Confession.

If you are willing to serenely bear the trail of being displeasing to yourself,

then you will be for Jesus a pleasant place of shelter.

~ Saint Thérèse of Lisieux

Last week I wrote about four strategies for recentering the soul. And like so many of my posts, those strategies were fresh off the boat of my own need and my own encounters with grace. Today I have a fifth to add to the list…

Maybe it’s because I’m a writer, but I find that my own grace often arrives in part as I write about it. The very act of putting words to paper helps me connect with the truths they represent. Sometimes, once I finish writing about it, I feel as if the work in my own heart around that topic is done. Well, sometimes it is, sometimes it isn’t.

It really sucks when it isn’t.

When that happens, I feel like a fraud. Heck, I’ve just told everyone else how to step into freedom, but here I am still mired in the mud. At that point, it’s an easy move toward shame. I’ve discovered that not everyone identifies with experiencing shame, while others identify all too well. In my casual observation, it seems to me that Type 2s, 4s, and 6s wrestle the most with conscious shame; that is not established Enneagram teaching, it’s just what I have noticed. But I think every soul takes its turn with shame, either conscious or unconscious, named or unnamed.

When all those triggerings converged for me last week and fragmented my heart, each day I told myself, Well, I’ve dealt with that now, and I feel better. And then the next day, I would find myself back in the same pickle internally: frustrated, restless, feeling opposed, a little depressed. By Saturday, I was pretty sick of myself… and I could read Kellie well enough to know she agreed. That night over dinner, I found words to name my offenses as more than “getting triggered.” I took more responsibility. I confessed my shame, not only of being dreadfully disappointed in myself but also for hurting her. I shared my dismay that the usual ways of getting free had not in fact set me free.

And that’s when it happened.

Somewhere between that dinner conversation and bedtime, I felt it break. The striving, the pushing, the frustration was gone, and I felt a new grace to return love. Not love in the sense of penance, but love in the sense of freedom. When I get into a funk, the first thing to go it seems is the capacity to really love and care and invest myself in someone else. It just sort of caves in on itself like a black hole. And when the funk lifts, suddenly I am able to give again, to serve and offer my soul to someone else. It’s amazing. It’s a grace.

Are you catching my use of the word “grace”? The act and art of confession used to be called a sacrament in the old days. If you grew up in contemporary church as I did, that wasn’t a word we used. But the whole idea behind a sacrament was that it served as a “means of grace.” The practice of a sacrament imparted grace—the power to move forward toward your true self, to experience of the kingdom of God. And that’s what we’re looking for!

I think I have mostly related to confession as a means for forgiveness, but I’m thinking very differently about that these days. God’s forgiveness, I am convinced, is a foregone conclusion; that’s part of what it means to be God. Our tangible experience of that forgiveness, however—our experience of the freedom itself—that is a grace.

The institutional church has often turned the sacraments into an assembly line, sort of an industrial spirituality: You say the right words, and you’re supposed to automatically receive the grace. I don’t think it works that way. The difference—in my experience—between the spiritual practice and the grace it’s meant to release is humility. Need. Desperation. A softness of heart. A willingness to lay down our arms and stop fighting for what we want, even good things. It’s being poor in spirit… Remember that little jewel Jesus talked about?

growing the soul

If you feel like you’re dragging an anchor of brokenness and shame, try practicing the sacrament of confession. You don’t have to go through the motions until you’re sick and tired of trying to engineer it. Be humbled… and receive. Now, who is it you want to confess to, and what is it that you want to confess for? Grace is poised to enter your soul.

serving the world

You can also instigate this process for someone else. I don’t mean you can force it, but you can offer grace. If you’re around someone who’s in the condition of fighting, struggling, and striving, try just speaking words of approval, love, and affirmation and see what happens!

meditation

takeaway

Soften. Surrender. Confess.