i went to confession yesterday, a fairly rare occurance, i was feeling unsettled about tonys death, and a few other more thorny ethical dilemmas, unsettled enough that i needed to make right w. g-d. so i went in to the room, and talked through, it was difficult, i didnt look up, and i got thru it--using simple language, and mentioning spec, words of christ where i thot i had done wrong.

the priest then, asked if i went to mass reguallry, if i prayed daily, if i drank too much, if i swore, if i had any sexual sins...

i think that the questions father asks are more about the community, and his own pysche than what is said, with few exceptions (stephen, the priests at st joes), and i really needed to be forgiven for the sins i confessed to.

i felt angry, that he didnt know how to deal with what i was asking him, and he went thru the grocery list--and then the assumption, that if i did all of those things, then the bigger things would be kept in check.

i refuse to confess sexual sins, mostly because i think those sins the church considers , i dont; and i dont go to mass because of issues of access, and comfort, and exhaustion, and well i think any saviour who uses words like viper, and nation of seperents, and whoremonger, and who tore the temple up, and hung out with the working classes, doesnt really care about the occasional fuck.

but i also think, that the sins i confess to--that i am not humble enough, that i have not given alms to the poor, that i have not fed the hungry, clothed the naked, that i am short, angry, impatient, uncharitiable, that i lack mercy, and am selfish, that i havent done enough for the least of my brethern, that i am wasteful and decadent and lustful and bored and dismaying...my lack of hope, and my surfiet of desire, my gluttony, my sloth, my avarice...all of those things, are more important than one too many gins, or one too many fucks, or reading a bit too much porn...

but i cannot seem to confess to those sins, w/o the priest wanting to go back to the list everyone else uses.