The Conscious Cataclysm: Time For Confession

7/21/07

Time For Confession

As the weekend approaches it's time once again for me to prepare for confession. I know many of you would think, after reading some of my posts, "Why should he go to confession if he's just going to do the same things, and write all this nonsense about being gay and other religions when he gets back home?" Good question. I asked myself the same thing until my priest gave me a little book called, "The Forgotten Medicine: The Mystery of Confession," by Archimandrite Seraphim Aleksiev. When posed the question, "...Why should I confess when I know that tomorrow I will sin again?," He responds:

"This objection to Confession contains both something which is very true and something which is not. The right thing here is the desire not to sin anymore after Confession. But we are feeble humans, and we cannot attain right away such a firmness which makes falling into voluntary sins impossible. If we cannot reach such steadfastness in virtue right away, should we surrender to vice? Or should we stop confessing? Which is better - to roll in the mud of the spiritual swamp, or to pick yourself up after each fall and go on with the hope that someday you may reach the solid and beautiful shore of virtue? If you do not confess, you remain in the mud. If you confess, you pick yourself up from the mud and clean yourself. 'But why should I get up if tomorrow I know I will fall again?' the questioner asks. When you fall again, then get up again! Every day begins all over again! This is undoubtedly better than falling out of the habit of getting up...the 'getting up' - this is Confession.

'But why should we play at falling and getting up?' ask some. It is not a game, but a struggle in which there is much sense. If we, as feeble humans, fall but get up again, there is a great probability that death will find us when we are standing. Then we are saved. But if we do not intend to get up, death will surely find us lying in the mud. Then we are lost forever."

I have stated before in earlier posts of my own struggles and conflicts. I truly hope that the words of Archimandrite Aleksiev cover my situation. I like to think so. I sometimes worry about true repentance though, but I'm not going to go into that.

Many of my friends, and one of my therapists especially, can't understand. They ask me why I try to fit my triangle self into a round Orthodox hole. They want me to embrace my true "Beautiful" self and the new enlightened thinking. Truly, sometimes, I don't know, the suggestions of my friends would certainly be easier. I don't want to go into that right now either.

Birches

When I see birches bend to left and right
Across the lines of straighter darker trees,
I like to think some boy's been swinging them.
But swinging doesn't bend them down to stay.
Ice-storms do that. Often you must have seen them
Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning
After a rain. They click upon themselves
As the breeze rises, and turn many-coloured
As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel.
Soon the sun's warmth makes them shed crystal shells
Shattering and avalanching on the snow-crust
Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away
You'd think the inner dome of heaven had fallen.
They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load,
And they seem not to break; though once they are bowed
So low for long, they never right themselves:
You may see their trunks arching in the woods
Years afterwards, trailing their leaves on the ground,
Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair
Before them over their heads to dry in the sun.
But I was going to say when Truth broke in
With all her matter-of-fact about the ice-storm,
I should prefer to have some boy bend them
As he went out and in to fetch the cows
Some boy too far from town to learn baseball,
Whose only play was what he found himself,
Summer or winter, and could play alone.
One by one he subdued his father's trees
By riding them down over and over again
Until he took the stiffness out of them,
And not one but hung limp, not one was left
For him to conquer. He learned all there was
To learn about not launching out too soon
And so not carrying the tree away
Clear to the ground. He always kept his poise
To the top branches, climbing carefully
With the same pains you use to fill a cup
Up to the brim, and even above the brim.
Then he flung outward, feet first, with a swish,
Kicking his way down through the air to the ground.
So was I once myself a swinger of birches.
And so I dream of going back to be.
It's when I'm weary of considerations,
And life is too much like a pathless wood
Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs
Broken across it, and one eye is weeping
From a twig's having lashed across it open.
I'd like to get away from earth awhile
And then come back to it and begin over.
May no fate wilfully misunderstand me
And half grant what I wish and snatch me away
Not to return. Earth's the right place for love:
I don't know where it's likely to go better.
I'd like to go by climbing a birch tree~
And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk
Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more,
But dipped its top and set me down again.
That would be good both going and coming back.
One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.

Robert Frost

From Emerson"s "Self-Reliance"

“There is a time in every man’s education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better or worse as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given him to till. The power which resides in him is new in nature, and none but he knows what that is which he can do, nor does he know until he has tried.”

A Prayer Of The Optina Elders

Prayer of the Optina Elders

O Lord, grant unto me that with Thy peace I may greet all that this day is to bring.
Grant unto me grace to surrender myself completely to Thy holy will.
In every hour of this day instruct and guide me in all things.
Whatever tidings I may receive during this day, do Thou teach me to accept tranquilly in the firm belief that Thy holy will governs all.
Govern Thou my thoughts and feelings in all I do and say. When unforseen things occur, let me not forget that all is sent by Thee.
Teach me to behave sincerely and reasonably toward everyone, that I may bring confusion and sorrow to no one. Bestow on me, O Lord, strength to endure the fatigue of the day and to bear my part in its events.
Guide Thou my will and teach me to pray, to believe, to hope, to suffer, to forgive, and to love.

The Dalai Lama's Approach To Achieving Happiness

"Happiness begins with distinguishing between spirituality and religion. To have a spiritual dimension in your life, you should appreciate your potential as a human being and recognize the importance of inner transformation through a process of mental development.

The art of happiness has many components. It begins with developing an understanding of what are the truest sources of happiness and setting your priorities in life based on the cultivation of those sources. "It involves an inner discipline, a gradual process of rooting out destructive mental states and replacing them with positive, constructive states of mind, such as kindness, tolerance, and forgiveness."

Walt Whitman

"Hours continuing long,
sore and heavy-hearted,
Hours of the duck, when I withdrew to a lonesome and unfrequented spot, seating myself,
leaning my face in my hands; Hours sleepless,
deep in the night, when I go forth,
speeding swiftly the country roads,
or through the city streets, or pacing miles and miles,
stifiling plaintive cries; Hours discouraged,
distracted -- for the one I cannot content myself without,
soon I saw him content himself without me;
Hours when I am forgotten,
(O weeks and months are passing,
but I believe I am never to forget!)
Sullen and suffering hours!
(I am ashamed -- but it is useless -- I am what I am;)
Hours of my torment --
I wonder if other men ever have the like,
out of the like feelings?
Is there even one other like me -- distracted -- his friend,
his lover, lost to him? Is he too as I am now?
Does he still rise in the morning, dejected,
thinking who is lost to him? and at night,
awaking, thinking who is lost?"

Uncovering The True Face

"Withdraw into yourself and look. And if you do not find yourself beautiful yet, act as does the creator of a statue that is to be made beautiful: he cuts away here, he smoothes there, he makes this line lighter, this other purer, until a lovely face has grown upon his work. So do you also: cut away all that is excessive, straighten all that is crooked, bring light to all that is overcast, labor to make all one glow of beauty and never cease chiseling your statue, until there shall shine out on you from it the godlike splendor of virtue, until you shall see the perfect goodness surely established in the stainless shrine."

Piontius "The Enneads"

Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Dylan Thomas

New Improved Stress Management

Never put both feet in your mouth at the same time because then, you won't have a leg to stand on.
A truly happy person is one who can enjoy the scenery on a detour.
Some mistakes are too fun to only make once.
Birthdays are good for you. The more you have the longer you live.
Since it's the early worm that gets eaten by the bird, sleep late.
Nobody cares if you can't dance well, just get up and dance. (Unless you're Elaine from Seinfeld)
You may be only one person in the world, but you may also be the world to one person.

The Conscious Cataclysm

7/21/07

Time For Confession

My World

Blog Archive

Hetrick-Martin Institute

TREVOR PROJECT CRISIS HELP LINE

Save A Life!

His Story Lives On

Erase Hate!

The Smile Train

Help Save The Honeybees!

From My World To Theirs

Birches

From Emerson"s "Self-Reliance"

A Prayer Of The Optina Elders

A Method Of Self-Reflection

A Rule Of Thumb

The Dalai Lama's Approach To Achieving Happiness

Walt Whitman

Uncovering The True Face

Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night

Possibilities

New Improved Stress Management

Walt Whitman

I"m Glad You Were Here! Enjoy Life!

Parting Thoughts