Shriving

Yesterday (Shrove Tuesday) got me thinking about the issue of shriving. This is a word of which I wasn't aware before I looked it up in the dictionary last night, but I learned that it means confessing and that it stems from the Old English word scrifan: to prescribe [as in, a penance]. When I think about it, it's obvious that this is where we get the term 'to give short shrift' from, isn't it? I wonder why the word has largely fallen into disuse. A sign of the times?

But confession and penance are important to us. They're important to me, anyway. I do things, from time to time, that on reflection I wish I hadn't done and then I feel bad about having done them. I'm not particularly a Christian, much less a Catholic, but at times like that I'd welcome the relief of a confession box and a scripted penance.

You'd have to fully buy into the authenticity of the process - and I don't think I could - but if I did, it would be good to receive absolution on some matters. Absolution makes you feel ok again.

The I Ching, in which I put more faith than the Bible for the simple reason that it's less cluttered, holds freedom from blame to be the highest good. Not, I think, because freedom from blame makes a person popular and therefore fortunate. But because freedom from internal blame, or guilt, provides peace of mind. Absolution.

And yet I'm not a fan of saying 'sorry'. It's too easy to keep behaving badly and to think that just saying the word 'sorry', whether you really are or not, wipes the slate clean. This isn't about outward appearances, or what other people think - it's about how a person feels inside. Truthfully.

When you breach your own standards of behaviour, even mistakenly thinking you were doing the right thing at the time, you feel bad. Confession, leading to punishment or penance would solve that feeling. But someone said 'We pay for our sins in this life,' and I think this - more than any other reason - is why I call myself a Taoist. Life has a way of meting out punishment: natural justice.

So I sit here, worrying: when is it going to happen? And then I realise: it is.

What I still don't know (and if you do then please tell me!) is why February 5th was officially deemed to be the best time of year for going through this process.