Midnight: I Confess

Midnight only exists because we humans can’t resist compartmentalizing the natural world and then layering on symbolism and adding in rituals that help us make believe we’re in control.

Midnight lets us turn a continuum (the smooth inexorable rotation of the earth, the unceasing today) into a discontinuity (yesterday versus tomorrow), It’s the theoretical halfway point between sunset and sunrise – and therefore the deepest dark, a scary time, but one that must be endured before dawn.

Sometimes we turn that scary time into a place. The Catholic Church ritualized it in the sacrament of Penance, especially in its old-fashioned form. When I was about 13, I passed along a particularly juicy piece of gossip about a priest, something sexual that I didn’t know for a fact but that was delicious enough to tantalize my best friend of the moment. Immediately I knew I’d committed the sin of Slander – the worst in my life – and the days became a burden to me. I knew even as a girl that dawn could not come without midnight. On a Saturday afternoon, I trudged the three blocks from home to church, rehearsing over and over the words I would use to confess my sin, wanting to make sure that my confessor had enough information to decide if it was a venial or mortal sin and dispense absolution accordingly.

The Catholic confessional: midnight. The church echoes of whispers and the opening and closing confession booth panels, wood sliding on wood. The priest’s weary head nods toward me, obscured by the varnished cane screen between us. “Bless me father for I have sinned.” I state my sins. When I say I passed along gossip about the other priest, he asks me what it was and when I tell him the dark sexual suspicions he heaves a great sigh. The clock strikes midnight in my soul. I launch into my Act of Contrition: “Oh my God, I am heartily sorry…” He gives me my penance, 5 Hail Marys and 2 Our Fathers and I leave the unlit booth a new girl. The afternoon air is sweet and I gulp deep breaths of it. Dawn. Yesterday is behind me and I’m full of tomorrows.

Confession ritualizes the dark transition from yesterday to tomorrow, makes the night journey safe for us everyday people who might otherwise spend our lives in a guilty twilight, terrified of the dark, but unable to muster what it takes to get to the other side.

Religion gives us purification rituals. Modern society gives us self-help books, therapy groups, diets, and scolding from pop-media psychologists.

The night journey is a helpful metaphor for me. It’s life. To keep moving forward, to get from day to day you have to endure the night. “The best way out is always through.” [Robert Frost, A Servant to Servants, 1914]

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