Water

Last week, I was invited to write something to read at the first story-telling night at the Grumpy Swimmer bookshop in Elwood. The theme was “water” – not an element in which I’ve ever felt easy, much as I love it.

At the same time, I was grappling with my piece for Women of Letters. I hadn’t finalised it, and was torn between three wildly different versions. I think the piece for Grumpy might have affected the outcome of my letter. It’s as though I dipped my toes into the water and was able to look back to shore and see where I had come from – and that is what I wrote about.

So, as a way of honouring the process, and as an offering to you, my subscriber-village, I thought I’d post the Grumpy piece here. It’s short – it had to come in under five minutes – but I’m so grateful to it. It is a step on the way to my next major project, I think. And it gave me the first words for my Women of Letters piece, too!

I was born at the end of the world, on the edge of a great ocean. Before my eyes could focus, I was taken to a place in the desert, where, like a cactus, I grew plump, drawing life from the red dust that was my whole world.

One day, they took me back to see that ocean I had not been shown. They told me I could swim in it, walk beside it, make a castle near it. They gave me a bucket and a spade, and I held them close in the hot car for hours while we drove to that great ocean.

They forgot one thing. They didn’t tell me about the noise.

“Look,” they said. “Look at the pretty blue.”

The pretty blue roared and crashed, it thumped and smashed. It frothed and bubbled and hissed, and no amount of cajoling was going to get me to step into its soupy swirls.

I ran from it, craving my desert silence.

When I had grown I went back to the great ocean. It was still loud.

Currents of warmth rose out of frigid depths. Sand slid from under my toes. Seaweed tangled around my thighs, trying to hold me. Water was sirens, sharks and lures. Water was not my element.

Too loud. Too belligerent. Too slippery and unpredictable.

I left the great ocean and returned to the reliable earth, to find my feet and my way. I walked. I walked myself away from my home and into the wide world.

Along the ways, I was always drawn to ocean-people. I loved their roaring laughter, their flicks and head-tosses, their flamboyance. But I couldn’t stay with them. Always I returned to the silence of the earth; to its unassuming wisdom and its wry smile.

One day in the midst of all the ocean-people, I met an earthed man, who brought me to live in his home near a stretch of water that is confident enough about itself not to need to roar. I came home to a sure shore.

On the edge of Port Phillip Bay, there is a trail, where I’ve walked for over two decades now. It is my camino. That word means road, or way, in the Spanish language. It makes a known path feel more seductive to me when I call it a camino. Sometimes, you need to find ways of making the familiar exotic when you walk a road every day.

My camino runs from the end of the Elwood canal, past Point Ormond, and along the beach to Brighton. Sometimes I turn right and head for St Kilda, but it’s busy along there. Too many ocean-people.

On my camino, the rhythm of my feet kicks in, and before I know it I have drifted to other roads…to the desert, to Italy, central Australia, and Tasmania; to the Great Dividing Trail. I can be in Spain, out on the dry meseta tableland.

But then I turn my head, and there beside me on my camino is the bullet-grey of Port Phillip Bay’s water.

Come back. It says. Be here. Be where you are.

Because now, after all these years of tracing that camino bay-trail, it is water that grounds me. Calmer, stiller water. The glint of afternoon sun on that wine-dark bay tells me I’m where I belong. The first pale light of day, sparkling on the lapping edge at my toes, whispers that I’m where I’m meant to be. It is water, that body of water with its softness and its steely grey, that holds me on course and stays the distance. It is that water that calls me home.

End-of-the-world-sunset across my beloved bay

My gratitude to all of you who are subscribers, and in particular to those who have left such rich and thoughtful comments in response to the offerings here. I recently re-read my first ever post, and I remember the skepticism I felt about things digital and social media. I realise I now have new communities. I love sharing snippets and pictures and fast updates on Facebook, and enjoy the thumbs-up LIKEs when they hit a nerve, or give a smile. I have learned that Twitter can take me down tunnels about writers and news outlets I’d never imagined. Here, on the blog, I feel I have conversations with guests at an on-goinng dinner party.

So thank you all, wherever you intersect with me. I will keep trying to offer tasty morsels!

Converging

Just over six years ago, Hugh Colman and I began work on an adaptation of John Webster’s thrill-ride The Duchess of Malfi. In December 2006, our production of the script opened at Red Stitch in Melbourne, under the title Hellbent.

Today, I’m going in to chat on radio about a new production, opening at the Opera House in Sydney this Wednesday, directed by John Bell for the Bell Shakespeare Company, under the original title.

Preparing for that interview, I have been re-reading our text and also the original. I am surprised by how much we changed. I had grown accustomed to our version, but have been reminded of the boldness we achieved, in company with Rachel Burke and the original cast. More importantly though, I’ve been reminded of the exquisite, muscular, original and imaginative power of Webster’s language – and of its immediacy and accessibility.

That’s why we didn’t tamper with the words. Our version re-arranges and re-assigns the text; it tells a different story; it has a shift of focus – but it leaves the glory of Webster’s words intact. There are times when I think he might have bettered the bard.

Gasp!

But consider these lines, as the heroine faces her death, explaining that the rope with which she will be strangled holds no fear of her:

What would it pleasure me to have my throat cut

With diamonds? Or to be smothered

With cassia? Or to be shot to death with pearls?

 

Or this sharp poke at politicians:

I would sooner swim to the Bermudas on

Two politicians’ rotten bladders, tied

Together with an intelligencer’s heart-string,

Than depend on so changeable a leader’s favour.

Or his mordant humour, in this exchange between the Duchess and her twin brother:

– Diamonds are of most value they say, that have passed through most jeweller’s hands.

– Whores, by that rule, are precious.

And this wisdom:

Though some ministers hold it presumption

To instruct leaders what they ought to do,

It is a noble duty to inform them

What they ought to foresee.

I could go on. And on. Bur for those of you who live in Sydney, I hope you might come along and experience the wonders for yourself. The play is not often staged, due to the sprawling, wayward length of the uncut original. I hope ours makes a strong case for the resonances and value of the writing.

In another funny convergence, it was while revising our adaptation just over two years ago that I came across the detail about pilgrims that began my sin-walk. There were pilgrims in the original Webster script, and I was wondering if we should reinstate them. I began hunting down pilgrim lore, and learned of the sin-carrying custom. Webster’s pilgrims went, and I went on the road! And so the play led to the walk, which led to the book, Sinning Across Spain.

And so this week, many roads lead to the one place. The Opera House.

Our version ends with the words:

Mine is another voyage.

What a voyage Mr Webster has given me!

I thank him, my beautiful script collaborator Hugh Colman, the generous and wise John Bell, and all those who have wrangled and questioned the script through two productions. It has been a miraculous, gifted journey.

For those who don’t know them, the top photo is on the freeway at the entrance to Melbourne, and the bottom is crossing the bridge – that bridge – in Sydney.

More convergences!

A postscript.

Reviews for Duchess of Malfi can be read at these links:

The Radio National interview about Malfi can be found here:

http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/booksandartsdaily/the-duchess-of-malfi/4118124

Leaving The Room
I’m at the desk, hunkered down, feeling less than inspired. It’s cold outside and the trails are not kind.
Slippery, and not conducive to flight.
So I go inside and sit, looking at the screen.
And wait.
Louise, my dear friend and fellow walker, sent me this quote. I thought you might take solace from it, as I do.
You do not need to leave your room………
Remain sitting at your table and listen.
Do not even listen,simply wait.
Do not even wait,be quite still and solitary.
The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked.
It has no choice.
It will roll in ecstasy at your feet.
Franz Kafka.
I hope inspiration breaks through from behind the clouds for you.
Thanks to all who braved the chills to come along to Saturday’s Bayside Literary Festival conversation. That inspired…
Info and pics for that and other events are over at the Facebook page. Click on the little Facebook symbol on the top right to get over there.
Keep warm.
Keep walking.
On, on…

Friends, amigos, compañeros…

“Oh, no. We’re just friends…”

I overheard that while standing in a queue this week, and it struck me as odd. We’ve come to accept that “just friends” means “not romantically linked”, but when I reflected on the words, I felt a bit sad.

JUST friends?

I think friendship is the sustaining force in any relationship, romantic or otherwise, and to be called “friend” is praise of the highest order.

As someone who is lucky to have many remarkable, conscious, supportive relationships, I could never put a qualifier like “just” before the word “friend”. My friends – and they include family – are precious beyond words. And I have never been more grateful for them than in recent times.

 

Democracy in the street

Compañero

Like amigo, it can mean “friend”, but for me compañero has many resonances. Separating it into its component parts, we get “one with whom you break bread”, so there is a faintly religious overtone when I hear it – loaves and fishes, brotherhood of man.

I associate it with my camino compañero, who first taught it to me, and whose life is defined by serving others, by sitting in the poorest of places, breaking bread and listening.

These days, I think of our word “comrade” when I hear “compañero“. In particular, I remember the young indignados – those who were calling for change back when I was in Spain, long before the Occupy movement had begun. They were peaceful, courteous and respectful, but they were warning of problems ahead, and of the loss of possibility and hope, months before politicians were prepared to confront the issues head-on.

In Santiago, I marvelled as they graffitied a slogan on a bank. They didn’t paint onto the walls, but rather, they attached large sheets of paper on which they had written their protests, not wanting to damage the building.

I think of them often, wondering about their future, and how precarious it must feel now.

Companions. Comrades.

I hope they have friendship to sustain them.

 

Words on a wall

This was written in El Raval, in Barcelona. It’s a translation from Brecht.

WAYS TO KILL
There are many ways to kill
They can stick a knife in your guts
Take away your bread
Not cure your illness
Put you into bad living conditions
Torture you to death through work
Take you to war etc.
Only a few of these things are forbidden in our city

I don’t know who wrote it, but they missed out a line: Empujarte al suicidio…

Drive you to suicide…

I hear such sadness from Spain just now – friends, pilgrims, newspaper reports, television. I hear it from Greece and Ireland too.

I also hear resilience and courage. Stoicism and humour.

I hope they are able to take some strength from friendship, camaraderie and family. I hope that they will continue to have bread to break. I hope that we who currently have much will be able to remember our luck, and help where we can.

I hope that I can be more than JUST a friend…

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Gracias, amigos.

 

Credo…

It means “I believe.”

Not something to proclaim without thought, but there most definitely are things in which I do have faith.

I believe in the power of forgiveness to transform, in the ache to be better, and the impulse to serve.

I believe in the wispy promise of mornings like this one, when the fog lifted itself to reveal a fierce, determined sun.

I believe in confession with all my heart, telling the true story of ourselves, eye to eye with another human being.

I believe our stories shape our lives, so the more honest we are in those stories, the more freedom we will gain.

I believe in personal accountability, staring down my self in the personal mirror that is an unflinching and constant observer.

I worship in churches where silence prevails: barren plains, rocky hilltops, burnt-out forests and squelching paddocks. Places where the hush of humility has fallen.

I believe in kindness. I believe in kindness. I believe in kindness.

And in the goodness that wants to prevail.

I know there is nothing more sacred to me than the act of putting one foot down on a dusty road, and then putting down the other.

Again and again.

For as long as it takes.

Turning up and doing the work.

And I know that the work never ends.

 

I know there is beauty in effort.

I believe in betterment via example.

I know snails are gurus.

I know that via example!

I know we are all connected, whether we like it or not, and we owe it to this astonishing planet, and those we hope might come after, to acknowledge that fact in our actions as well as our words.

I believe in possibility over certainty.

I believe in the hope of rain on parched soil. When I smell that unmistakeable waft, I am reminded that miracles have occurred, and that they will again.

Paso a paso. Step by step.

That’s my mantra. My rosary.

And “buen camino” is the prayer I make for you.

The wish.

Good road. Good way. Good path.

May it find you, especially on the hard days…

Those pictures were taken on a long walk last Sunday along the Great Dividing Trail and back toward Glenlyon, near Daylesford, in Victoria. Country that makes my heart sing. Thanks to all those who came along to the Glenlyon General Store for the Tapas night. It was a celebration of the warmth of community amid the chill of a goldfields winter night. Gracias Tania and David – and all in that humming kitchen.

Gracias, gracias, gracias.

Gratitude is another prayer…

Overland

Last Sunday I talked walking on ABC Radio’s Australia All Over, and was reminded of the brilliant walking opportunities we have down under. This post is by way of a reminder that we don’t have to go to Spain to make a camino, or to be a pilgrim.

Back in the summer of 2009, I walked the Overland Track in Tasmania with five friends. We had blistering heat and snowdrifts, wallabies and platypus, chocolate and saffron, and adventures with camp stoves.

We had our breath taken away by vast vistas and miniscule insects.

It was a week of Australian wonders.

Do it if you get the chance.

Here’s a mosaic. Little images of big country.

 

               

Thanks Carl NP for your photos.

And for the miles of walking wonders we have shared.

 

Hot off the presses!

A review/write-up of the book on the Taste For Travel website. Click here. Do!

http://www.tastefortravel.com.au/blog/8853/walking-a-hard-but-beautiful-1200km-across-spain/

My Life is Japanese

Sydney.

The Opera House.

The Vivid Light Festival.

A combination that enthralled locals and tourists alike, in spite of tonight’s rain. We gasped and clicked away as this projection of a lithe young woman rolled and somersaulted across those famous sails.

Magic.

That’s how this whole visit has felt. It has been a camino of wonders.

I’ve laughed and cried, reminisced and rollicked with friends old and new. I’ve talked sins with the charming Richard Glover on Sydney’s ABC 702. I’ve sat in the dark,  awestruck and mesmerised, at The Clock – a 24 hour film installation at the MCA. I’ve seen two plays – Les Liaisons Dangereuses and Under Milkwood – at the Sydney Theatre Company. Both of them were peopled by actors I know and love, who gave such pleasure. Yesterday I sat in a rehearsal room down in the Rocks and heard a reading of The Duchess of Malfi, the script I adapted with Hugh Colman. Such delight! It was fast, funny, very furious and charged with linguistic energy that ripped off the page in the hands of a gifted cast. I walked out into the evening and saw this bouquet of wonders, dancing over my head in the Argyle Cut….

I wandered down to the harbour, gobsmacked by Sydney’s beauty, and my good fortune. I had that old camino feeling of being connected to every person I saw, grinning into the darkness for sheer wonder at the convergence of miracles. I thought too, of those I love who have been travelling every step with me in my head and heart. My stepfather, who came through his heart operation with flying colours. My friends – two of them – who are in the middle of cancer tests and treatment decisions. And my huge-hearted “landlady” here in Sydney, who is mourning the one-year anniversary of her beloved’s passing…

This poem rolled about in my head. It was given to me by Dennis, a fellow pilgrim – one who is much in my thoughts as he walks a difficult road, just now. I post it here in his honour, and to remind myself of connection. Oneness. We are all walking together. All our lives are Japanese…

Gracias Dennis.

Today

My life is Japanese

My life is Swiss

My life is German

from Munich

Today I am Italian

and French

and the food I eat

is from Spain.

Today I feel

New Zealand-ish

I feel Dutch is

I feel Australian mate

Today I walk in

Comfort Canadienne

A bit of Britain

I sway my arms

In Chekoslovakian

My heart beats with the US

But mostly for today

My life is Japanese.

Dennis’s poem is one of those featured in the ABC’s Sinning Across Spain Poetica programme. If you’d like to hear it, and others that inspired the walk, please click here:
And if you’d like to subscribe to these posts, just enter your email address on the top right and click SUBSCRIBE.
Finally, do have a look at the tabs on the black bar at the top. There’s info there about upcoming EVENTS AND MEDIA that you may find enticing.
Buen camino!
Gracias…

 

 

Hace dos años…

 

Two years ago…

I arrived at Finisterre after 1300 kilometres of marvels and mud!

Finisterre.

The name has taken on mystical significance for me.

Land’s end.

The place of arrival.

Of course there is really no arrival, there is only the ongoing journey – the next road that opens. But sometimes it’s good to honour a milestone, and so today, that is what I’m doing.

After the usual washing of clothes and body, massaging of legs and feet, carb-loading and journalling, I walked uphill out of the port to the lighthouse, passing this pilgrim monument on the way.

It was about 9pm.

Bright, clear and warm.

The sea and sky – the world! – seemed to stretch to forever. A trickle of other pilgrims splayed out along the road in front and behind me, but all of us walked in our own silences, suspended between ending and beginning.

We sat and watched a hot red sun turn to orange then pink, as the sea turned from deep blue to mauve below it.

I burned the list of sins, honouring the tradition of release at journey’s end, and honouring those whose courage had kept me walking.

It felt just right.

Then, as the whole world turned pastel, I walked downhill, stopping to ask a fellow pilgrim to photograph me at this distance marker.

It reads “0.00 km”.

Nowhere else to go.

Nowhere to be.

Just here and now.

I can’t remember any place ever feeling so full, or so empty. Perfect.

The world is rather a whirl just now, as I ready myself to offer up a monologue about the work, this Wednesday night in Melbourne. I’m doing things I’ve not done in years – learned lines, pondered how to project my voice, considered my own body in space.

The road will always surprise us!

But in the midst of the fear around failure that accompanies any task I care about deeply, I took myself out onto the road yesterday and walked along the Great Dividing Trail. After about two hours, I looked up at the wide turquoise sky and began to sob with happiness – that strange, inexplicable thing that can happen sometimes when I know I am in my skin and where I am meant to be, and grateful. So very grateful.

Our neighbourhood is being photographed as a record of the 2012 residents, and as part of it we had to fill out a questionnaire. One query was what we hoped to be doing in ten years time. My answer was – still feeling thankful for a body that is strong enough to carry me along a road.

May you remember to honour your milestones.

May you feel the pleasure of here and now at 0.00kms.

May you be overwhelmed by gratitude when you least expect it.

A couple of reminders!

If you have not listened to my Poetica programme, please remember you can download it:

http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/poetica/2012-05-05/3967108

And don’t forget to read the comments – I love the one from the man in Santiago! Feel free to leave one if you enjoy it – the producer, Anne McInerney, did a glorious job, and is leaving the ABC. She deserves all praise.

And of course, if you would like to be kept updated with posts like this, and the guest posts like Tony’s, please enter your email and hit the subscribe button on the top right.

 

Carrying the Pain of Others: Reviving An Ancient Journey

Today we have a guest post. The second ever.

I hope there will be more, but for now, I’m honoured to offer you this moving and provocative reflection on the book. I am particularly grateful to Tony Doherty for facing head-on the horrors of sexual abuse, and how that plays out for him as a pastor in the Catholic church.

When I was walking, I often passed shepherds with their flocks.

Hola Senor Pastor, I would call. Hello Mister Shepherd.

I think Tony’s “flock” are fortunate to have someone so prepared to wrestle with the realities of trying to live with honesty and compassion – and disgrace – inside the structure of the Church. I feel very lucky to have received his words in response to the book.

 

To what extent are we willing to carry the pain of others? In a Church which claims to be a supporting community of believers, how do we give hope, in some genuine fashion, to someone whose life is fast unravelling, asks Tony Doherty*

 

At first blush, the concept seemed frankly medieval. An idea left behind centuries ago. Not just pre-Vatican II but pre-Lutheran. Quaint theology but tinged with medieval superstition, with more than a whiff of magic and money.

The idea – a pilgrim setting out to walk the famous Camino de Santiago carrying on her back an unusual cargo – a load of other people’s sins (for a small monetary consideration). This followed the best traditions of medieval believers who paid others to carry their sins to such sacred sites as Santiago, and so buy forgiveness. Not surrogate parenting, but surrogate reconciliation.

An Australian writer, director and actor, Ailsa Piper took on a 1,300 kilometre pilgrimage walking continually for about 45 days through storms and cold, across the rough and the smooth (this woman is no slouch) to the Spanish city of Santiago de Compostella.

Before leaving home, Ailsa published the quirky invitation: “I will walk off your sins. Pilgrim seeks sinners for mutually beneficial arrangement. Proven track record. Tireless. Reliable. Seven deadlies a speciality”.

In our so cool and sophisticated, post-modern culture could such an arcane invitation work? “…yes, people gave me their sins. From the first day, there were confessions, even some from strangers who’d heard of the quest.”

Hang about! Confession of ‘sin’ has been replaced has it not by more contemporary and non-judgemental counselling procedures – or have I been out having lunch somewhere?

But confessions they were – genuine admissions of sin from half-believers, once-upon-a-time believers, even acknowledged atheists. Always heartfelt, often unnervingly disclosive. “I have slept with my best friend’s husband. Not once but four times.” The ‘penitents’ left the impression they were just aching to deal with previously undealt with material.

Taking the project quite seriously, the writer-pilgrim would read the load of sins she was carrying religiously each morning, like some monastic chapter of faults. Her own struggles and sins became part of the daily examination. The honesty and integrity of the author’s description of this process is expressed with uncommon sensitivity and indeed sacredness. At some quite deep level it made totally good sense.

The book, Sinning Across Spain (Victory Books, Melbourne, 2012), tells the story in graceful and stylish voice which at times becomes quite lyrical.

The ‘Camino’ is in the news these days, thanks to Emilio Estevez’s splendid film The Way, the story of a father who, faced with the death of his son killed while attempting the pilgrimage, decides to do the walk carrying his box of ashes to Santiago and eventually the sea. The Piper story and the Estevez film contain a fascinating common thread – carrying a heavy load on the journey: the ashes of a son’s life and the wounds of other people’s lives.

Unburdening oneself of some personal load is an ancient practice on the Camino. At the highest point of the path to Santiago, on top of one of the most challenging hills, there stands a large iron cross. For centuries pilgrims have carried stones, more frequently not much more than we would call ‘gibbers’, often wrapped in paper on which is written a prayer or perhaps a promise. The stones would represent some guilty memory, some emotional wound, perhaps unhealed grief. It might represent a relationship sorely in need of repair or a renewed commitment to the future.

More enthusiastic pilgrims will bring several stones representing the struggles of those left behind at home. Some might choose instead of a stone a symbolic item which better represents what they want to leave behind. The genesis of the Piper invitation, to carry somebody else’s load of sin, probably finds its inspiration in this ancient practice.

Does it make sense? You’d better ask a weary pilgrim struggling up the hill with their heavy swag.

If I may intrude a personal story. Several years ago while walking the Camino I was at the ‘iron cross’ and there on top of the centuries-high pile of stones were two pink baby’s shoes tied together by their laces. I couldn’t get them out of my mind. What did their presence mean? No explanatory note. A pile of symbolic items as untidy as a garage sale. Left there undoubtedly as silent witness of some family tragedy. Hemingway was once famously challenged to write a short story in six words. His story: “For Sale. Baby shoes. Never used.”

So here’s the twist. To what extent are we willing to carry the pain of others? In a Church which claims to be a supporting community of believers, how do we give hope, in some genuine fashion, to someone whose life is fast unravelling?

For Catholics, facing with horror the shocking events of child abuse and sexual manipulation, how do we stop from drowning ourselves? One familiar response is denial. “It can’t be happening.” “Just a few rotten apples.” Another response is angrily scapegoating whatever easy target comes to mind, or the rather shamefully pulling the blankets over our heads and pretending it will go away.

Ailsa Piper’s strategy might hold a valuable clue. Are we strong enough to carry the pain of others – say, the victims of this terrible abuse? Or an even more unspeakable possibility – to carry a little of the disgrace of those seen as responsible.

Sinning across Spain asks the question: how really connected are we? It is a powerful and tantalising question.

 

* Monsignor Tony Doherty, a priest of the Sydney Archdiocese, is pastor of two Sydney parishes, Dover Heights and Rose Bay. His lifetime search is to find an appropriate language of faith for contemporary adults. He also admits to being a little addicted to walking pilgrimages.

 

If you would like to see the article in the context for which Tony wrote it, you can go to this link, which is on the website of the Sisters of the Good Samaritan.

http://www.goodsams.org.au/good-oil/carrying-the-pain-of-others-reviving-an-ancient-journey/

Muchas gracias, Tony. Muchas.

Simony?

In one of the interviews I did recently I was asked if I took seriously the notion of “carrying sins”. I answered that while I tried not to take myself too seriously, I absolutely did feel the responsibility and weight of the “confessions” that had been made to me. They were privileged information and profound acts of trust, and I treated them that way.

I still do.

If you have read the book, you will know that one sinner gave me the sin of gossip to carry. It would have been easy to make “gossip” of the sins, but I never spoke of them on the road, and it is only with permission that I name them in the book. I sincerely hope I will go to my grave without putting the names of sinners to the sins.

That said, I have never forgotten an email I received from one of my sinners when I reached a net cafe in Córdoba. He asked me whether I was committing the sin of simony, which is defined variously as something like “the buying or selling of ecclesiastical privileges, for example pardons…”

It was a conscience-check for me, and a cause for heaviness of heart until I had wrangled with it, and myself.

Today, I was sent the link to the app above.

I don’t suppose it is simony – there don’t seem to be any indulgences or privileges being sold – but as one of my Facebook community asked me, “Shouldn’t it be free?”

And I’m curious about how it is to be used when in the confessional.

Perhaps I will have to lash out and buy it.

Or not.

I may have to take a long walk to consult my conscience first.