Confession

``Dear Father, I have a confession.'' John murmured in the confession box to the shadow of the priest on the other side of the rattan screen.

``My son, speak, and may the Lord absolve you of your sins,'' Father Ian replied from his side of the confession box.

``Father, I love this girl. I love her with the depths of my heart and with my very being. My love for her is second only to the love of the Lord. I long to hold her in my arms, to caress her face, to grow old with her, to be with her through thick and thin, through health and sickness, all the way till death do us apart.

``But Father,'' John continued on his own momentum, ``though I love her through the fibres of my life, I cannot be with her.

``She is with another.

``I feel loneliness, covetous and lonely. My love of her is strong, but as I lay alone upon my bed, my heart aches tremendously for her. The loneliness of my being remains unabated with my love of the Lord Himself.''

``Mercy,'' Father Ian muttered.

``Dear Father, absolve me of my sin of covetting her!''

``Son, is she married to the other?''

``No Father. They are not wed. They are not engaged either, just cohabiting. Somehow I feel that I might have displeased the Lord with my yearning of her like this.''

``My son,'' Father Ian began, picking his words carefully. ``While it is true that though shalt not covet, you are not covetting as yet. You've only told me your side of your feelings about her, but said nothing about actually speaking with her, to commune and communicate. You have not sinned, leastways not the manner in which you thought you have sinned.

``If there's a sin that you're committing, it is that of being passive,'' Father Ian continued. ``Try talking with her and may the Lord guide you with His infinite wisdom. Amen.''

(Based on an exercise generated by WriteThis - 17-Mar-2014 21:07:39)