Words for Community
Early in the week this week, Facebook notified me of memories from previous years’ of posts on the social network. Within those memories was a post that I made some years ago about a poem that I still love because of the deep truth it communicates about the act of confessing. The poem, authored by Padraig O’Tuama, an Irish theologian, reads:
“After the confession
he looked relieved
and also anxious to leave.
I’m no one’s priest
but I know that
such tellings leave
small exhaustions
in their wake.
He told me, a week later,
god, I slept soundly
that night,
and I believed him.
Is confession given, taken,
or done?
Perhaps it’s shared.
It bears witness to words
that can’t be eaten
by one.”
After the Confession, Padraig O’Tuama in “In the Shelter”
The poem offers to us a reality about the act of confessing: it is something that demands community. The end of the poem shares this truth with us and invites us into considering those moments in our lives in which we have confessed, the relief that it offered, and the small exhaustions we feel in telling our own confession. It is true that the act of confession - whether that be with a priest in seeking the sacrament of reconciliation or with a family member, friend, partner or spouse - leaves a small exhaustion in its wake. It is an exhaustion that I think is the combination of having carried a burden for some time and the energy it takes for us to build up to entering into confession with the person who needs to hear it.
And, as it seems in the poem, sometimes it is simply the need to confess to anyone who will lend us a mercy-filled ear. Confession grants to us the opportunity for a new start, a new beginning, a second chance. We need these moments in our lives so that we can learn where it is that we are imperfect and need others in our lives to round us out, and we need these moments in our lives so that we can know that it is okay to exist as someone who is not “well rounded.”
The truth of humanity is that we are not well-rounded. We are not built to be well-rounded as individuals. Instead, we each have certain gifts that God has given to us to use for the building up of God’s kingdom, and we need to be in community in order that our gifts can meet up with other gifts of other individuals who need our gifts just as much as we need their gifts. It is another truth shared by Brene Brown (a fellow Episcopalian) called the gift of imperfection: we are invited to recognize the many ways that we need others to make us whole.
When we practice confession - whether with a priest or a trusted friend or perhaps even with a perfect stranger - we are eating words that, as the poet shares with us, cannot be eaten by one. We need community around us to come alongside us to help us walk the path of confession and to support us with merciful, supporting hands. And then, as we make that confession, as we leave this burden or that burden behind us, we find rest for our souls. We find a rest that is so full and complete that we awake to a new day in which the God of second chances and new beginnings greets us with open arms and the light of a new time in our lives.
When is a moment that you have experienced the small exhaustions of confession? What is something that you need or want to confess today? How is our God of second chances and new beginnings holding open the door of mercy for you?
In Christ,
Hunter+
