Forgive Me Father, For I Have...

I have never done this before, but this morning when I was listening to BBC News on my way to work, which is peculiarly one of only three sites I have attempted to access and then found blocked at my work along with MySpace and YouTube, in fact, months before MySpace, I heard about the Pope's Easter Special, and all the people and the recent comments made against the Pope by people who may or may not be prone to blowing themselves up to gain an ungodly amount of virgins (Are you sure?) I had to flinch a little thinking about 100,000 people gathered out in public listening to him, and then it was raining, so the reporter said people were going home. I felt kinda bad for His Papastry, so I am going to write this rather than a letter to the Supreme Court; I think I'm going to let Flo Jo live one in the next few days- after I have a test Monday, a test Tuesday, submit an abstract and bibliography for a 10 or something (gotta read the sheet) page research paper on some subject concerning the history of math or science (I'm thinking along the lines of people's looking at science as a way to find meaning in the physical world, and how that mentality may or may not have shifted in the last few centuries, but that's kinda pullin' shit outta mah ass 'cause my teacher suggested something along those lines. I am just not sure how to verbalize it, but now is not the time for that.) Back to the Pope.

I was not raised Catholic, so I have never done a confession in one of those little boothy things, confessionals, right, so I thought on this Easter Sunday, a mere hour before the end of the Blog Against Theocracy weekend, I would squeeze a little letter/ confession to the Pope in here.

Dear Pope, (can I call you Father?) forgive me for I have sinned. It has been 38 years that I know of since my last confession (possibly aeons longer than that.)

I am guilty. I am a sinner. I am not sure what it is that your rules are Father. Let me guess. Lust, oh yes, there's lust. In fact being in this little booth talking to you from behind the veil of this little screen thingy's got me feeling a little naughty. Have you ever done it in one of these things with a woman who said she had lusted for another's husband when she felt neglected by her own husband? Oh, and that reminds me. I do certainly covet my neighbor's wife. It's been a while, but I went through a stealing phase, when I thought that it was my duty in order to stick it to The Man (no offense, Father.)

Forgive me, Father for I have sinned. I am guilty of sloth, for certain. Are sloths in the Bible? They're cool. There's one over at Zoo Keepers I want to steal. Forgive me for that, I guess. And while we're on the subject of Zoo Keepers, Father, forgive me that all of those hamsters died (or should it be me forgiving you?) I know that Teddy was happier living in that drawer for the last 6 months of his life, but those ones in the cages, well, I felt bad for them. I am a bad mom, Father. I let my garden go to pot and I have ignored two memes in the past week and a half.

Oh, gosh, forgive me Father, for I am a hussy. In third grade I looked up that boy's shorts and saw his ding-a-ling after we listened to that Rod Stewart album with the picture and "Do You Think I'm Sexy" in the classroom. I probably would have danced if I'd thought of it. I made out, not with one of my cousins, but three by the age of eleven. (I don't think the step-cousin should count- Oh, and thanks for not tellin' those Fundies about how Darwin had 10 kids with his double first cousin.) I looked at dirty pictures on my work computer today, on Easter no less, and even liked it. I like Alanis Morissette's song about the fingernails down someone's back. My children each have a different father. I call the man with whom I have lived in sin for nearly 10 years now my husband (and a lumberjack,) but we never had you tell us that was ok. Shit, mother fucker, sweet Jesus on a stick. Forgive that too, k? A'ight. Forgive me Father, for I have sinned. I want to have a three way with my husband and his best friend, and I secretly wish my husband would fall in love with my best friend, so they could go their sexless ways and I could marry his best friend and his wife even though he's a pothead and she's a lush and I make my husband stay at their house if he's been drinking because he hit me while he was drunk a few times several years ago. Oh and I'm not going to 'fess to the yelling and abusiveness on my part, but don't forget I suffered through that miserable women's Anger Management class as one of the only ones who was not court-ordered, but merely strongly suggested to attend by our then couple's counselor after I yelled at her after I had moved out from living with him for six months, single parenting while he soaked it up in rehab before I went to that counselor at the women's shelter and figured out that I had every right to be angry as shit. No way. No how. Come to think of it Father, I think you should channel some apologies from your God for letting things be all fucked up for innocent people and I don't mean me, except for when I was innocent and a little kid and had to live with that jackass.

Forgive me Father, for I have sinned. I have cheated on my husband once, with a lovely woman, and then I told him spitefully in our first (more recent) couple's counseling session and then he thought it was hot, yet humiliating. Before that I almost screwed my ex-husband that one time, but we couldn't find a condom and then I snapped out of my horniness and left. Forgive me Father because this one I really do think's evil, but then I think evil's not evil, and not evil is evil. I smoked cigarettes and pot through my pregnancies and justified it by the cigarettes' being American Spirits that I rolled and then excruciatingly restricted myself to 5 a day, and then quit for good (five and a half years ago) when my last (fourth- oh another thing) one was a just month old. (Oh, the humanity.)

Forgive me father (you don't mind if I lowercase that do you?) for I have sinned. I am not smarter than a third grader. I drive a car run by fossil fuels; I do not hang my family's clothes on a clothesline. I voted for Nader. I would have paid my taxes, but I the government gives me money back and I took it. I am going to cash my bribe stimulus check in May, (and yes, I got the letter. Thanks.) My husband got a vasectomy and before that I used an IUD, but it will probably please you that before that I was a breeder who likes to justify her part in overpopulating this beautiful planet by thinking that my kids are movers and shakers and are gonna change the world, but then I succumbed to my daughter's insistence that I drive her though the McDonald's drive-thru yesterday so she could buy herself a Mighty Kid's Meal because I'm not payin' for that shit and then I got fries anyway. Oh, and I threw all those beer bottles out of that car window in 1987 and into a gorgeous pristine lot in rural Arkansas and now they are going through that horrid flooding. Sorry. And sorry about those two virgin boys I deflowered, even though it was not in your fashion, as I was their same ages.

Forgive me father, for I have sinned because I do not know all the deadly sins or commandments and am about to google them and then I just used google as a verb. I have put my blog before you (is that before the father, before the Mother, or sweet baby Jesus, or a holy ghost. Forgive me father. I don't really believe in ghosts per se.)

Forgive me father for I have sinned. Let's see here, let's list the sins with their counter-virtues for reference...

Lust/ Chastity
Gluttony/ Abstinence
Greed/Temperence
Sloth/Diligence
Wrath/Patience
Envy/Kindness
Pride/Humility

Forgive me father, for I don't really believe that Abstinece is a good policy, that I shouldn't acknowledge my Wrath (and that should be capitalized,) father, or that I shouldn't listen to my envy, which is just an indicator of what I want.

Forgive me father, because I am bored with this, but also I would do all these things again, and am Prideful and probably left out the bad (worse) shit, because if it is the case that you are an aspect of me and we are actually one being that I might, for convenience-sake, call god, then we already know all this and this is just wasting our precious time doing something that I love, writing, which I do with little Diligence or Temperence.

Forgive me father, because if I thought prayer was not supposed to be more like meditation, a listening, then I would ask that you would actually go get a job at a McDonald's in Bagdhad and let the Dalai Llama take your place. I would pray that Margaret Atwood would replace George Bush tomorrow with Bill Moyers as her VP. I would pray that every single person on this planet has enough to eat and full access to free medical care. I would pray that my Statistics teacher will oversleep tomorrow after having hot sex with his young wife all night and our test is postponed and that today is not the day that my husband or my mom decides to read my blog. I would pray that I would not externalize my spirituality and feel the need to separate myself from that with which I wish to communicate, maybe throw in a little telepathy, (which I will throw in for good measure, does occur under the influence of acid, as I and one other woman can attest, across the barrier of language (French on her part, namely.)) Could you tell someone to throw in a few extra Spanish chops, oh, and a non-tone deaf singing voice like a female Johnny Cash's so's I could sing this, oh, and religious freedom for all, and a government that is just and fair and providing and security-giving and, duh, not Theocratic? Maybe then we'll be even, K?

Hmmm, I do feel a little better.

I think I'm ready for that lie detector show.

(P.S. Forgive me father, for I gave my daughter shit for watching that lie detector show and then I watched it with her. Goddamn, that shit's mean!)