112. On Sunlight as Disinfectant
Confession is an unburdening, a chance at reconciliation, the opportunity for absolution.
The verb “confess” comes from Latin: to admit something to another. Our belief in the value of confessing is ancient and widespread, appearing in Hindu texts and Buddhist practices, in the Old and New Testaments of the Bible. Confession is both religious and secular—you can confess in a church or a court of law; you can seek absolution from your therapist or forgiveness from your mother for filching $20 from her purse to buy books at the Scholastic book fair.
Confession is an unburdening, a chance at reconciliation, the opportunity for absolution. Often that absolution comes from another person—from a priest, from the injured party saying, “I forgive you.”
But sometimes we have the hardest time forgiving ourselves. We can be quick to absolve others but see our own weakness and failures, our own guilt and remorse, as something we are bound to carry with us.
What better place to practice the process of unburdening but the self outside yourself: your journal. What better place to reconcile the past with the present, to absolve yourself for the sake of a better future.
