In Reply to: of course... part 1 posted by FRSP on October 06, 2006 at 03:41:20:
Yours is a hard tale to read. I've had an experience with guilt and the burden of a secret sin.
This part I don't fully understand:
"Now i know now that that was without doubt the purest thing i've ever done, but for the next ten years the secret of it weighed over me, whether it was 'good enough', and how to make it up to God. "
So you made this very personal act of penance, and you felt more burdened by the self-offering than freed of self and reborn? Is that sort of what you're talking about?
God, I know what it's like to carry around a guilty secret as a child. What of innocence? Is that why you see your act of penance as the purist thing you've ever done?
Catholics have got the guilt thing down good. My sister-in-law tells me that Jews have similar issues. The Family does that "Have I done enough for God?" thing, too.
Hey, at least you grew out of that unproductive way of thinking about things greater than yourself.
I'll most likely never never affiliate with another church group again in this lifetime. Group-think is a flippin' dangerous thing to get into, and group-think is something churches like to do as a way of life that's maybe not always healthy or in my best interests.