CONFESSION AND BELONGING

”Confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed.” (James 5:16) At times, all sorts of things can make me a bit squirrelly about ”confession”: fear, denial, shame, self-isolation, or simply indifference.

But when I do bring myself to reveal, first to myself and then to God and another, the burden I’ve been carrying around, hiding, denying, and yet resenting – the burden of the misdirection of my will, called “sin,” – when I bring this out and “con-fess,” I literally “say together with” God, and the fellowship of my Church, the truth about myself. This truth sets me free from self-isolation and brings back my sense of belonging. That is, belonging to God and the rest of humanity. My burden is shared, when I share it in confession. It is no longer carried on my shoulders alone. I come home to humility and light and peace. As corny as that perhaps sounds on this fine Saturday morning.

#confession #belonging