Absolution

Bless me Father, for I have sinned. It's been 402 days since my last confession. Not really, but that's how long it's been since you've heard it.

I hope this letter finds you well.

God, I'm terrible at beginnings. I'll start in the middle for now. Remember when I used to come into your office with some flimsy question and before we knew it we'd talked all afternoon and your window was dark? We'd sit there until we couldn't see each other anymore--somehow neither of us ever thought to turn on a light. I wish we could still do that. Would you be happy to see me if I just showed up tomorrow?

I'd like to think you understood why I had to leave so abruptly, that it was for both our sakes, but maybe you were blindsided. It's possible I imagined the whole thing. What does it say on car mirrors--'objects are closer than they appear'? The inside of my forehead should say 'relationships appear closer than they are.' I think I mean more to people than I actually do.

And maybe I'm over-inflating my importance in your life to think I could ever blindside you with anything. Maybe I was just some annoying woman who made you groan inwardly when she appeared in your doorway. That would be humiliating, but also sort of a relief.

No, we were friends, weren't we? Even if you were obligated to listen to me by some ancient code of rules I still don't understand, I know I made you laugh. Really laugh, not the fake, polite kind where your mouth barely opens. I've seen you do that at socials and receptions. I know it was different with me.

And you told me about yourself, about your life...I know you had a German Shepherd named Scout who died when you were eleven. I know you were the one who found her on the side of the road that day, that it was the first time you prayed and meant it. I can see the road. I can feel the cold shock of it, her blood on your hands, your tears on my face. Some of your memories are so real to me that I keep them where I keep my own. I forget they weren't mine in the first place.

You were obligated to listen to me, but you weren't obligated to respond beyond preset prayers and a little spiritual guidance. You weren't obligated to give me any of yourself, yet you gave me so much I could form you whole in my living room if I wanted to.

Of course we were friends. That's the smallest word I can think of for what we were. And I knew you had so few genuine, reciprocal relationships in your life, but I still disappeared like that. I'm sorry.

Anyway, it's probably for the best that I'm too scared of your reaction to go back. Even if you were kind enough to treat my visit like a pleasant surprise, I wouldn't be able to make the words come out. I could only start writing this after a few beers, and I still can't get to the point. I'd have to be properly drunk to say it out loud. Is it a sin to be drunk in a church? You do hand out wine, so probably not. Still, it’s a non-starter--you'd feel like you had to drive me home afterward.

I'm just now realizing I should explain why I'm writing. See, I definitely can’t scrap this and just talk to you--I'll need multiple drafts to get this right.

I think you'd be happy to know I didn't give up because I couldn't go to your church anymore. I meant what I said the first time we spoke--I want to believe again. Some days I think I never stopped, that what I mistook for an optimistic sort of ambivalence is just what belief feels like as an adult, and it's been sitting inside me unrecognized all this time. Does it have to be unconditional to count? You'd tell me God didn't concern himself with what counted, and I shouldn't either. Over a year since we've spoken, and your responses still come unbidden to so many of my thoughts.

I go to St. Benedict's now, Father McNearney's parish. Do you know him? If you do, I doubt you respect him much--he's that old-school type you always railed against, the type who's never told a joke in his life and barely looks up from the lectern. That's exactly why I picked his parish, though. I don't think I need to explain why I wasn't looking for a priest I liked on a personal level.

Confession with him is a quick, scripted affair, like a drive-thru. He says his lines, I say mine, and he releases me with the penance of a few Hail Marys. You'd hate it. But he surprised me this past Sunday, which I hadn't thought he was capable of.

I was in that mood I sometimes get in when I've made a string of good choices in a row. Boredom builds up and boils over before I can stop it, and I have to do something self-destructive to restore equilibrium. You pointed it out enough times that now I always recognize when I'm in it. Anyway, I was the last person to confess that day. I'd never spoken honestly about you to anyone, but that day I did it for ten minutes straight. I told myself I wanted to see if I could shock the ever-stoic Father McNearney, or if he'd stop me for rambling without listing any sins. Really, I think I just wanted to know what it would feel like to unburden myself of you, even for ten minutes. Either way, he let me finish.

He was quiet for a while after I stopped speaking. I wondered if he'd fallen asleep. Finally, he said there was no absolution he could offer where there was no sin, but he recommended I tell you everything I'd told him. He left the booth before I could ask him why.

So, there it is, that's why I'm writing. Maybe I've been waiting for any excuse to talk to you (even on paper) that didn't feel like a betrayal of us both, but that's the reason I'm going with. It only took me two pages to get to what should have been in the first line. Reading back through it, I see I still haven't told you much of anything. I guess that's a problem for the next draft.

Do you remember when I asked you what the difference between forgiveness and absolution was? You told me only God, in His infinite mercy, could forgive my sins. But He empowered you, His apostle on Earth, to absolve me of them.

Only God could forgive me, but you could free me. What a staggering amount of power for a person to have. I wondered how you could bear it, and at the same time I envied you.

Before I could think better of it, I told you I wished absolution went both ways--that I could absolve you, too. When you asked why, I said I didn't like to receive such a great gift when I had nothing of equal value to give in return. Your brow furrowed above your glasses, as it so often did after I spoke, and you told me I fundamentally misunderstood the nature of grace.

I wouldn't say I lied, but I didn't tell the truth. I did like the idea of reciprocal gifts between you and I, but mostly I just wished I had the power to free you. And not like a priest frees a penitent from sin. Like a judge frees an innocent from prison.

That sounds harsh, and I don't intend it to. I know how meaningful your work is to you, to your whole parish. But you didn't see yourself the way I saw you. Sometimes I went weeks without seeing your smile reach your eyes. Sometimes you looked at me like a drowning man looks at a life raft.

Sometimes I had to sit on my hands while we talked, as if you were wearing physical shackles that I held the key to unlock, and I didn't trust myself not to lean forward onto your desk and... I don't actually know what I would have done. What I do know is that under all the divinity you cloaked yourself in, under all the restraint and self-denial you used to obscure your humanity, you were still a person. A scared and starving person stumbling around in the dark.

You told me many times that you chose this life with your eyes wide open, that you knew exactly what it would be. But the dangerous thing about sacrifice is that you can’t know the size of the hole it will leave until the act is finished. I’ve learned that this past year.

Recently, I've been thinking about callings. It's such a big word--I hesitate to use it here. I don't think I have the right. Still, I can't shake the feeling that ours are at odds with each other.

It was your childhood priest who saw a spark in you and encouraged you to go to seminary. Is it possible Father McNearney saw something similar in me, that that was why he sent me back to you?

No, that's ridiculous--he just wanted me to live more honestly, or he wanted me to test you and make your faith stronger. But it doesn't matter. I don't need someone wiser and holier than me to confirm that what I'm feeling is real. In every version of this, I find myself here eventually. How could I not? Your absence is a palpable thing to me, a phantom limb.

Maybe I'm wrong that we're at odds with each other. Maybe the kindness I thought I was showing you when I left wasn't kindness at all, but fear of something bigger than both of us. I don't know. I'm making such a mess of this.

Let me try this one more way: if the means of your freedom lands at your feet, didn't God send it there?

If He makes two people for each other, aren't they called together?

Where was it ordained that a person only gets one calling in a lifetime?

Who are we to say we know better than God?