like a desert waiting for the rain

i started really liking norah jones pretty much after i heard that line. i think it's a gorgeous analogy, except that i think norah was talking about sex, when it can apply to pretty much anything.

i think, and i hope i'm not speaking for myself, that it can apply to my faith. not that i'm actually expecting something from Him, but more and more, i'm feeling that that's what we're being preached.

hmm.. maybe this is all a bit confusing. i'm gonna try and go through a thought progression that happened today at church, and maybe folks can understand what i'm tryin to say.

- so i went to the 8pm mass by myself, i like going by myself because i just do. and i was sittin by the side where the confession room is. father andrew makes a semi-scene going into the priest's side of the confession booth, and then a line slowly accumulates leading into the confession booth.

- so now i'm thinking, i remember when i was in 2nd grade, and we had to do confession before our first communion. i remember being nervous going to father for confession, not because i had dirty sins to confess, but that i couldn't figure out what i was going to say to him. i wasn't a bad little kid. so i had to over-exaggerate a kinda-sin that maybe i had thought about doing, or something like that.

- now i'm thinking, if i went into confession, i still don't know what i would say to father. not that i'm an angel or anything, but i'm not a bad person, and i don't consider myself a sinful person. also, i don't know too many people that are just outright sinful people. which leads me to thinking...

- why is the line for confession so long? why are all these people lined up for confession? what could they possibly be ready to confess? i guess what i was trying to get at in my head, why do we have to confess our sins? why, why, why can't we just try to be better people? i'm sure you get some reassurance that a priest knows what your sins are, but then, why father andrew? he's like the worst priest there.

- now it's established in my head that i no longer need confession. not that i'm gonna be a perfect person, but i won't live my life sinfully, and for any sins that i do/have commit/ed, i usually am pretty remorseful once i think about them.

- then i get my "this is what faith is" realization. that we try to live sin-free our whole lives, with the hope, the "faith", that this will all mean something in the end. we are all deserts, waiting for the rain. waiting to be quenched with something.

not really an epiphany, i think most folks i've known in my life were raised to think this way.

here's to having the faith that the rain is coming.