Tiny Desk Confession
There is nowhere to kneel here, no kneelers at all, not even in the chapel. It's because this is a nursing home, for nuns. I joke about how I love coming to Mass here because it all happens from a seated position. Not everyone can stand, so no one does, until it's time for communion (and then, those of us who can, approach the altar, and communion is brought to the seats of those who can't).
I've been reading about grace and how God loves the worst of us, and raging about how ridiculous the other retreatants are, walking slowly and dreamily as if to dedicate how very at prayer they are, how silly the woman who pulled her chair up to gaze at the nativity scene, filled with impossibly white holy family members and wrong-sized animals, and that breather. I ventured out of my room to the community room with my book about the unlovable whom God loves so much, found a cozy chair by the window, and settled in. Eventually The Breather came in, crossing the great room breathing dramatically, and I had to smile. God was following me.
Later still, the Breather came back, and laboriously breathed her way across the room to take a seat right near me. I almost laughed out loud, good one God! I could no longer focus on that damned book about the grace of God, and felt at once convicted and amused.
There are no kneelers here, and no priests, except for the 40 minute mid-day Mass, so I was on my own for confession. I pulled up the prayers of confession and absolution that Nadia Bolz-Weber mentioned in her book, and walked myself through it, at the desk in my little room. I prayed apologies for my awfulness (see above), for my irresponsible misuse or negligence of the gifts God's given me, I begged relief from all that I use to distract me from my own shit.
I read that I'm a sinner, and that although I don't deserve mercy (geez, these Lutherans - and they call it "Catholic guilt?'), it's already mine.
God has already forgiven me, and the act of confessing is more about me reminding myself about that than about asking for it and receiving. It's about reminding me that I'm just as ridiculous as those I ridicule, and God loves me and them, just the same.
A desk is probably the most appropriate setting for my come-to-Jesus moments than kneelers, anyway.
I've been reading about grace and how God loves the worst of us, and raging about how ridiculous the other retreatants are, walking slowly and dreamily as if to dedicate how very at prayer they are, how silly the woman who pulled her chair up to gaze at the nativity scene, filled with impossibly white holy family members and wrong-sized animals, and that breather. I ventured out of my room to the community room with my book about the unlovable whom God loves so much, found a cozy chair by the window, and settled in. Eventually The Breather came in, crossing the great room breathing dramatically, and I had to smile. God was following me.
Later still, the Breather came back, and laboriously breathed her way across the room to take a seat right near me. I almost laughed out loud, good one God! I could no longer focus on that damned book about the grace of God, and felt at once convicted and amused.
There are no kneelers here, and no priests, except for the 40 minute mid-day Mass, so I was on my own for confession. I pulled up the prayers of confession and absolution that Nadia Bolz-Weber mentioned in her book, and walked myself through it, at the desk in my little room. I prayed apologies for my awfulness (see above), for my irresponsible misuse or negligence of the gifts God's given me, I begged relief from all that I use to distract me from my own shit.
I read that I'm a sinner, and that although I don't deserve mercy (geez, these Lutherans - and they call it "Catholic guilt?'), it's already mine.
God has already forgiven me, and the act of confessing is more about me reminding myself about that than about asking for it and receiving. It's about reminding me that I'm just as ridiculous as those I ridicule, and God loves me and them, just the same.
A desk is probably the most appropriate setting for my come-to-Jesus moments than kneelers, anyway.
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