. At the time, however, I was pretty heartbroken. Isn't it funny when you can look back in time and ask yourself, with raised eyebrow and scornful eyes, "What the heck was I thinking? Yuck!"

The mouth
You've kissed
Holds words unsaid
Years of words
Painfully swallowed
Choking my life away
You say you need
Love, but with total freedom
My devotion, but only conveniently
My body, but only when you desire it
But what of me?
Do I not need?
Your taste, your touch
Your eyes speaking volumes
Of tenderness, of sweetness
Of happiness that I am yours
The silence
Yours and mine
Echos against crystal walls within my heart
As I'm left again
Wounded, near death
In unloved darkness

How Long Must the Soul Cry Out?

Now that I'm officially on winter break I can begin reading fun books again. I recently borrowed from a friend Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy by Eric Metaxas. I have a stack of books on my nightstand begging to be read, but they'll just have to wait until I can manage to get through these 624 pages.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a Lutheran theologian and pastor who made the difficult decision to be part of a plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler. After an unsuccessful attempt, he was arrested, placed in a concentration camp and later executed for his actions against the Reich. At a time when many other "Christian" leaders were condoning Hitler's Final Solution, Bonhoeffer became one of the first to not only speak out against Hitler, but to actually risk his life in order to prevent the genocide from continuing.  Though I've barely begun, I am looking forward to getting deeper inside this book to learn all about Bonhoeffer's heroic story.

I see in Bonhoeffer qualities that I wish I had. Here was a man of exquisite intelligence. His thirst for knowledge, his natural curiosity, was limitless. With a nimble mind and an affinity for deep subjects, Bonhoeffer never shied away from troubling topics or discussions, but instead excelled at working out difficult solutions and devising unique perspectives. He was full of life and passion, and through amazing discipline, he channeled his energies into expanding who he was while staying humble and grateful. This expansion lead him to alter the lives of so many others in positive ways. How I wish that I was more like this. I know it all comes down to a moment of decision and commitment; and yet, I seem to just keep falling back to old, easy, uninspired patterns.

As my last post shows, I have been depressed and struggling with the image of the person that I have become. Bad choices, careless actions, and a twisted pride alienated me and actually kept me from reaching my true potential. I have wished over and over and over again that I could change who I am. Interestingly, an insight from Bonhoeffer could be the answer, if only I can muster up the courage to move forward with it.

Bonhoeffer had a time in his late teens when he looked at the Catholic Church with interest, but not as a convert. He had spent time in Rome and was fascinated by the history that was intertwined with the religion. To be Catholic was to be Roman (after Constantine and the Nicaean Council, of course). He contemplated the early theologians and the Catholic sacraments; did the sacraments, as practiced by the church today, still mean what they originally meant to the faithful?

I found myself laughing at this. I remembered the sacrament of Confession; as a young Roman Catholic girl, I went to St. Mary's Elementary School and was taught how to successfully confess all of my sins. If I had none, I was told to go into the quiet box and whisper a sin that I had made up. To lie was a sin, unless it helped you to fulfill your duty in the confessional.

Once I confessed whatever ugliness my young child mind was capable of creating (it was never THAT exciting...I had a reputation as a "good girl" to maintain, or else I had to withstand my parents' wrath), the priest would gently tell me to go say three Hail Mary's, two Our Fathers, yada yada. That was penance. Go to the front of the church, kneel down and count out your prayer list. Easy, peasy...sin's all gone! For centuries this has been the way to clear your soul in the eyes of the church: confess, pray your list or pay the priest money (a.k.a. Black Market Absolution), and your soul is squeaky clean again. Off you go to sin again, for you are a sinning human by design and changing your ways is not in the cards. See you next week! Next sinner, please...

In my struggle with myself, I have begun to see this sacrament differently. Grace and absolution isn't that easy, nor should it be. I view the concept of "sin" not as "inherent evil in the human soul", but as a separation. Sin, to me, is to be separate from The Great Mystery. It is to be separate from your own soul. It is when your divine light births itself into the world, and you are taught from that time to love, to trust, to believe in yourself is wrong. You are trained to be a puppet of others so that they can manipulate you into something small, and for the rest of your life you believe it. That, to me, is sin. And I have sinned fully, faithfully and completely.

To confess, to me, is not something one does lightly. It is not a weekly ritual. It is the time when one gazes at oneself and sees that one has done damage. It may be damage to others, or it may be damage to oneself. The sinner realizes that they are separated from who they truly are, and they fall to their knees, weeping, understanding that in order to move forward they must make the decision to change and commit with full mind, body and soul. An alcoholic cries, sees how he's hurt his family, and he is not only sorry, but vows to never do this action again. An addict realizes that they have degraded themselves, and with threadbare soul chooses another life that will revalue their self worth. Confession should not be an empty act. Confession should be a point of cataclysmic change. The soul has cried out, has spoken volumes within a quivering mass of flesh, and that flesh becomes reborn, humbly, into a new life.

Though I speak of Confession in Christian terms, no one religion has a monopoly on this sacrament. It goes beyond religion. Whenever a person has a moment of profound sorrow and regret that brings upon a life conversion, it is an act of Spirit. Somewhere, somehow, divine light breaks through, and if the ego mind is strong enough, courageous enough, to submit to Spirit, then anything is possible in the convert's life. Anything.

I have confessed over and over, but I have been stuck in my childlike training that three Hail Mary's and two Our Fathers can make everything okay. Just take a pill and you will heal, no diet change or exercise plan necessary. But it doesn't work like that. I must be brave and strong; I must want a change so badly that to rest in my twisted comfort zone is more painful than the effort I must put into something better. I have to stop being a victim, stop blaming God, parents, a bad economy, etc. It is the choice of responsibility; I have to quite whining and grow up.

I pray for the gift of grace and strength. Something's got to give. It's time to channel the spirit of Bonhoeffer. Will my courage hold out? I can only pray that it will.