That old Freddy Fender tune hums in the back of my mind. Many nights I laid awake tossing and turning, and for as many days I went from task to task fretting and could not for the life of me figure out why.
The core of things came to light one day when I discovered that I was brooding about something that had occurred in my life when I was very young; something that I let get under my skin that long ago. How could a person hang on to something that supposedly no longer had the power or strength to hurt? The only value it still held was that at one time, it was a learning tool; something in my path that I dealt with poorly or maybe didn’t handle at all. That must have been the key. Possibly I didn’t handle it right then and there, or maybe I just hadn’t learned what I was supposed to learn from that experience that was right there in my path to learn from. Thank goodness I’ve learned to search for the source of uncomfortable feelings, take it out and examine it, and discard it into the pile of Lessons Finally Learned. Why on earth would I let something that ancient cause such havoc in my life today? Could it be guilt? I had taken it to confession. This was not an isolated incident with just one thing, but several things through out a lifetime that occasionally come up from the past to make me feel uncomfortable to the point of feeling suffocated.
I was born in 1948, and raised in the then Catholic tradition of “fear, guilt and shame”, and according to all of my Catechism teachers and all of the nuns and priests, I owned all of these loathsome traits. My little 6 year old soul was already black. I remember my first confession, as I was preparing for my first Communion. What horrible sins could a six or seven year old have, that they must kneel in a small, very dark closet and beg forgiveness from a man they could not see, a man who would pass judgment on them and punish them with penance? I remember specifically telling the priest hearing my confession that I could not think of anything I had done wrong. The priest’s reply was, “No one is without sin! You must tell me your sins!” So, I actually started making things up to pacify the priest. Actually, My grandmother had just told me the day before, that I was growing up too fast, and that it was “…just a sin the way you are growing up so fast!” “Well…I… I committed adultery.” I said with shame. I could hear nothing of the priest except the sound of choking. That confession saved a lot of time, and the priest gave me my forgiveness and my penance, and I was free to go; and to receive my First Holy Communion.
From that time on, I spent many a Saturday afternoon standing or kneeling with friends in our youth group all lined up for the confessional. I spent almost that length of time going over my “mea culpa” list with a priest that was, in my opinion, more curious and prying than someone should be who was supposed to administer absolution and penance for your sins. Also, as I grew older, I no longer had to make up something to tell the priest. There were sins to be committed around every corner. Some of these priests only stopped their queries short of asking for names and phone numbers, and it seems they always knew who they were talking to as surely as we knew which priest was sitting on the other side of the screen. The priest sitting on the other side of the screen was usually the same priest that ran our local C.Y.O. group (Catholic Youth Organization). This was a Holy Man of the Cloth, above reproach, and to be respected and trusted beyond all else.
Please bear in mind that back then, the Catholic Church had changed little from the 14th century. It was still pretty archaic. I believe now things have changed a great deal. This was a huge contradiction of what we were taught in our Catechism class, that the Catholic Church will never change. We were also told not to ever question Catholic teachings or Catholic authority. That was what they called blind faith.
Don’t get me wrong. I believe that confession is good for the soul, but just not that way. It’s one thing to sit face to face and talk with another person about your own sins and shortcomings, but it’s quite another to be required to sit cloistered in a dark closet to confess to another human being that you don’t even know. This person could be yawning or snickering behind the screen.
To be fair, there were some really devout and honest priests that truly had our best interest at heart. They earnestly wanted to help people. These priests were everyone’s favorites, and the only ones that made me feel that that I was truly forgiven for my sins. They let you know they were human and that humans make human mistakes. Unfortunately, there weren’t very many of them, and the ones that I knew and who were my favorites eventually left the priesthood to marry. Even as a young girl, I respected and admired these men for that. It must have been a really agonizing decision for them to make. If I knew where to find them, I’d trust them to mentor me today.
Anger is another aspect that can trigger these uncomfortable feelings. If you are wondering why being angry makes you feel so uncomfortable, I believe it’s because anger is a symptom of fear. When you don’t understand something, you understandably fear. For instance, people fear the unknown, so they fight, kill or flee whatever it is that they don’t understand. People fear that someone will hurt them or fear that someone or something will take something away from them. Anger wells up when someone or something threatens you. When children fear the dark, they plan all kinds of defenses (usually angry) to fend off the monsters of the dark. “I will kick them and hit them with a big stick, and stab them with a knife!” Once you let go of the fear, the anger will go away. Once you let go of anger, then fear will go away. Fear and anger nearly always go hand-in-hand.
Some harbor childhood fear and anger into their adult lives. This causes blaming. The blaming thing in adulthood is just another way to deflect blame for bad behavior. They blame an imperfect childhood for their own present behavior. Well, this is just wrong. You’ve known the difference between right and wrong since you were five years old. Forgive yourself and your offenders and get on with your life! As someone close to me used to say, “Build a bridge and get over it!” Adulthood is complicated enough without bringing a bunch of anger, resentment and fear from childhood into it. As far as I’m concerned, you are officially grown up when you can forgive all of the indiscretions of childhood, your own and those of others; just and/or unjust. Just let go of them. They were learning tools then, and you should have learned from them. If not, dig them out and have a look at them. See what you might have missed and then toss them into that pile of Lessons Finally Learned.
My Lessons Finally Learned pile has grown into a huge mound. It may grow bigger still, but I’m glad for having invented it. I’ve finally started getting some sleep, and the humming of Wasted Days and Wasted Nights has stopped droning in the back of my head. I’ve forgiven myself and others of my childhood. I’m a pretty decent person, and my soul is no longer black, but I intend to keep working on it. It still needs work.
