An Ounce of Prevention

One of those older sayings people use is "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure." Yesterday made me think of this saying in terms of forgiveness. Forgiveness is a special kind of cure that helps with ailments medicine can't cure. Well, unless it's psychiatric medicine, maybe.

Forgiveness cures guilt. It cures sorrow and grief and pain. It cures shame and hate. It heals the rifts between warring friends, fighting families, and feuding countries. It cures sickness in the soul and patches up the tattered remains of consciences. I'm almost certain it lowers your blood pressure too.

If forgiveness is the cure, then what is the prevention? You could obviously say "not sinning," but that'd be like telling someone the best way to stay healthy is to not get sick. It really doesn't help much unless you teach them how to keep themselves safe from sickness.

Well, aren't you in luck, because I happen to have a good strategy for avoiding things that would require you to seek forgiveness. It's short but means a lot and might need some explaining and examples.

Live.

I'm not talking about breathing and pumping blood through your body. That is existing, that's surviving. Living is about being happy and having friends and feeling good about yourself and working towards your dreams.

Yesterday was a day that I lived.

I hung out with my friend Dave all day. We got Chik-fil-a at the mall and played DDR and Wii, and we saw a bunch of our friends, coworkers, and some ex-coworkers I hadn't seen in months.

We went out to dinner at Panera's with my family, and explored a Jewish Community Center and swung on their swingset while waiting to pick up my brother from practice. I am a CHAMPION swinger.

I was reverse roundhouse kicked in the face by my little sister. We were in the kitchen, and she was trying to punch me in the stomach while I tried to poke her. She tried to kick me in the stomach, but I made a lightning-fast save and caught her foot. However, she grabbed onto a counter and swung her other foot around behind her, connecting right along my left jaw. She didn't think she'd actually be able to hit me, and I was just so impressed by her pulling it off that I just couldn't be angry at her. Although it did give me a headache for a little while.

After I dropped my friend Dave off at his house, I went out to my friend Luke's house and bought a bass guitar, amp, cords, case, and stand off of him for $120 bucks. I don't really know if I'll be able to fit it into my dorm with my acoustic guitar though.

Then I helped my dad clear out the fish and water in the tank I had been watching for my friend, which he picked up after work.

It was a day filled with good, clean fun between friends and family. I never had the chance or urge to do anything bad because I was distracted by being happy. That's the way to live.

P.S. Does anyone know how to cut off your posts and add in a "Read more..." button in Blogger? I'm a bit new to Blogger, and I haven't figured it out yet.

The Dark Side of Reconciliation

The title of this post makes me think of Star Wars and Pink Floyd. Sorry, I just wanted to get that out of my system.

Quick intro for non-Catholics: The sacrament of Reconciliation is basically one of Catholicisms official ways to be forgiven, and is one of very few ways that Catholics believe they can be forgiven of mortal sins. Mortal sins are sins that are seriously wrong, you know that the sin is seriously wrong as you're doing it, but still you do it freely and willingly. I feel that Reconciliation is awesome, and is probably my favorite sacrament that I've received so far, even though it always scares the hell out of me.

The last time I received the sacrament of Reconciliation, I was on a religious retreat with a Catholic club on my campus. It had been about a year since the last time I had confessed my sins, and the past year had not been a good one for me, at least in terms of all of the bad things I had done. I was writing down a list of my biggest sins so that I wouldn't forget them when I came face to face with the priest, but I managed to have enough courage to confess all of them. The priest gave me a psalm to read for my penance, so I went outside and sat on a picnic table away from the rest of the retreatants.

While sitting there, I at first felt good. I had been forgiven of everything bad I had done! I was a new man! That is the part I love so much about reconciliation. As I sat there further in prayer, I thought about all that I had gotten off of my conscience, and my heart started sinking. What sort of man had God just forgiven? If I had met someone who I knew had done everything that I had done, I would probably hate him. I would probably want to hit him, and I might even do it. I started feeling depressed and hopeless for myself.

I sat in this way for a little while, wallowing in my own sins and sadness. I thought to myself "You're a bad person." That was the last straw. My soul had taken enough of a beating, and it was ready to help me bounce back. "No, you're a good person," I thought to myself. My mind jumped to something good I had done on that retreat, just being myself and helping other people open up and talk. I thought of all of the good things I had done since my last confession. I had given a friend comfort and hope that he wasn't the only one who felt the way he did. I had been chosen as a leader on a religious retreat in high school (even though the retreat was eventually cancelled), so obviously I made enough of an impact on people that they saw me as a good religious leader. I had comforted friends and been a good employee and I may have even saved people's lives.

The litany of sins I had been reciting to myself were now overshadowed by all of the good I had done in the world. I had gotten rid of those sins for a reason, and one of them was because they didn't reflect who I really was. The good things I do are who I really am.

The dark side of Reconciliation that I found that day was that focusing so much on the things we've done wrong can make us forget the things we have done right.

If all we choose to look for is the darkness in life, that's all we'll see.

In terms of this blog, I think my topics have been rather dark for maybe a bit too long. Forgiveness is a joyful thing. It's not something that should always have us feeling ashamed and feeling like bad people. So, I am vowing for the next week straight to only post positive things to this blog. I've had enough of the shadows for now, it's time to let the light shine in!

Oh, but the "How Am I Not Myself?" this upcoming week will probably still be dark. I don't know how I can make that light, unless anyone has any suggestions?

The Irony Does Not Escape Me

So at mass today, during the part about the forgiveness of sins (which I just found out is called "the penitential act"), the priest, instead of saying "let us call to mind the times that we have sinned," he added "let us call to mind the times that we have sinned, and let us especially remember to forgive those that have sinned against us." It was something like that. Believe me, with what I talked about in my post last night, the irony was not lost on me.

Oh, and last night, I actually ended up looking at blogs until 4:00, then taking a shower and going to bed. Nothing too scary happened, except when I went to turn off the last light down in the basement, I heard what sounded like shaky voices yelling from far away. As I walked back upstairs, the only thing I was thinking was "Oh please God, don't let me die, please let nothing happen."

I am definitely still alive, and I actually had a ridiculously long and awesome dream about a zombie apocalypse.