Confessions and Lessons...
My thoughts and beliefs have drastically changed from those days when I had to go to church for Sunday mass. LOL! I'd have to get up early to get ready in my "Sunday best," only to then fall asleep during mass. When I was a kid this was okay, even kinda cute while my dad held me as I slept. It wasn't so cute anymore, when I got bigger and older. Hahaha!
I remember going to an all girl Catholic school when I was quite young and that was where I was prepared to take my First Communion. This is a big deal and somewhat of a rite of passage. But even before the communion ceremony, I first had to learn about The Confessional and confessing my sins. Seriously, at a young age of like six maybe seven, what could be my worst sin? For me, it was probably scheming how to get more candy from my grandpa.
But anyways, I remember having to go to my first confession and my knees were shaking and my hands were sweating. I knew the words to say to start because we learned it, but to actually reveal my sin?! Was I going to get in trouble? Were the nuns going to tell my parents? Would I have to miss recess?!
So, there I went. "Forgive me Father for I have sinned... This is my first confession..."
Funny thing is... that's where most of my memory ends. I don't remember much after that. I don't really remember what I told the priest. I might have made something up. Which would be kinda funny, but bad, cause technically, I would have lied during my First Communion. But anyways, I must have got through it okay, since I did go through my First Communion and went through the whole regalia. But after that, I can only count a handful of times, maybe even less than five times, that I've actually gone through Confession.
Maybe, I'm just not a big fan of reciting 10 Hail Mary's and 10 Our Father's to atone for my sin of the moment. I'm not really sure. So... why am I yammering on about this?
Because... just the other day, I read an article that said authors need to share the lessons they are learning. I am completely open to sharing lessons, but somehow when I was reading this article, the issue of "confessing" kept coming up in my head.
I was thinking that sharing the lesson may not be enough. Lessons are extremely important, don't get me wrong, but the end result, after I've figured something out -- that's the cleaned-up, edited, fast-forwarded version of what happened. But confessing... that's putting it out there. Sharing the dirty and the ugly and maybe even the painful process of how I learned the lesson in the first place.
The article said, use a public forum, like a blog or social media to essentially journal the lessons. I wasn't too crazy about that. I'm very private. I have no problem letting my imagination get overzealous, but to actually share real life personal experiences... that's tough for me, but that's when I realized, that is exactly the author's intent.
It's supposed to be tough. The exercise should stretch personal boundaries and comfort zones. To go beyond... I think that ultimately, the lesson in this exercise is... growth.
I'm going to try it and this is the space for this experiment. I'm not sure what will come out, but I hope that it'll be somehow useful to both you and me.