Sunday, March 6, 2016

"Forgive Me, Father, For I Have Sinned"

If you've never been to the confessional in the Catholic Church you will not recognize the subject title of this piece. It is an admission of the sins we've committed. It's a heartfelt request for God to forgive our sins. I am a sinner.

Thy name is Facebook. I promised myself I would never get on that page, never read other's comments and, finally, never make a comment myself. I've committed an egregious failing that is causing great mental anguish.

In 1976 I met a man and we became great friends. It was a simpler time then. We were teacher's in the same school and enjoyed many of the same beliefs. By simple I mean we played hours of Yahtzee and drank beer. We were both fans of the Chicago Cubs and we laughed together. Boy, did we laugh.

Even though we left each other a few years later contact was still maintained. I went into private business and this fella earned a doctorate degree in education. We finally lost contact around 2002.

A few months ago I sent a letter to his residence in hopes of reconnecting but there was no response so I moved on. Then, one day I got on the internet and went to Facebook; a huge mistake.

I punched in his name and there he was. Seemingly, every post he made was of a political nature. He was not only a liberal, he was flaming.

Now for the bad part. I responded to a couple of his posts. Furthermore, I received comments from others who supported him so I, in turn, commented on them. I'd become everything I hated.

At the very least when a person doesn't comment on this piece of Zuckerberg trash we can maintain our anonymity. Not now. I've become what I hated most and my conscience is killing me.

There is only one thing to do. Go to confession and hope for the best: "Say three Our Father's and three Hail Mary's then go and sin no more".

No comments: