You know, Ash Wednesday just kind of up and missed me this year. As a recovering Catholic, I am usually attuned to the calendar of the Catholic church, but I don't know what happened this year.
In any event, I realized that I kind of miss confession. I would like a little absolution for my sins. I feel like a crappy parent a good deal of the time, thanks to my ex-husband's voice in my head, my mother's bad parenting influence, and my own innate failings. I feel like a bad wife because I am definitely a feminist and not a product of the 50s, cellophane crowd; and I am FAIL at remembering birthdays and things.
I don't think I've committed too many of the seven cardinal sins this year. But in all seriousness, there is a part of me that misses the ritual of that confession with the priest; the Hail Mary's and Our Father's. The Creed. The Rosary.
Maybe some of this is coming from a titillating discussion in my New Testament class on canon. Ritual and liturgy and law, theology. There must be a reason why it is so attractive to people. UUism doesn't make it that easy. We talk about free and responsible search and all that. I seem to always take the more difficult road. My mother says I need a t-shirt that says "Preacher for All People." I kinda like that!
In any event, I am considering making Lent a time of spiritual practice, though I don't get to go to confession. Now to decide which sin I am to work on!
And lest anyone think I'm making light of Lent, I am absolutely not. I found it a very wonderful spiritual practice throughout my childhood, and am wondering if there might be a way to revive that sense of connection to the holy.
5 comments:
"In any event, I am considering making Lent a time of spiritual practice, though I don't get to go to confession."
Sure you do Kelly. It's called a blog these days. :-)
Robin, LOL! I am pretty transparent in my blog, but not completely ;)
Well I am glad you got a chuckle out of my semi-serious waggish comment Kelly but I wasn't talking just about *your* blog but blogs more generally. I could of course have mentioned Facebook and other social media sites.
WVC = hyjac
For what it's worth, I think you are a good parent. You love your children, and you think of them in everything you do. You nurture them, and that's obvious in their inner strength and their capacity for affection, empathy and trust. Your kids won't have to face the turmoil and twisted feelings that you did -- you broke the chain and then pushed beyond even that.
I was sad to hear that my voice was attached to these feelings. I hear your voice too in a lot of my self-criticisms. I wonder where it comes from. Is it some vagary of neural activation? Is it an amygdala-triggered snapshot of something you said -- a mini-trauma that's playing back in my head? Or is it a distortion of what you really said, with you playing the role of the antagonist? Am I hearing your voice because I'm worrying about what you think, or is it your voice because it's something too painful to say to myself -- something I translocate because it's easier to face that way than my own reflection? I don't know the answer to any of that, but I do believe that if I'm hearing someone else in my head, I'm not listening closely enough to myself.
Neither of us is a perfect parent, and the whole thing is made more difficult by the fact that we're divorced parents whose communication is never going to be flawless and untainted by the past. But we're both trying - we both care enough to try - and I think that means a lot.
Robin, very true. I try to balance path, parenting and general life, with a little bit of discretion :).
David, I kind of cringed after I hit post, because I didn't want you to feel that it was a negative jibe at you. I often wish I could be more laid back and more FUN - and you're so good at that. I am grateful that our children have both of us. I think I often compare myself to you and feel lacking, but I've always felt intellectually inferior to you (not in a neurotic way! You're *really* smart and that can be intimidating).
I am too critical, so I can only blame myself if you hear my voice in your head sometimes ;). I do know that I worry about what you think - because we will always be co-parents, I want us to have a measure of friendship together, and your opinion is important to me (regardless of what I might say in the heat of the moment ).
I am grateful for our shared parenting. My life is richer to have you and your thoughtful (though sometimes critical-in-my-mind) voice in it!
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