Full Confession

Source: Christmas Treats @ Chez Kaj

I confess I did not plan a blog entry.

We have been making rather merry and I have family visiting. I could, perhaps, have planned something ahead of time as I have been known to plan, but I confess I did not feel up to it. I thought perhaps I should cheat and just post pictures of the food we made and have been eating. But that doesn’t seem like an adequate confession.

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I confess to guilt that I am not generous enough, that I do not reach out enough, and that I think of comfort before action.  I am not Catholic, so I don’t know how to classify that sin.

I confess to curiosity as I had to look up the distinctions between mortal and venial sins, which I realized I had always confused with venal. Venial means a pardonable sin, let’s call it a smaller sin, compared with the mortal sins that reflect a turning away from the church entirely. I believe that makes my sin of selfishness venial. But then, what is venal? Dictionary.com says it is foremost being susceptible to bribery because it is based on the Latin ven which referred to money. Whereas the Latin veni referred to asking for forgiveness, i.e. speaking to Venus, who was one with grace.

I believe I have often said “venal” when I meant “venial.” I confess to ignorance. “Veni, vidi, vici” is also what Caesar said, “I came, I saw, I conquered” which means “veni” in Latin is a homonym, and homonyms in languages we don’t know are very confusing.

I confess to spending too much time thinking about unimportant things when I should perhaps be thinking of improving the world.

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Can apple-cheddar muffins and orange-lemon muffins improve the world? I think so. I wish to thank the Facebook people awake at 7 am on Christmas morning with suggestions about lemon curd and orange juice which I didn’t have to replace the lemons which turned out to be mushy and past the pale. The muffins did turn out. The secret was the jar of MJ stuff in the pantry. Thank goodness we cleaned out the pantry so that I knew we had The Stuff (see entry from two months ago.)

I confess to spending too much time thinking about how to win my Forge of Empires game and not enough towards world peace.

I confess to an obsession with financial security and that I probably spend too much time looking at bank accounts to plan for the future.  I fear that I will end up like that character McTeague in the old silent film, Greed by Erich von Stroheim, where McTeague sits in the back room of his house with the shades drawn, counting his piles of coins over and over again just so he can touch them. Or when his wife, Trina, spreads the money on the bed so she can sleep on it.  Actually, now that I think of it, I don’t think I would ever need to sleep on my money.

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I confess we probably put too much butter in the stuffing than is good for us, cooking the onions and celery with two sticks !forshame! along with parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme. I confess there was a lot of salt in the brine for the turkey, which still tastes juicy, three days later.

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I confess to a lack of discipline. Too much food which I eat and then complain about. Can I feel Schadenfreude towards myself? Can I say, “I told you so,” to myself? If it is possible, then make it so!

I confess that our chocolate torte was too soupy but that we ate it anyway, and it was particular good with coconut bites dipped into it.

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I confess to eating too much pizza in my twenties and then regretting it, forever. As the Ghost of Christmas Past would say, “There is still time! Put down that pizza!”

I wish I had eaten less. I wish I had taken drum lessons. I wish I had learned how to ride a horse without fear of falling off. I wish I had traveled more, but I’m working on that.

Confession is a curious function of the soul. It holds regret at its essence. To confess is to admit a transgression and to wish it away. It sounds cleansing as it starts out like a purge. And if you have something to regret and something that should come out, then a spiritual purge can be medicinal. But, at my advancing age, I have learned to pack those regrets away if they are things I cannot change. It’s not good for the soul to spend time counting up your regrets because to sleep on your regrets, like sleeping on your money, will not bring you a sense of peace.

I confess to having little to regret and to loving a little Edith Piaf

Je ne regrette rien!

 

Today’s post was not planned and was entirely inspired by the word of the day: Confess.

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