CMP Review 2024-05-05

In her book Restless Devices, Felicia Wu Song describes her emotions after reading these words of Tish Harrison Warren:

In church each week, we repent together… Confession reminds us … our failures or successes in the Christian life are not what define us or determine our worth before God or God’s people. Instead, we are defined by Christ’s life and work on our behalf. We kneel. We humble ourselves together. We admit the truth.… And then—what a wonder!—the word of absolution: “Almighty God have mercy on you, forgive you all your sins through our Lord Jesus Christ, strengthen you in all goodness, and by the power of the Holy Spirit keep you in eternal life.”

Felicia Wu Song recalls that these words made her “slam on the brakes.” She explains: “To run across such an account of Christian confession and absolution is to come up against what feels so stunningly like an alternate universe. This description brings into sharp relief the vast distance between the posture we practice when we are steeped in the social imaginary of our permanent connectivity and the posture that Christian spirituality encourages. Our typical digital practices of keeping up, grasping for attention, and seeking the reward of affirmation begin to feel paltry and thin against the sheer magnificence of what is promised in the ritual of confession: to be invited to freely admit our failures and discover that we are still loved and welcomed.”

Sometimes our words of confession are impromptu and extemporaneous. And sometimes our words follow a form, and ancient or modern prayer. Charlotte Mason’s poem “I have transgressed” might well be one such form. Her beautiful verses give us the words we need “freely admit our failures.” Read or hear them here, and then delight in the knowledge that we are still loved.

@artmiddlekauff