Worship

[kaberett]

I confess to almighty God and to you, my brothers and sisters, that I have sinned through my own fault, in my thoughts and in my words, in what I have done, and in what I have failed to do.

(This post assumes everything previously written about symbology and power and art that has sprung from necessity.)

The Catholicism's pretty deeply ingrained, one way or another. When I am stripped down to my essentials in communion - and yes that's a euphemism, but it's also something I mean, something that is as far as I am concerned the point - I find myself stumbling, in wonder, over the want the desire the need to say, softly, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof, but only say the word and I shall be healed or with my body I thee worship or or or - these phrases that carry the weight of ritual, that encompass every meaning they've been given back and further back, that are vehicles for awe and astonishment; that are transformed from inadequacy to genuine expression of all that one cannot possibly begin to grasp by their history.

How profound such profanity can be, indeed.

And that's the thing: I've been saying the penitential rite my whole life, and I've only just realised that of course - of course - it informs my belief that choice is sacred. I have grown in a framework of sins of commission and omission both: in what I have done and what I have failed to do, and that attributes such sins directly to my fault, my most grevious fault. There is no neutral choice; there is no choice not made; but choice, beng sacred, is demeaned and dishonoured through inattention and inaction. Choices made passively and by default are profaned; choice-theft is the greatest crime.

Or something. I'm still working this out, and I think I'd benefit from finding some actual exegesis on this, but. There's a thread here, about what it means for me to choose (and to choose intimacy and honesty, and the grace I am gifted in the space I am given to make those choices), and I'm going to follow it.

Comments

[cadenzamuse]

Would love to hear what you dig up in exegesis.

When I am having problems going to things because anxiety, T. tends to ask, "Are you choosing not to go to class, or are you not going by default?" For him, me dafaulting to not going is profaned choice. (And holy shit, the etymology, default, away + fail, fail to do, push away or deny my fault.)

I...am not sure how I feel about this, because not-choosing for me is staying safe cocooned in the still center of inaction, where time is frozen and no consequences have yet come to pass. So certainly choosing is "better" in terms of "more neurotypical," or, charitably, "more whole," because it's a step away from the anxiety safe place. (My anxiety manifests in long, long bouts of freeze response, that are both terrifying and safe, because play dead don't move and nothing can find me.)

So I have a hard time believing for myself that choice default is inherently bad, because it is safe. Even if is only safe from a "survive" point, and no longer useful, perhaps backwards, in the context of getting free.