Subtle sins (cont)

When I say this sin is subtle I don't mean to give you, gentle readers, the impression that I don't harbor places of real ugliness in my soul. We all have these places. I have long held anger against someone and called him a friend. I have displayed a lack of courage when someone I cared about was in trouble and needed my help. I have been cold and unforgiving. I suspect that you grapple with these weaknesses also. In a peculiar way it is a blessing that they are perfectly obvious. So let me be bold in confessing my less overt frailty, the dark side of one of my gifts. I am a compulsive writer, and, let me put it honestly...an exhibitionist. Sometimes I write because I am driven to provoke, to question, to instruct, or to incite. There are times when writing becomes a way to pose questions for which I have no answers. Occasionally I write a column or a post here because I hope that someone will have an answer for me, or for us in this little online community. But sometimes, I am ashamed to say (but not ashamed enough) I write as a way of exorcising the pain of a relationship that seems to be rent by hostility, or mis-communication or indifference. The catharsis of throwing the words on the screen helps me, but does nothing for my lost partner. My transient, if well crafted prose builds no bridges, heals no wounds, and comes from a place of pride rather than humility. As I write this tonight, I wonder-do you also have those buried places of brokenness within-pagan temples in which your own bacchanalian gods dance? Are the personal gifts with which you charm the public also your places of greatest temptation? Those of you with a public face are probably more prone to this kind of sin-but some of us are better at confessing it, and more able to control it, than are others.