Where I may be found

As you might be able to tell from the huge gaps between posts here, I don't blog here regularly. Seriously, folks, try Blogger for a much, much better blogging experience. So if you want to read some of what I'm writing:

My wife and I blog about faith, health, and family at Fondue.

Platte Daddy is my tech blog, for those who want to learn about agile software development, Ruby and Ruby on Rails, and that.

After the serene hymns of the Saturday evening Vespers service preparing for the Sunday morning liturgy the next morning, the lights are dim and a few people stay, quietly reading Psalm 51 aloud as a meditation on true repentance. Then the priest -- whose role is to humbly represent Jesus -- quietly steps out from the altar (Orthodox architecture and theology treats the altar area as a Christian fulfillment of the Jewish Holy of Holies). He then stands next to the nearly-life-size image of Christ in front next to the altar, and begins praying silently, preparing to hear confessions.

One at a time, the repentant sinners (and in preparing for Communion, all Orthodox pray that they are the worst sinner, echoing St. Paul) come to confess their darkest sins. They stand directly before the image of Christ; the priest is at the side. It is Christ's fierce and merciful gaze that the penitent must face, not another mortal sinner, however well the priest lives the Gospel. The priest's role during the confession is to listen, to facilitate, to be the human responsible for providing accountability, to counsel...all of these things are essential, but the penitent's only hope (and terrifying fear) is that they are confessing their sins to the living God. As the priest reads at the beginning of confession: "My brother, inasmuch as you have come to God and to me, be not ashamed, for you speak NOT TO ME, BUT TO GOD, before whom you stand." And then after the penitent has made his confession, the priest says these tender words (which quote from John 20:23):

My spiritual child, who has confessed to my humble self, I, humble and a sinner, have not power on earth to forgive sins, but God alone; yet through that divinely spoken word which came to the Apostles after the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ saying `Whosesoever sins ye remit, they are remitted, and whosesoever sins ye retain, they are retained,' we too are emboldened to say Whatsoever thou has said to my most humble self and whatsoever thou has not succeeded in saying, either through ignorance, or through forgetfulness, whatever it may be; God forgive you in this present world, and in that which is to come.

All of this care and ceremony preserves the sanctity inherent in the holy act of repenting, returning to God. The priest is bound not to tell anyone what is confessed to him -- after all, God himself heard it and forgave.

• um, my real name is Ryan


• they're now selling .name 2TLDs, and I haven't checked, but I think my reservation of a *.platte.name domain may prevent purchase of the 2TLD (platte.name itself)! argh!