Big Secrets, Big Consequences

I understand the recent spate of published memoirs, the human need to express and be acknowledged, even if that means revealing the darker side of the self. I understand the importance of the Catholic tradition of confession, of making secrets known and being told that forgiveness follows atonement. I understand the conversations of complete strangers where the most personal details become ordinary chit chat.

When you finally admit the inadmissible to yourself, it’s just a matter of degrees between that and telling others. And when secrets unleash their hold over you, the exhilaration, the lightness of suddenly being free, makes you want to tell everyone. Maybe we live in such confessional times because we live in such dark times, and the one thing in common is that we are all hiding our shameful secrets. And maybe the most inspirational thing out there is seeing someone else become free of a burden you yourself are shouldering and never thought you could be free of.

It is one thing to confess your sins to G*d, and quite another to admit them to a human being. Lyle Lovett has a great song, which goes like this:

LYLE LOVETT
God Will Lyrics

Who keeps on trusting you
When you've been cheating
And spending your nights on the town
And who keeps on saying that he still wants you
When you're through running around
And who keeps on loving you
When you've been lying
Saying things ain't what they seem
God does
But I don't
God will
But I won't
And that's the difference
Between God and me

So who says he'll forgive you
And says that he'll miss you
And dream of your sweet memory
God does
But I don't
God will
But I won't
And that's the difference
Between God and me

So confessions to G*d…that’s the easy stuff. To admit and acknowledge it first to yourself and then to G*d. But to say things out loud, to another human being means to admit them into shared reality, and to open oneself up to judgment, criticism, rejection, pity, scorn…it’s the point where, in acknowledging the self, you realize you might be separating from everyone and everything that has supported you in your secrecy. Big secrets, big consequences, big changes.

But the alternative is a killer. It requires that you reject yourself under the harshest kind of judgment, in favor of the warm embrace, or at least not the outright rejection, of those who mean something to you. And maybe this is why I love http://www.postsecret.com/ so much. It’s a place where people finally say all the things they won’t admit anywhere else. And you can almost hear the sigh of relief as they finally tell their secret, even though it’s anonymously.