24's Post-Modern Confessional

2 weeks since my last post. The lapse testifies to the sort of craziness brewing in my life. Dead-lines, and people to meet.

Last week was the season finale of 24, which is normally one of my favorite shows, but found this years season to be rather dull.

There was an interesting scene in the finale, which I believe is a good reflection of the state of religion in the west. Jack Bauer is laying in a hospital bed dying. He is told that he has a visitor. The visitor turns out to be a Muslim cleric, who had helped Jack find some bad guys in a previous episode.

The cleric is quite nice and sensitive. Bauer becomes emotional and the scene transforms into a bed-side confessional. Bauer talks about all the bad he has done. Finally, the scene concludes with the cleric saying theses words, Let us both forgive ourselves for all the wrongs we have done,

Brilliant! Here we have a non-believer (as far as we can tell, there has never been any allusions to Bauer having any kind of religious faith), "confessing" to a Muslim cleric. And the cleric implores that THEY each forgive themselves. 

In this post-modern confessional, human beings forgive themselves, in order to die in peace. I though this was a fascinating commentary on the state of belief in America today. The classic forgiveness of sins recited by a priest is now replaced with an anthropocentric general confession, that apparently we can all do ourselves.

I'm really not sure what it means to "forgive ourselves". This speaks as if there is some sort of bifurcation in the human person, where one part can do wrong, and another part has the power to forgive. Maybe there is some truth to that. I guess forgiving oneself really means being at peace with oneself, after examining our erroneous behavior, words or thoughts. But, I don't  believe we can have peace within ourselves if we do not have peace with others, and ultimately peace with God.

I hope that when I find myself near the end of my life, I will have someone beside me who can assure me that I am forgiven, and that I have also made peace with others that I have had conflict with. i sense that will give me much more peace, than simply forgiving myself.





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