Love

I am still not sure what to make of it. At the time of the confession, I was experiencing all kinds of different feelings, but now, looking at it with a days distance, the thing that strikes me most profoundly is the feeling of pure love. I just felt filled with Love. Embraced by Love. Part of Love.

Yesterday I felt a little like a caged cat, so full of feelings that I didn't know what to do with them. I found myself weeping with joy.... wanting to talk about it with someone, wanting to share what had happened. It WAS like the Big Dunk in that way, I think.

In my life, there have been a handful of experiences that were truly transformative. My baptism, my first encounter with the Holy Spirit, the birth of my kids, the first time I met my husband. And now, the muggy afternoon in July when I felt, for the first time, maybe, the pure Love of God infusing me to the very core of my being.

And like any good 'mountain top' experience, I expect to crash land with a bump on the ass. But so far, I am still gliding. I am high with it. It was like something in that box opened a doorway, so I could look at the width and breadth of my life and see, really see, for the first time, the whole image... not just the part that was visible to me at the time. I can look at my life with the same love and compassion that I believe God looks at it with. I can see it from a broader, more gentle, perspective.

Maybe that is the true gift of penitence. Maybe in inviting God to forgive our sins, we also find a way to forgive ourselves. We see ourselves, for that moment at least, through the eyes of the one who built us, knitted us together in our mother's womb, who knew us before we were born. Maybe the miracle of this is that we can catch a glimpse of what it is like to see ourselves in all our frailty, and love, truly love, what we see.