Ash Wednesday: what better writers than me have to say

I've been pretty slammed today, so I haven't actually got much to write for Ash Wednesday myself. But there are a couple of blogfriends who have done a lot better than I could.

First, Nina, whom I'm finally going to add to the sidebar, reminds me of some of the reasons I became Catholic.

Today is Ash Wednesday, and I am off to confession this morning so I can start the season reconciled. I was thinking I would compose a note to the priest and roll it up like a cigar and shove it between the grating. Just to see if it would go over. Here's my note:

"Dear Monsignor, I did everything bad I could do except kill people. Calculate the maximum number of occurrances possible in a year. Impose maximum penalty. Gracias."
[...]
You go in wanting to tell all your stories and explain all your challenges because secretly or not so secretly, you want the priest to say, "There, there. You have had a hard time. Here's a cookie for you. Run along."

But that is not what it is about. The explanation doesn't matter. What you need to say and what he needs to hear is the flat, ordinary, ugly total of your failures. Not the why, but the what. And that, although it's very itchy and uncomfortable, is the also its great benefit. It divorces you from your string of excuses and forces you to see results. Even successes, if you have any, are often attributable not to virtue but some other cause.

Itchy and uncomfortable indeed. The confessional is sort of like a bath, but it's a too-hot bath with irritant cleansing chemicals. Nobody I know thinks the confessional is pleasant. It's good when it's finished, but it's embarrassing while it's going on. (Especially in this one-parish town, where I'm pretty sure the priest can recognize my voice even if he's trying not to.)

Pastor Mike at Adventure Faith hasn't been posting much lately, having had quite a lot going on, but what he put up the other day made me do a double-take.

Last month's issue of Psychology Today had an article about pastors who are becoming atheistic. In other words, there are more pastors out there who don't really believe in God anymore. Very interesting read which you can find here.
Yes, my own faith and theology waivers at times, even when I am teaching. But erasing God from the equation seems impossible to me. I can't imagine it. My issues of reconciling belief are just that... my issues. They have nothing to do with God.

That's it in a nutshell. My issues are my issues. God in His mercy may help me get past them, or He may leave me sitting in them, as He pleases. Either way, I've got a maximum of about fifty years before they get resolved for good. But meanwhile, they're not really God's problem.

With one exception. When it comes to sin, he's already made it His problem, at Calvary. That particular issue has already been decided. Everything else is just details.