This morning a banner ad popped up for a site called, "Raw Confessions". The ad encouraged people to "confess anonymously to billions." Hmm, I wondered, what is the appeal of that invitation?? I did click on the address, and ended up with the options of "Confess" or "Browse Confessions." Thinking this was probably a site I should add to my filter's "Not Allowed" list, I chose "Browse Confessions."
What a shock! Dana anonymously confessed she had finally cracked and yelled at a cyclist on an "no-cycling" footpath! Shelly confessed that her mother could not get good medical care and she was sick and tired of it; ("Sorry" commented that she could not believe Shelly's account and Shelly retorted she was sorry that "Sorry" was "not a caring person." ) Well, if I had hoped for a 2006 version of the old "True Confessions" magazines I used to ogle at the checkout counter in the '70's, I was sorely disappointed.
Then I pondered what Raw Confessions I might make, of the same "bare-all" variety I had read. I might confess I had left an open Tupperware with cantaloupe in it on my kitchen counter when I went to bed last night and it was covered with tiny flies this morning when I woke up! Or that I have on more than one occasion pretended to be a bona fide customer in order to use a "Customers Only" restroom. (Please don't tell anyone.) I have never stooped so low as to take home a roll of toilet paper from a public bathroom when I knew I was about to run out at home and was running too late to stop at the store, but the thought has crossed my mind. I don't know if that would count on Raw Confessions.
On a more risky, personal level, I might confess that I have (not very often, of course) lied to someone about making a phone call I had promised to make when I just have not gotten around to it. I have more than once lied about my weight on some form that requests that somehow pertinent information. I have even lied to myself about my weight!!
I have told an ostensibly needy person that I didn't have any change, when I knew if I looked I could find plenty. Once I drove through the "correct change only" lane of a toll booth when I did not have the right amount. I didn't wait for the "Thank You" light but just kept going. I never looked back. I have told my children the chocolate was all gone when I was really just waiting for them to go to bed so I could have it with a cup of coffee and five minutes peace.
These kind of confessions are easy to make and they do have a certain appeal for the confessors, I think, though they are pretty disappointing for the salacious among us (not me) who want to read something really juicy. Confession is good for the soul, if it is genuine and not half-hearted. But we can twist even the lovely grace of confession by dissimulation and minimizing. I read a hilarious spoof at the fake Christian news site, LarkNews, about a man who had to find a different fellowship group since he was obviously too sinful for his current group. He had confessed to a problem with lust and pornography and found no one else in the all-male group could relate to him at all. He was the only one with a problem.
Haven't we all been there? Maybe we never actually make the confession, we only imagine making it, and we just know that no one else we know struggles with the particular sins we do and that we would be shunned and shamed if we admitted them. So we all make sure our Raw Confessions are pretty tame; we sound disclosing, but we are really hiding. We all spend our lives showing our best selves to one another, tossing the pile of dirty laundry behind the shower curtain when company comes, lighting the scented candles to cover the odor of the catbox- which- hasn't- been- emptied- for- days, sucking in our stomachs when we walk past the mirror, preferring to undress in candlelight rather than flourescence (this is a really good idea, incidentally.)
You get the point. And no, I am not about to make any really raw confessions here. But I need to make sure I make tham before the Almighty; that I don't make the easy ones but figure He'd be too shocked if He knew what I was really like. And I need to practice making some relatively raw confessions to my friends as well, for their sakes as well as mine. Not because misery loves company but because we all need to know we are not alone and we can be forgiven. We need to allow our friends to minister the absolution, "Your sins are forgiven" to us, and to free them to make their own raw confessions.
I still may go back to that site and tell the anonymous billions about that time when I thought no one was looking and I . . . .
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