Confessions: 'Getting Down' in a Good Way

A few things have occured to me this past weekend. I realized rather pleasantly how soon it will be until I return to Wisconsin and see my family again. I noticed that if I don't get myself moving on my copious amounts of strenuous homework my grades will suffer severely. And, most importantly, it also dawned on me that there is, in fact, a healthy way to get down about things, and by 'get down' I mean become sad or mildly depressed, even, about something effecting us in our lives.

I went to confession Thursday night with a priest, Fr. James, who has been publically acclaimed among my fellow students as an amazing priest in the confessional. Curious of the different approaches priests use in confession, I decided to confess my sins to him.

During confession, Father talked to me about 'getting down' about something in my life in a good way. He said it was natural for us as humans to get down about alot of things. But, in doing so, it just made it easier for us to become more severe on ourselves, and, in turn, towards others, that is, unless we can get down in a good way, this being, making sure you focus on how to recover from your downward spiral. Of course, not getting down at all would be ideal, but some situations we get caught up in make life really difficult and really hard to bounce back in a completely healthy way. He told me that I should focus on trying to fix the problem. The advice was so simple and so easy that I was skeptical. I was skeptical of the credibility people gave him and I left the confessional slightly disappointed that my confession did not live up to what so many people said it would be.

It wasn't of course until a few days later that I found myself in another trying situation. I reflected on the direction from Father James and found it to be so simple to do, yet so crucial to our existence. People can't help but getting down about every tiny little trouble in their lives. Nothing is made more simple by the extrinsic factors in our life. So when those extrinsic factors hurt our personal selves we revel in that in an unhealthy way. Not good. We need to focus on the recovery. We need to understand that whatever happened happened and it's in the past. We were hurt, torn down, made a fool of, but it happened and recovery is all we can look forward to. We can't let it control our actions enough that it is outwardly expressed to others. This is most important. This direction also brings to mind the famous "Love your neighbor as yourself" saying. How can you love your neighbor as yourself when you yourself are in a trying situation? You can't. You can try and cover it, but it isn't truly sincere and the fakeness surfaces in every action you make. The recovery is the necessary focus to regain a stable mentality.

Guess Fr. James' exceeded his status with his wise words...