I am posting a series of blogs on my favourite Program activity, Inventories. I love them and never tire of them. The benefits are clear and well worth the effort involved. And the more I do, the easier it gets.
Part 1: Spiritual Maintenance
Part 2: Moral versus Personal
Part 3: Writing the Name
Part 4: Special Names
Part 5: Just the facts, ma’am
Part 6: How were you affected?
Part 7: What was my role?
Part 8: The Confessional Conversation
The inventory is now complete. While it is still fresh in my mind, I book time with my spiritual coach, Father Kevin. We have been working together for almost 30 years. When we meet, we have our annual ‘confessional conversation.’ The Step #5 process has evolved to become a confession and a conversation
It is a confession, which releases the energy that arises from acknowledging the pattern of defects. Those of us who have experienced this in Step #5 know the release of pressure that comes with a confession.
But there is more. We also have a conversation. In the back and forth discussion about the patterns revealed in the inventory process, we try different ideas and words on for size. We look for the phrase that best fits the defect, the words that describe the underlying defect of character.
The words that we tease out in the conversation will be the focus of my prayers and meditations for the next year. These are the words for the “exact nature of the wrongs” that God can remove.
Let me share a live example of what I mean. For many years the patterns in my annual inventories revealed an obsession with how I looked. I had to look good all the time. Every year this preoccupation with appearance was the first, second, or third top defect identified.
The first year that this obsessive pattern emerged in my inventory, merely confessing this weakness of character helped. That decompressed the issue.
The second year, the same issue came up. At first, I used the word pride to describe the pattern. But in our conversation, we realized that merely describing this as pride, did not seem right. In the back and forth, we determined that it was “an obsessive preoccupation with self” that was the accurate description of the defect. And with God, I worked on that defect during the next year.
But in the second year, the same obsessive pattern was revealed in my inventory. In our conversation, I recall that at first, we thought it was still “self-centred behaviour, focusing on myself and my image.” But as we talked, we realized that was not quite hitting the mark. We tried different words and finally landed on, “I was dependent on others, not my Higher Power.” I was suffering from misplaced dependencies.
Lack of faith. That was the exact nature of the problem and, as it turns out, the solution.
Each year it took the back and forth of a conversation to drill down to the “exact nature of the defect” that required fixing.
For my story, the end game of the inventory process is the confessional conversation which identifies, and names the exact nature of the defect of character to be removed.
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From Frank Amos and his report to John Rockefeller in 1938
Forgiveness: A Spiritual Virtue and Practical Tool
