I Confess: I'm Still Here!

That echoing you folks (both of you; heh-heh) have been hearing this week is the empty space where normally my ~daily posting ought to've been. That roaring silence has been in place for several reasons, the greatest of which being that I was simply – though very uncomfortably – ill with TMI. 

Some missed hours at work, an early-morning broken fever (don't worry; I fixed it… no sweat!!), and a few days to recharge my energy, and I'm fine. Most likely just low-grade food-poisoning – but it seems to have taken this blasted long for my head to pull itself back together. Spartacus and I (and others yet) have still been dismantling and rebuilding the universe, but essentially offline. 

I was also operating somewhere between ticked off and feeling violated: I discovered a couple days ago that at least one spamming site (masquerading as a blog), and one or more of the shadier kinds of snatch-'em-up domain-squatters, had seized a couple of my longer posts and put them up as either a temporary camouflage to hide behind, or a component of their propped-up mask of pseudo-legitimacy. 

I've been digesting this (now that I can digest again), and decided that – apart from alerting WordPress, which I still need to do – there isn't a whole lot that can be done. Anyone on a PC and internet access can Ctrl/A + Ctrl/C = Ctrl/V, and have instant content, especially with one of the less savory kinds of webcrawlers. 

Note to them: splinters have not kept me off my soapbox. Posing as me fools only the most gullible – and as long as you're up and functional, you're wising us up. Think about it. 

I’m not going to identify those locations, or which posts were lifted (they made a lousy job of it, too), or even what country/ies seem to be allowing those slimy newts to operate. But I can speak enough of their native language (and I know a good several) that they got a bilingual chewing-out from me – while I squatted behind what may be one of the sturdiest firewalls in this part of the country; I'm not stupid. (Naïve, though, not a problem. Eve was nigh Adam, Adam was naïve; "Madam, I'm Adam".) Also didn't use email… which means I've no way of knowing whether the message got through. 

I'll have to settle for that, and move on. Crap on them, you know? Not that anyone can tell. Back to blogging regardless. 

Being laid up Tuesday meant I missed what I (perhaps a bit lightheartedly) refer to as our semiannual Confessathon. I’m a member of the largest Catholic parish in this part of the state, and twice a year – near the end each of Lent and Advent – most of a dozen priests from more distant points join our own for a communal penance service for the parish. 

Basically, it's a non-Mass service of prayer, reflection, meditation, and Reconciliation (confession); at the culmination of this service, the priests take up (very private) stations around our very big church, and hear confessions until we've all been taken care of… and there are generally several hundred parishioners who make it to these services, so this can take a few hours. Fine by me. 

I'll have to take time in another posting to deal with this in greater detail; it's too easily misunderstood outside of (and even within) the Church. Folks who feel they know their Bible, and have unfortunately accepted the troubling (and demonstrably fallacious) assertion of sola scriptura, will ask how a priest can forgive sins when quite clearly the Bible says that only God/Jesus can forgive sins. Read it again, friends; it's there. 

Other people perhaps imagine these dirty old men in robes (as near as they can get to wearing dresses in public, right? Oh, please!) getting their kickies listening to embarrassingly dirty stories.  

It is remarkably easy to disparage what you don't understand, isn't it? Patience, my friends; I want to tackle some of the common misunderstandings there – since I held many of them myself… and have also received that special Sacrament on many occasions, and gone home feeling fully cleansed to utter purity, through and through, to a degree and depth I cannot hope to adequately describe. 

But it is real – more real, even, than any strain of music that has made me cry, than any cliff-edge that has wrenched my gut, than any spring-blossoming tree and blood-of-autumn branch has wrapped my heart around itself. It would be meaningless, yes, if all we each are is our own flawed and aging body, and no more. But we aren't, and it's not. 

And that's what I missed out on, last Tuesday, so I'm looking forward (very nervously, yet eagerly) to going tomorrow evening – I may be able to relate more of it then. 

God is love. God is compassion. And God is mercy.